New Mexico bill to let the Attorney General sue HOAs for owners died in committee
New Mexico bill to let the Attorney General sue HOAs for owners died in committee
2026-09-15 · New Mexico · Legislation · Did not pass
New Mexico gives a homeowner with a complaint against an association board essentially one route: hire a lawyer and sue. A 2025 bill would have added a second — a free complaint to the state Department of Justice, with discretionary Attorney General litigation behind it. Senate Bill 239 cleared its first committee and then died without a recorded vote against it.1
The subsection that would have been added
SB 239, from then-Senate President Pro Tempore Mimi Stewart, rewrote Section 47-16-18 NMSA 1978 and added a new Subsection F:
“F. A lot owner who has a complaint against another lot owner or against the board may file a complaint with the state department of justice. The attorney general may commence a civil action on behalf of the lot owner to enforce bylaws or rules of the association or covenants, conditions and restrictions applicable to the development.”
Everything else in Section 47-16-18 was left alone — the notice-and-hearing requirements before a fine or suspension, the fourteen-day notice, and the rule that a board majority must approve a proposed fine.
Two features of the drafting are worth noting. The complaint route runs in both directions: an owner could complain about another lot owner, not only about the board. And the Attorney General's power is permissive — “may commence” — so it would have created a discretionary public enforcement channel, not an entitlement to state representation.
How far it got
The bill went to Senate Tax, Business & Transportation on January 31, 2025, dual-referred to Senate Judiciary. STBTC reported it Do Pass on February 28, 2025. Senate Judiciary never heard it, and it was marked “Action Postponed Indefinitely” at adjournment on March 22, 2025.
What this would have changed, and what it would not
New Mexico has no HOA regulator. There is no state office that takes homeowner complaints about associations, no registration requirement for associations, no ombudsman, and no administrative adjudication. Colorado, Florida, Nevada and Virginia each have some version of one. SB 239 is the closest New Mexico has come, and it is notably thinner than any of those: it created no agency, no register, no rules and no funding line — only a complaint destination and a discretionary power to sue.
It also would not have changed the substantive law. The Attorney General's action would have been to enforce “bylaws or rules of the association or covenants, conditions and restrictions” — the association's own documents. It would have supplied a new plaintiff, not a new standard.
The route that remains
With SB 239 dead, Section 47-16-18 continues to operate as it did. Its enforcement machinery is private: the Act's notice-and-hearing protections before a fine or suspension, whatever alternative dispute resolution the declaration requires, and a civil action brought by the owner. The practical consequence is a cost asymmetry that every New Mexico owner in a dispute meets immediately — the association litigates from assessment revenue collected from all owners, including the one it is suing, while the owner litigates from their own pocket.
That asymmetry is the argument SB 239 was built on, and the reason it is likely to be made again.
What to watch next
No 2027 sponsor has been announced for an AG-remedy bill, and nothing is prefiled; prefiling opens January 4, 2027. Note also that no 2026 interim legislative committee has an HOA, condominium or covenant item on its work plan, so there is currently no committee process through which an endorsed version could emerge before the session.
One structural point for anyone tracking this. Section 47-16-18 was amended in 2026 — by Section 4 of SB 96, a child care zoning bill, which added a protection for child care homes. The section is not untouchable; it is simply not amended by bills that announce themselves as HOA bills.
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