New Mexico HOA ADUs & Modifications

Key Findings

New Mexico writes its community-association rules with disclosure in mind, and that choice shapes almost everything about how modifications get handled: the recorded declaration does the heavy lifting. Here is what stands out, point by point.

• Statute identity. New Mexico pairs a disclosure-focused Homeowner Association Act (N.M.S.A. §§ 47-16-1 et seq.) with a Condominium Act built on the Uniform Condominium Act (§§ 47-7A-1 through 47-7D-20, for condominiums created after May 19, 1982) and a legacy Building Unit Ownership Act (§ 47-7-1 et seq.). It is neither a no-statute state nor a UCIOA state.^1,2
• Architectural authority is contractual. The declaration hands the association its review power, and New Mexico courts read restrictive covenants narrowly, in favor of an owner's free use of the property.³
• Solar is the strongest member protection, and it is not in the HOA Act. It comes from § 3-18-32(B), a land-use statute, as the New Mexico Attorney General reads it.^4,5
• Flags have a statutory floor. Section 47-16-16 bars an association from imposing flag restrictions any tighter than federal, state, or local law allows.⁶
• No regulator, no manager license. Enforcement runs through statutory penalties and the courts, not an agency.¹
• Recent activity is thin, and it centers on condominiums. Senate Bill 72 (2025) authorized remote meetings and electronic voting for condominium and nonprofit associations; no recent bill touched architectural review, solar, or ADUs.⁷

Details

Section 1: Overview — ADUs and modifications in New Mexico

In New Mexico, the recorded covenants — the declaration — govern architectural review, because the Homeowner Association Act is a disclosure-and-baseline-governance statute rather than a grant of comprehensive architectural authority; a separate solar statute voids any covenant that effectively prohibits a solar collector; and accessory dwelling units (ADUs) stay a municipal-zoning question, with no association-level state preemption.¹ Think of New Mexico as a disclosure-first state. The Homeowner Association Act (N.M.S.A. §§ 47-16-1 et seq.) sets the rules on records, meetings, budgets, resale disclosure, flags, and covenant enforcement. The Condominium Act (§§ 47-7A-1 through 47-7D-20), which tracks the 1980 Uniform Condominium Act, governs condominiums created after May 19, 1982. And the older Building Unit Ownership Act (§ 47-7-1 et seq.) governs the legacy condominiums.² New Mexico is neither a no-statute state nor a UCIOA state. On solar, N.M.S.A. § 3-18-32(B) voids any covenant, effective after July 1, 1978, that effectively prohibits a solar collector — which places New Mexico among the strongest solar states.⁴ ADU permissibility turns on municipal zoning plus the declaration, and the Legislature has repeatedly declined to write statewide ADU rules that reach association documents.⁸ Four federal overlays bind every New Mexico association no matter what state law says: the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act (the U.S. flag), the FCC OTARD Rule (antennas and satellite dishes), the Fair Housing Act (resident-paid reasonable modifications for disability), and ADA Title III (common-area facilities that operate as public accommodations).^9,10,11 The sections that follow lay out the framework, the compliance duties it creates, and the recent legislative and judicial activity.

Section 2: The legal framework

2A. The Homeowner Association Act and the condominium statutes

The New Mexico Homeowner Association Act (N.M.S.A. §§ 47-16-1 et seq.), enacted in 2013 and amended in 2015 and 2019, is a disclosure-and-baseline-governance statute.¹² It requires an association to open its financial and other records for examination within ten business days of a written request (§ 47-16-5); it sets board fiduciary duties and budget-disclosure obligations (§ 47-16-7); it mandates resale disclosure certificates and gives a purchaser the right to cancel (§§ 47-16-11 to 47-16-13); it addresses meetings (§ 47-16-17); and it governs covenant enforcement and dispute resolution (§ 47-16-18).^13,1 The Act does not mandate reserve studies or reserve funding, and it does not create a statutory architectural-review regime. Architectural authority flows from the declaration, not the statute. That is the central point for modifications in New Mexico: the power to review an addition, an exterior change, a fence, or a paint color — and to approve or deny it — comes from the recorded covenants and any design guidelines the declaration authorizes, not from the Homeowner Association Act.

Condominiums follow a separate track that turns on the date of creation. The New Mexico Condominium Act (§§ 47-7A-1 through 47-7D-20), the state's version of the 1980 Uniform Condominium Act, applies to condominiums created after May 19, 1982.¹⁴ The older Building Unit Ownership Act (§ 47-7-1 et seq.) applies to condominiums created before that date, unless the unit owners resolve to bring the condominium under the Condominium Act (§ 47-7A-2).¹⁵ So the first analytical step is always to classify the community: a planned community under the Homeowner Association Act and its declaration, a post-1982 condominium under the Condominium Act, or a pre-1982 condominium under the Building Unit Ownership Act.

A typical declaration creates an architectural review committee or reserves approval to the board, sets submission requirements, and lists standards — setbacks, materials, height, color. When a New Mexico court reviews a covenant-based architectural decision, it applies the state's settled rules of covenant construction: it resolves restrictive covenants in favor of the free use and enjoyment of property, reads them reasonably but narrowly, refuses to expand them by implication, and gives them their ordinary meaning.³ An association that wants to restrict a modification must point to clear covenant language; ambiguity cuts against the restriction.

2B. Solar and other categories

Solar is the strongest member protection in the New Mexico framework, and it does not come from the Homeowner Association Act. N.M.S.A. § 3-18-32, enacted in 2007, provides in Subsection A that a county or municipality may not restrict the installation of a solar collector except in historic districts, and in Subsection B that a covenant, restriction, or condition in a deed, contract, security agreement, or other instrument — effective after July 1, 1978 — that effectively prohibits the installation or use of a solar collector is void and unenforceable.⁴ The Solar Rights Act (§§ 47-3-1 to 47-3-5) declares the right to use solar energy a property right to be encouraged, and the Solar Recordation Act (§§ 47-3-6 to 47-3-12) lets an owner claim a solar right and record a solar easement.¹⁶ The distinction that matters is between a void prohibition and a permissible reasonable restriction. A covenant or association rule that effectively bans solar is void; an association may still impose reasonable, non-prohibitive rules on placement or manner, so long as they do not make installation prohibitively difficult or costly. The New Mexico Attorney General took exactly that position in New Mexico Attorney General Opinion No. 11-02 (February 2011), issued by then-Attorney General Gary King, which reads § 3-18-32(B) to let a homeowners' association regulate the installation or use of solar panels so long as the rules do not "effectively prohibit" them — and which explains that "effectively prohibits" reaches not only rules that make installation impossible but also rules that "add cost or difficulty to the installation or use of solar collectors to a degree that would deter a reasonable consumer."⁵ That places New Mexico among the states that permit only reasonable restrictions on association solar installations — though, as a February 2024 multi-state survey by the Kansas Legislative Research Department points out, New Mexico's reasonable-restriction standard rests on an Attorney General opinion rather than the kind of express statutory language you find in California.¹⁷

Flags are the one modification category the Homeowner Association Act addresses head-on. Section 47-16-16 provides that an association shall not adopt or enforce a restriction on the flying or displaying of flags that is more restrictive than applicable federal or state law or a county or municipal ordinance.⁶ This page treats flags at the framework level. The other modification categories have no New Mexico HOA-specific statute. No New Mexico statute limits an association's regulation of electric vehicle charging stations, and none limits association restrictions on water-conserving or xeriscape landscaping.¹⁸ Each is governed by the declaration, subject to the federal overlays. The practical effect: a solar prohibition is void by statute, flags enjoy a statutory floor, and everything else turns on the declaration.

2C. ADUs and federal overlays

New Mexico has no statute that overrides association documents on accessory dwelling units. ADU permissibility is a two-layer question: municipal or county zoning decides whether the locality allows an ADU on the lot, and the declaration decides whether the community allows one.¹⁹ The Legislature has repeatedly declined to change that. Bills that would have allowed ADUs on single-family lots and voided association restrictions on them — House Bill 425 in 2023, House Bill 554 in 2025, and House Bill 17 in 2026 — all failed to pass. The Community Associations Institute opposed House Bill 554 precisely because it "explicitly stated that association restrictions may not be the basis of denial for a construction permit," and the bill died in the Senate.^8,20 So New Mexico does not sit in the same category as HOA-preemption states such as California, whose Civil Code § 4751 voids covenants that unreasonably restrict ADUs, or Colorado, whose House Bill 24-1152 limits association ADU bans. In New Mexico, an association acting under its declaration may restrict or prohibit ADUs within the community, and municipal zoning binds only the locality.

Four federal overlays apply to every New Mexico association, whatever the state framework says. The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 protects an owner's display of the United States flag, subject to reasonable time, place, and manner rules.⁹ The FCC OTARD Rule (47 C.F.R. § 1.4000) protects antennas and satellite dishes of a covered size within an owner's exclusive use or control.¹⁰ The Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)) requires an association to permit reasonable modifications to a dwelling or common area for a resident with a disability, at the resident's expense.¹¹ And ADA Title III can reach association common-area facilities that qualify as public accommodations.²¹ None of these is a New Mexico statute; they bind associations as federal law.

Section 3: Compliance obligations created by the framework

A. Architectural review process obligations

• Review authority and standards come from the declaration — and, for condominiums, from the applicable condominium statute. The Homeowner Association Act does not create architectural authority. This holds for both planned communities and condominiums, under the community's governing documents.¹
• Records tied to review must be produced within ten business days of a written request, under state statute, N.M.S.A. § 47-16-5. That reaches planned communities under the Homeowner Association Act.¹³
• Meeting and notice practices for board or committee action follow state statute (§ 47-16-17 for planned communities; §§ 47-7C-8 and 47-7C-9 for condominiums) and the declaration. This applies to both.⁷
• Written decisions and recordkeeping: issue written approvals or denials tied to specific covenant language, both to satisfy the declaration's procedures and because New Mexico courts construe ambiguous covenants against the restriction. This applies to both.³

B. Modifications the association must permit

• Solar collectors: a covenant effective after July 1, 1978 that effectively prohibits a solar collector is void under state statute, N.M.S.A. § 3-18-32(B). A void prohibition is not the same as a permissible reasonable restriction; non-prohibitive placement rules remain enforceable. This holds in both planned communities and condominiums.⁴
• United States flag: protected by a federal overlay, the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, and separately by state statute, § 47-16-16. Both.^9,6
• Antennas and satellite dishes: protected by the federal OTARD Rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000. Both.¹⁰
• Reasonable disability modifications: required by the federal Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3), at the resident's expense. Both.¹¹
• Common-area public accommodations: the federal ADA Title III, where applicable. Both.²¹

C. ADU obligations and limits on HOA authority

• No state statute requires an association to permit an ADU against its declaration. Municipal or county zoning binds the locality; the declaration governs within the community. Both.¹⁹

D. Enforcement, dispute resolution, and appeal obligations

• Before levying a fine or suspension, the board must give written notice and an opportunity to dispute, and provide a hearing or written-statement opportunity with fourteen days' notice, under state statute, § 47-16-18. Planned communities.²²
• The Homeowner Association Act permits, but does not require, non-litigation dispute resolution such as mediation and arbitration (§ 47-16-18(E)); the declaration may require a particular step. Planned communities, plus the declaration.²²
• Denying record access creates a rebuttable presumption of willful noncompliance and exposes the association to the greater of actual damages or fifty dollars per calendar day, under state statute, § 47-16-5. Planned communities.¹³
• New Mexico has no state HOA or condominium regulator, no ombudsman, and no community-association-manager license; enforcement runs through statutory penalties and the courts. Disputes proceed in the New Mexico District Courts, with appeals to the New Mexico Court of Appeals and discretionary review by the New Mexico Supreme Court.¹

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

The most consequential recent enactment for community associations is Senate Bill 72 (2025), which authorized electronic meeting notice, remote participation, and electronic voting — and a remote quorum — for condominium and nonprofit associations. The 2019 amendments to the Homeowner Association Act remain the baseline for planned communities; they added the record-access penalty in § 47-16-5 and the board-certification and conflict-disclosure duties in § 47-16-7.^13,12 No bill enacted in the past 24 to 36 months amended the Homeowner Association Act's treatment of architectural review, solar, or ADUs.

B. Recent appellate rulings

No published New Mexico Court of Appeals or New Mexico Supreme Court opinion in the past 36 months squarely addresses architectural control, the Homeowner Association Act, or the solar statute. The controlling appellate authority on covenant interpretation remains Eldorado Community Improvement Association, Inc. v. Billings. Boards and managers should treat it as the governing framework for any covenant-based modification dispute, even though it predates the current reporting window.

C. Active legislative debates

Statewide ADU and zoning-preemption bills remain live in Santa Fe. House Bill 17 in the 2026 session would have required local governments to allow ADUs and more multifamily housing near transit, and companion zoning-reform proposals — a bill to eliminate minimum lot sizes, for one — were introduced, but the ADU measures did not pass.^8,25 Because prior versions failed in 2023 and 2025, expect further ADU and housing-supply proposals reaching association documents in future sessions.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

New Mexico is a disclosure-first state. Its Homeowner Association Act governs records, meetings, budgets, resale disclosure, flags, and covenant enforcement without mandating reserves or a statutory architectural-review regime — which sets it apart from both no-statute states and the more prescriptive UCIOA states — and its condominium law is built on the 1980 Uniform Condominium Act.^1,14 On ADUs, New Mexico is not an HOA-preemption state: unlike California (Civil Code § 4751) and Colorado (House Bill 24-1152), it has no statute voiding association ADU restrictions, so the question comes down to municipal zoning plus the declaration.¹⁹ Its solar regime, by contrast, ranks among the strongest, because § 3-18-32(B) voids any covenant that effectively prohibits a solar collector.⁴ For a multi-state operator, the working rule in New Mexico is straightforward: the declaration governs most modifications, an anti-solar covenant is void, and ADUs remain a zoning-and-declaration question.

HOA Weekly's New Mexico ADUs and Modifications coverage updates quarterly as the Legislature and the New Mexico courts act. The federal frameworks that apply to New Mexico associations regardless of the state framework — the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act, the FCC OTARD Rule, the Fair Housing Act, and ADA Title III — receive a fuller treatment in HOA Weekly's federal coverage.

Recommendations

• Start every modification analysis by classifying the community. Decide whether it is a planned community (Homeowner Association Act plus declaration), a post-May-19-1982 condominium (Condominium Act, §§ 47-7A-1 to 47-7D-20), or a pre-1982 condominium (Building Unit Ownership Act). That classification dictates which statutory meeting, quorum, and governance rules ride on top of the declaration.
• Ground architectural denials in clear covenant text. Because New Mexico courts resolve covenant ambiguity in favor of the owner (Eldorado v. Billings), issue written decisions that quote the specific covenant you rely on. If the community wants a broader or clearer restriction, amend the declaration through its amendment process rather than lean on expansive interpretation.
• Never deny solar outright. Treat any covenant that effectively prohibits a solar collector as void under § 3-18-32(B). Limit solar rules to reasonable, non-prohibitive placement or manner conditions that do not add cost or difficulty enough to deter a reasonable consumer, consistent with AG Opinion 11-02.
• Handle ADUs as a two-layer question. Confirm the municipal or county zoning position and the declaration's terms separately. An association may restrict or prohibit ADUs under its declaration today; no New Mexico statute forces approval. Watch the HB 17-style bills, because a preemption provision would change this analysis.
• Do not treat the federal overlays as optional, or as state law. Permit the U.S. flag, OTARD antennas, and resident-paid FHA disability modifications regardless of covenant language, and weigh ADA Title III exposure for any common-area facility open to the public.
• Watch the benchmarks that would change these recommendations: passage of a statewide ADU or zoning-preemption statute that voids association restrictions (as in California or Colorado); a new appellate decision narrowing or expanding the Eldorado free-use rule; or an amendment that codifies a solar reasonable-restriction standard in statute rather than by AG opinion.

Caveats

• Beware inaccurate secondary sources on New Mexico ADUs. Some commercial websites describe an enacted "House Bill 425" statewide ADU law with a 1,000-square-foot cap and five-foot setbacks. That describes a bill that never became law; HB 425 (2023), HB 554 (2025), and HB 17 (2026) all failed. New Mexico has no statewide ADU statute overriding local zoning or association documents.
• The solar reasonable-restriction standard rests on an Attorney General opinion, not a statute. AG Opinion 11-02 is persuasive authority interpreting § 3-18-32(B); it does not bind the way a statute or an appellate decision would, and a court could analyze a specific restriction differently.
• Some secondary sources wrongly describe the HOA Act as covering landscaping or xeriscape. No such provision exists. Section 47-16-7 concerns board duties and budgets, and there is no § 47-16-7.1. The Act's only category-specific member protection is the flags provision at § 47-16-16.
• Confirm statutory citations against the primary compilation. The section text here was verified against official and reputable codifications; before any enforcement action, confirm the current text at nmonesource.com or nmlegis.gov, because annual updates occur.
• No recent on-point appellate case exists. The governing authority (Eldorado v. Billings) dates to 2016 and involved a pet/poultry covenant, not architectural review or solar; its value here is the interpretive rule, not identical facts.

1. RunHOA, "New Mexico State Laws" (overview of the Homeowner Association Act as a disclosure-first statute; no CAM license; no HOA/condo ombudsman; enforcement through notices and courts) ↩
2. N.M.S.A. § 47-7A-1, Condominium Act short title (Compiler's note: Laws 1982, ch. 27 enacted New Mexico's version of the 1980 Uniform Condominium Act) ↩
3. Finance New Mexico, "Court Ruling Shows Covenants Will Be Interpreted Narrowly" (four New Mexico rules of covenant construction: free enjoyment of property; reasonable but narrow interpretation; no expansion by implication; ordinary meaning) ↩
4. N.M.S.A. § 3-18-32, Limitation of county and municipal restrictions on solar collectors (Subsection B void-and-unenforceable text; Laws 2007, ch. 232) ↩
5. Go Solar Group, "HOAs and Solar in New Mexico" (quoting New Mexico AG Opinion No. 11-02 (Feb. 2011), Gary King: "effectively prohibits" reaches regulations that "add cost or difficulty ... to a degree that would deter a reasonable consumer") ↩
6. N.M.S.A. § 47-16-16, Flags ("An association shall not adopt or enforce a restriction related to the flying or displaying of flags that is more restrictive than the applicable federal or state law or county or municipal ordinance"; Laws 2015, ch. 104) ↩
7. New Mexico Senate Bill 72 (2025), enrolled text (amending N.M.S.A. §§ 47-7C-8, 47-7C-9, and 53-8-15 to permit remote meetings, electronic voting, and remote quorums) ↩
8. Emily Hamilton and Kol Peterson, "A Taxonomy of State Accessory Dwelling Unit Laws 2025," Mercatus Center (August 2025) (New Mexico listed among states considering, not enacting, statewide ADU laws) ↩
9. Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, Pub. L. 109-243 ↩
10. FCC, Over-the-Air Reception Devices (OTARD) Rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000 ↩
11. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Fair Housing Act reasonable modifications (42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)) ↩
12. N.M.S.A. § 47-16-7, Board members and officers; duties; budget (annotation: 2019 amendment, effective July 1, 2019, added board written-certification and management-company conflict-of-interest disclosure requirements) ↩
13. N.M.S.A. § 47-16-5, Record disclosure to members (ten-business-day production; rebuttable presumption of willful noncompliance; greater of actual damages or $50 per calendar day) ↩
14. Homeowners Protection Bureau, "New Mexico HOA Laws, Regulations & Resources" (Condominium Act §§ 47-7A-1 through 47-7D-20 applies to condominiums created after May 19, 1982; Building Ownership Act applies before that date) ↩
15. N.M.S.A. § 47-7A-2, Applicability (Building Unit Ownership Act condominiums may elect the Condominium Act by majority resolution recorded in county records) ↩
16. Homeowners Protection Bureau, "New Mexico HOA Laws" (Solar Rights Act §§ 47-3-1 to 47-3-5 declares solar a property right to be encouraged; Solar Recordation Act §§ 47-3-6 to 47-3-12 permits solar rights and easements) ↩
17. Kansas Legislative Research Department, multi-state survey of HOA solar restrictions (Feb. 2024) (New Mexico permits "reasonable restrictions," based on an Attorney General opinion rather than statute) ↩
18. U.S. Department of Energy, Alternative Fuels Data Center, New Mexico Laws and Incentives (comprehensive list of New Mexico EV statutes; none address HOA regulation of charging stations) ↩
19. Tenant Rights USA, "Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Rules in New Mexico" ("New Mexico does not have a single statewide ADU code that overrides local zoning; most ADU rules come from city and county planning and building departments") ↩
20. Community Associations Institute, "2025 CAI New Mexico Legislative Session Report" (HB 554 "Residential Home Building Authorization" would have allowed ADU construction on all single-family lots and stated association restrictions may not be a basis for denial; Status: DIED in Senate) ↩
21. U.S. Department of Justice, Americans with Disabilities Act Title III (public accommodations) ↩
22. N.M.S.A. § 47-16-18, Enforcement of covenants; dispute resolution (written notice and fourteen-day hearing before fine or suspension; Subsection E permits non-litigation dispute resolution; Laws 2019, ch. 30, § 10) ↩
23. LegiScan, New Mexico SB 72 (2025) ("Signed by Governor - Chapter 62 - Apr. 7") ↩
24. Eldorado Community Improvement Association, Inc. v. Billings, 2016-NMCA-057, 374 P.3d 737 (N.M. Ct. App. 2016), New Mexico Court of Appeals opinion (ambiguous covenants construed in favor of free use of property; applying Hill v. Community of Damien of Molokai) ↩
25. LegiScan, New Mexico HB 17 (2026), "Accessory Dwelling Units In Certain Areas" (introduced Jan. 26, 2026; did not pass the 2026 session) ↩