The two agencies that did move

The Office of Superintendent of Insurance adopted a substantial amount of rule in the period — repealing and replacing its administrative procedures and insurance bulletins rules, and amending rules on public rule hearings, escrow services, general rate provisions, statistical reporting, surplus lines, redomestication and several health items. None of it is condominium-, association- or homeowners-specific.

The Construction Industries Division produced the one rulemaking in two years that genuinely lands on associations: the entire new Chapter 14.15 NMAC, New Mexico's first elevator safety code, effective September 2025, with commercial conveyance registration required by January 1, 2026.

And note what that chapter does not say. It does not mention homeowner associations either. It reaches them because they own buildings with lifts in them.

What that means in practice

New Mexico governs common-interest communities almost entirely through statute — the Homeowner Association Act at Chapter 47, Article 16 NMSA 1978, and the Condominium Act — and essentially not at all through agency rulemaking.

Four consequences follow, and each is the opposite of what an owner arriving from Florida, Nevada or Colorado expects.

There is no rule docket to watch. No agency proposes association rules, so there is nothing to track between legislative sessions.

There is no comment period to attend. The place where association law is made in New Mexico is a legislative committee, not a rule hearing — and in a 30-day session, whether a bill is even ruled germane is decided before anyone gets to argue its merits.

There is no regulator to complain to about governance. Not about a fine, a board election, a records refusal or an assessment. The remedy is a lawsuit brought by the owner.

Every regulator that reaches an association reaches it sideways. OSI reaches it as an insured. CID reaches it as a building owner. Taxation and Revenue reaches it as a taxpayer. The Secretary of State reaches it as a nonprofit corporation. None of them reaches it as an association.

Why the pattern holds

The Legislature has been asked to change this and has declined. SB 239 in 2025 would have let an owner file a complaint with the Department of Justice, with the Attorney General empowered to sue on that owner's behalf; it cleared one committee and died in Senate Judiciary. Nothing comparable was introduced in 2026, and no 2026 interim committee has an HOA, condominium or covenant item on its work plan.

Nor does the state license the managers. A full-text search of the Real Estate Commission's rulebook returns no reference to community associations, and none of the Regulation and Licensing Department's 28 boards licenses association managers.

What this means for a board

The absence of a regulator does not reduce an association's exposure. It changes the form the exposure arrives in. In a regulated state, a mistake produces a complaint, an investigation and a compliance letter. In New Mexico, it produces a lawsuit — and the first notice a board receives is from a lawyer, not an agency.

The documents that actually govern the association are therefore the declaration, the bylaws, the Homeowner Association Act and the Nonprofit Corporation Act. There is no fifth source, and no agency interpretation to lean on.