The more important negative

This is the correction that matters more than the fund itself: the Solar Rights Act was not amended by any enrolled bill in 2025 or 2026.

So whatever protection a New Mexico owner has against a covenant restricting a rooftop array is the pre-existing protection, not a new one. The operative provision remains Section 3-18-32 NMSA 1978, which voids a covenant that “effectively prohibits” a solar collector — and the word “effectively” is still doing all the work.

The Legislature was offered a definition and declined it

Twice.

SB 98 (2025) would have made a covenant void if it “increases the cost to the consumer, after the application of any credits and incentives, of purchasing and installing a solar collector by more than ten percent or a total of one thousand five hundred dollars ($1,500) or reduces the efficiency of the operation of a solar collector by more than ten percent.” It was reported Do Pass from Senate Conservation on February 12, 2025 and died in Senate Judiciary.

SB 157 (2026) would have voided covenants prohibiting plug-in “portable solar generation devices” — the balcony and patio panels that are the only rooftop-solar alternative for condominium and townhome owners. It was never ruled germane in the 30-day session and died at adjournment.

What actually governs a solar dispute in New Mexico

Two authorities, both old.

Section 3-18-32. A covenant effective after July 1, 1978 that effectively prohibits a solar collector is void and unenforceable, and “The prevailing party shall be awarded reasonable attorney fees in any action to enforce compliance with this section.”

Attorney General Opinion 11-02 (2011), which reads the statute to permit an association to regulate the installation or use of solar collectors so long as the regulation does not effectively prohibit them — construing that phrase to reach rules that “add cost or difficulty to the installation or use of solar collectors to a degree that would deter a reasonable consumer.”

That is the entire body of New Mexico administrative guidance on associations. There is no other AG opinion on any HOA question.

One municipal lever that does exist

Albuquerque's zoning code contains a provision worth knowing: the City “may not approve any subdivision application for property on which there are any deed restrictions, covenants, or binding agreements prohibiting solar collectors from being installed on buildings or erected on the project site.”

That does not void the covenant. It makes the land unsubdividable while the covenant exists — which for an Albuquerque association contemplating any re-plat is a more practical constraint than the statute.

What this means for a board

If the association is looking for money for common-area solar, this fund is not it. If a member is asking about rooftop panels, the answer turns on whether the association's conditions would deter a reasonable consumer — a test with no number attached, applied by a court, with attorney fees to the winner on both sides.