New Mexico bill would have put a dollar figure on solar covenant limits — it died
New Mexico bill would have put a dollar figure on solar covenant limits — it died
2026-09-15 · New Mexico · Legislation · Did not pass
New Mexico already voids a covenant that “effectively prohibits” a solar collector. What it does not do is say what that phrase means in dollars — and a 2025 bill that would have said so died in Senate Judiciary.1
The numbers SB 98 would have written into the statute
Senate Bill 98, from Sens. Elizabeth “Liz” Stefanics and Joy Garratt, amended Section 3-18-32 NMSA 1978 to define the vague term by example:
“B. A covenant, [restriction or] condition or restriction contained in a deed, contract, security agreement or other instrument… that effectively prohibits the installation or use of a solar collector is void and unenforceable, including a covenant, condition or restriction that 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.”
Two design choices matter. The cost test is measured after credits and incentives, so an association could not argue that a federal or utility incentive absorbed the cost of its conditions. And the efficiency test is separate from the cost test, which reaches the condition that costs little but moves panels to a worse roof plane.
The bill also kept the existing fee-shifting provision: “The prevailing party shall be awarded reasonable attorney fees in any action to enforce compliance with this section.”
How far it got
SB 98 went to Senate Conservation on January 23, 2025, dual-referred to Senate Judiciary. SCONC reported it Do Pass on February 12, 2025. Senate Judiciary never heard it. API at sine die, March 22, 2025.
Why the missing number matters
The fight this bill addresses is not about outright bans. Those are already void. It is about conditions: a screening wall, a rack in a tile-matched colour, a requirement that panels be invisible from the street, a restriction to the rear roof plane, a demand for a stamped engineering drawing, a review process that runs a season.
Under the current statute each of those is tested against the word “effectively.” That is a question of degree with no anchor, which means it is answered case by case, by a court, after the owner has already paid to get there — and the answer does not bind the next association.
SB 98 would have converted that into arithmetic that both sides could do before the dispute. An architectural committee could price its own conditions and know whether it had crossed the line; an owner could do the same.
The attorney-fee provision cuts both ways
Because Section 3-18-32 already awards fees to the prevailing party, the current uncertainty is expensive in both directions. An association that imposes conditions worth arguing about is exposed to the owner's fees if it loses. An owner who challenges a condition that a court finds reasonable pays the association's. Neither side can price that risk while “effectively” has no content.
The companion bill, and a gap it would have filled
A second solar-covenant bill died in 2026. Senate Bill 157, from Sens. Harold Pope and Jeff Steinborn, was mostly a utility-interconnection bill for plug-in “portable solar generation devices,” but its last operative subsection was aimed at covenants: “Pursuant to the provisions of Section 3-18-32 NMSA 1978, a covenant, restriction or condition… that effectively prohibits the installation or use, of a portable solar generation device is void and unenforceable.” It was never ruled germane in the 30-day session and died on February 19, 2026.
That leaves an unresolved question for New Mexico condominium and townhouse owners who cannot touch a roof: whether a plug-in panel on a patio railing is a “solar collector” protected by Section 3-18-32 at all. The Solar Rights Act supplies the definition, and neither bill that would have settled the point survived.
What to watch next
No 2027 solar-covenant bill has been announced or prefiled. For now, an architectural committee's conditions on a solar installation are tested against a word rather than a number, and the only forum that can apply that test is a court.
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