New Mexico HOA Records Inspection
Overview — How records inspection works in New Mexico
New Mexico runs its records-inspection rules on two separate tracks, and the track an association lands on decides almost everything. Condominiums answer to the New Mexico Condominium Act (N.M. Stat. § 47-7A-1 et seq.). Planned communities answer to the New Mexico Homeowner Association Act (N.M. Stat. § 47-16-1 et seq.). People often describe that 2013 Act as a pure disclosure law, but that description no longer holds: its records provision now sets a hard statutory clock. For condominiums, § 47-7C-18 ("Association records") says only that the records "shall be made reasonably available for examination by any unit owner and his authorized agents."1 For planned communities, § 47-16-5 ("Record disclosure to members") goes further and tells an association to make its financial and other records available during regular business hours within ten business days of a written request.2 The Homeowner Association Act is narrower than a full Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (UCIOA) statute — it does not mandate reserves and does not impose UCIOA-style governance — yet its records section does more than a bare reasonableness standard would: it fixes a deadline, caps copy fees, and attaches a penalty.2 Where a planned-community association incorporates as a nonprofit, the New Mexico Nonprofit Corporation Act (§ 53-8-27) adds a separate inspection right for "any proper purpose at any reasonable time," a corporate backstop that reaches records beyond the statutory list.3 Step back, and New Mexico's planned-community regime lines up with the hard-clock states. Its ten-business-day rule tracks Florida's HOA statute, Fla. Stat. § 720.303(5)(a), and California's Davis-Stirling Act, Cal. Civ. Code § 5210(b)(1), while New Mexico's condominiums stay on a reasonableness standard. The table and the sections below set out each mechanic by community type.
Quick-Reference: New Mexico HOA Records Inspection
| Field | Requirement |
|---|---|
| Governing provision(s) | Condos: Condominium Act, § 47-7C-18.1 Planned communities: Homeowner Association Act, § 47-16-5.2 Corporate backstop for nonprofit associations: Nonprofit Corporation Act, § 53-8-27.3 |
| Community types covered | Both, under separate statutes. The Condominium Act governs condominiums; the Homeowner Association Act applies to planned communities and expressly "does not apply to a condominium governed by the Condominium Act."4 The condominium records provision (§ 47-7C-18) reaches both post-1982 condominiums and pre-1982 ("old") condominiums.5 |
| Who may inspect | Condos: any unit owner and authorized agents.1 Planned communities: a lot owner.2 Nonprofit backstop: any member, or the member's agent or attorney.3 |
| Proper-purpose requirement | Condos (§ 47-7C-18): none; records "reasonably available."1 Planned communities (§ 47-16-5): none stated.2 Nonprofit backstop (§ 53-8-27): yes — inspection is for "any proper purpose."3 |
| Form of request | Condos: not specified by statute (reasonable-availability standard).1 Planned communities: written request required.2 Nonprofit backstop: not specified by statute.3 |
| Response or production deadline | Condos: reasonableness standard, no fixed statutory deadline.1 Planned communities: ten business days of a written request.2 Nonprofit backstop: "at any reasonable time" (no fixed deadline).3 |
| Inspection method and location | Planned communities: during regular business hours.2 Condos: reasonably available for examination (statute fixes no location).1 Nonprofit backstop: at any reasonable time.3 |
| Copying and labor fees | Planned communities: no fee to make records available for review; copies capped at ten cents ($.10) per page.2 Condos: not specified by statute.1 Nonprofit backstop: not specified by statute.3 |
| Records expressly subject to inspection | Planned communities: twelve enumerated categories, including the declaration, bylaws, member names and addresses, five years of meeting minutes, the operating budget, assessments, financial statements and bank records, the most recent audit or review, current contracts, insurance policies, and electronic records of board action.2 Condos: "financial and other records" of the association.1 Nonprofit backstop: all books and records, including books of account and minutes.3 |
| Records exempt or withholdable | Planned communities: executive-session minutes fall outside the disclosable minutes category; no general exemption schedule is otherwise specified.2 Condos and nonprofit backstop: not specified by statute.1 |
| Membership or owner list | Planned communities: the names and addresses of all association members are an enumerated record subject to inspection, with no commercial-use restriction or opt-out specified by statute.2 Nonprofit backstop: the corporation must keep a record of the names and addresses of members entitled to vote, inspectable for a proper purpose.3 |
| Records-retention requirement | Planned communities: meeting minutes and committee-action records for the previous five years; board-member written certifications retained for five years.2,6 Condos and nonprofit backstop: not specified by statute (records must be "sufficiently detailed" / "correct and complete").1 |
| Electronic records | Planned communities: "any electronic record of action taken by the board" is an enumerated inspectable record.2 Condos and nonprofit backstop: format not addressed for inspection; SB 72 (2025) added electronic-notice and electronic-voting authority to both statutes.7 |
| Remedies for noncompliance | Planned communities: failure to provide access within ten business days creates a rebuttable presumption of willful noncompliance, and a denied lot owner may recover the greater of actual damages or fifty dollars ($50.00) per calendar day beginning on the eleventh business day; a court may also award attorney fees where the declaration or bylaws permit.2,8 Condos and nonprofit backstop: no records-specific statutory penalty; relief by civil action, including mandamus.1,9 |
| Enforcement forum and process | New Mexico District Court at the trial level, with appeal to the New Mexico Court of Appeals and discretionary review by the New Mexico Supreme Court. No dedicated HOA regulator and no agency records-complaint pathway.8 |
The records-inspection framework in detail
Records subject to inspection
New Mexico splits records access by community type. For condominiums, § 47-7C-18 of the Condominium Act tells the association to "keep financial records sufficiently detailed to enable the association to comply with" the Act's purchaser-protection accounting requirement, and provides that "all financial and other records shall be made reasonably available for examination by any unit owner and his authorized agents."1 The Condominium Act builds on the 1980 Uniform Condominium Act, and § 47-7C-18 is short and category-general; it does not enumerate document types or import the detailed records schedule that the 2008 UCIOA carries.1 The provision covers both condominiums created after the Act's May 19, 1982 effective date and pre-1982 ("old") condominiums, because the Act's applicability section extends § 47-7C-18 to old condominiums automatically, subject to any pre-existing declaration restriction on inspection.5
For planned communities, the records right is statutory and detailed. Section 47-16-5 defines "financial and other records" to include twelve categories: the declaration; the name, address, and telephone number of the association's designated agent; the bylaws; the names and addresses of all association members; minutes of all meetings of lot owners and the board for the previous five years (other than executive sessions), plus records of committee actions for the previous five years; the current operating budget; current regular and special assessments; financial statements and accounts (including bank account statements, transaction registers, association-provided service or utility records, and reserves); the most recent financial audit or review, if any; all current contracts; current insurance policies; and any electronic record of action taken by the board.2 Because the Homeowner Association Act "does not apply to a condominium governed by the Condominium Act," the two regimes do not overlap.4
Where a planned-community association incorporates as a nonprofit — the typical structure in New Mexico — § 53-8-27 of the Nonprofit Corporation Act supplies a parallel inspection right. The corporation must keep "correct and complete books and records of account" and minutes, and "all books and records of a corporation may be inspected by any member, or his agent or attorney, for any proper purpose at any reasonable time."3 Because the corporate right reaches "all books and records," it can extend to material outside the twelve statutory HOA categories, which makes it a potentially broader tool for an owner.
The request-and-response sequence
Standing differs by source. The Condominium Act grants examination rights to "any unit owner and his authorized agents," with no proper-purpose condition.1 The Homeowner Association Act grants access to "a lot owner," again without a proper-purpose condition.2 The Nonprofit Corporation Act extends inspection to "any member, or his agent or attorney," but conditions it on a "proper purpose."3
Form and timing differ too. The Condominium Act sets no fixed deadline and no required form of demand; its standard is that records be "reasonably available for examination," a reasonableness test rather than a day-count.1 The Homeowner Association Act, by contrast, requires a written request and obligates the association to make records "available during regular business hours for examination by a lot owner within ten business days of a written request."2 The Nonprofit Corporation Act allows inspection "at any reasonable time," without a fixed clock.3
On charges, the Homeowner Association Act is the most specific. An association "shall not charge a fee for making financial and other records available for review," and "may charge a fee of not more than ten cents ($.10) per page for copies."2 Neither the Condominium Act nor the Nonprofit Corporation Act caps copy fees, so for condominiums and for inspections under the corporate statute, charges turn on a reasonableness analysis and the governing documents.1 The planned-community mechanism is a fixed, low-cost, deadline-driven right; the condominium mechanism is an availability standard. An operator should not assume the condominium reasonableness standard governs a planned community, or the reverse.
Withholding, confidentiality, and the membership or owner list
The Homeowner Association Act carries one express carve-out from the inspection categories: minutes are inspectable "other than executive sessions," so minutes of properly closed sessions fall outside the disclosable category.2 The Act lets an association close a meeting, or a portion of one, only for legal advice from the association's attorney, pending or contemplated litigation, or personal, health, or financial information about an individual member, employee, or contractor — and that list marks the boundary of the executive-session exclusion.8 Beyond that, the Act sets out no general schedule of withholdable records, and neither the Condominium Act nor the Nonprofit Corporation Act enumerates exemptions; withholding therefore rests on the governing documents and general principles such as attorney-client privilege.1
The membership or owner list gets no special protection under the Homeowner Association Act. The "names and addresses of all association members" are an enumerated record subject to inspection, and the Act specifies no commercial-use restriction and no opt-out.2 The Nonprofit Corporation Act separately requires the corporation to keep "a record of the names and addresses of its members entitled to vote," inspectable by a member for a proper purpose — and that is the principal place the proper-purpose limitation operates for a planned-community owner.3 The proper-purpose framework for nonprofit inspection in New Mexico comes from the Supreme Court's decision in Schein v. Northern Rio Arriba Electric Cooperative, Inc., which held that members of non-stock, nonprofit corporations have the right to inspect books and records and applied a proper-purpose analysis to a member's demand.10
Remedies and enforcement for noncompliance
The Homeowner Association Act provides the only records-specific statutory remedy in New Mexico. Under § 47-16-5(D), an association's "failure to provide access to the financial and other records within ten business days after receipt of a written request creates a rebuttable presumption that the association willfully failed to comply," and a denied lot owner "is entitled to the greater of the actual damages incurred for the association's willful failure to comply ... or fifty dollars ($50.00) per calendar day, starting on the eleventh business day after the association's receipt of the written request."2 Separately, § 47-16-14 lets a court award attorney fees and costs to a prevailing party in a civil action between a lot owner and the association where the declaration or bylaws allow at least one party to recover fees.8
Neither the Condominium Act nor the Nonprofit Corporation Act sets a records-specific penalty. A condominium unit owner denied reasonable access enforces the right through a civil action; a nonprofit member typically files an action to compel inspection (mandamus), the posture in Schein v. Northern Rio Arriba Electric Cooperative, Inc., 1997-NMSC-011 (decided January 16, 1997), where the New Mexico Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's grant of Schein's mandamus action requiring the cooperative to allow her access to its legal billing records as a member, but reversed in part because the writ the court issued exceeded the permissible scope of mandamus.9,10 All such disputes proceed in the New Mexico District Courts at the trial level, with appeal to the New Mexico Court of Appeals and discretionary review by the New Mexico Supreme Court. New Mexico has no dedicated HOA regulator and no agency records-complaint pathway, so enforcement is judicial.8
Recent legislative and judicial activity
Recent bills
One enacted measure in the past 24 months touches the statutes that house records rights, and it leaves the records mechanics alone. Senate Bill 72 (2025), "Nonprofit Condo Assoc. Remote Business," adds remote-meeting authority without changing the records-inspection clock, the copy-fee cap, or the penalty.
SB 72 · ch. 62 · 2025 Regular Session
SB 72 amends the Condominium Act (including the meetings provision, § 47-7C-8) and the Nonprofit Corporation Act to authorize electronic notice of meetings and to permit virtual meetings and electronic voting for member and board meetings. It is the only enacted measure in the past 24 months touching the statutes that house records rights, but it does not change the records-inspection clock, the copy-fee cap, or the penalty in any of the three statutes; its records relevance is limited to electronic-format mechanics.7
| Property managers | Electronic notices, virtual meetings, and electronic voting are now expressly permitted for condominium associations; records-request handling, the ten-business-day HOA clock, and the $.10-per-page cap are unchanged. |
| HOA board members | Boards may conduct business remotely, but must still produce records on the existing statutory terms. |
| Community association attorneys | The bill adds governance flexibility without altering the records-inspection or penalty provisions; advise clients that inspection obligations are unaffected. |
| Homeowners | Owners gain remote-participation rights; the existing records-request rights and remedies remain in place. |
Recent rulings
No New Mexico appellate decision in the past 36 months — mid-2023 through mid-2026 — substantively interprets the records-inspection provisions of § 47-16-5, § 47-7C-18, or § 53-8-27 as applied to a homeowners or condominium association. A targeted review of New Mexico Court of Appeals opinions turned up association-related appeals on procedural dismissal and unrelated subject matter, but none construing the records-inspection clock, the penalty, or the corporate inspection right in a community-association context.11
The governing authority on member inspection of a nonprofit's records therefore remains the New Mexico Supreme Court's decision in Schein v. Northern Rio Arriba Electric Cooperative, Inc., 1997-NMSC-011, 122 N.M. 800, 932 P.2d 490.
Schein v. Northern Rio Arriba Electric Cooperative, Inc.
Schein held that members of non-stock, nonprofit corporations have a right to inspect the corporation's books and records, and it applied a "proper purpose" analysis to the member's demand — the framework that now informs § 53-8-27 inspection by association members.10
| Property managers | A nonprofit association member's inspection demand turns on a "proper purpose"; document the purpose stated and the records produced. |
| HOA board members | Boards may test whether a corporate-law demand states a proper purpose, but should not use the standard to defeat the separate, unconditioned HOA-Act records right. |
| Community association attorneys | Schein remains the leading New Mexico authority for proper-purpose analysis under the Nonprofit Corporation Act; cite it when a demand is made under § 53-8-27 rather than § 47-16-5. |
| Homeowners | A member seeking records under corporate law should articulate a purpose reasonably related to the member's interest. |
Active legislative debates
In the 2025 session, lawmakers introduced SB 239 (an additional lot-owner remedy amending the enforcement and dispute-resolution section, § 47-16-18) and HB 440 (restricting HOA lien foreclosures). Neither passed. No current proposal would add a fixed response deadline, a copy-fee cap, an electronic-records rule, or a penalty to the records-inspection provisions, which for planned communities already carry a deadline, a fee cap, and a penalty.12
National positioning and related coverage
New Mexico occupies a hybrid position. It pairs a 1980-UCA-based Condominium Act, whose records provision (§ 47-7C-18) uses a reasonable-availability standard, with a Homeowner Association Act whose records provision (§ 47-16-5) sets a fixed ten-business-day clock, a ten-cent-per-page copy cap, a five-year minutes-retention rule, and a per-day penalty. That places New Mexico's planned-community records regime closer to hard-clock states like Florida (Fla. Stat. § 720.303(5)(a), 10 business days) and California (Cal. Civ. Code § 5210(b)(1), 10 business days for current-fiscal-year records, with 30 calendar days for the prior two fiscal years under § 5210(b)(2)) than to a covenant-primary or pure-reasonableness state — even though the Homeowner Association Act is not a comprehensive UCIOA governance statute and does not mandate reserves. On two points New Mexico is in fact more owner-favorable: its $50-per-calendar-day penalty is uncapped, whereas Florida's analogous remedy under § 720.303(5) caps minimum statutory damages at $50 per day for up to 10 days, a $500 ceiling; and its flat ten-cents-per-page copy cap is simpler than California's actual-cost-plus-redaction model (Cal. Civ. Code § 5205, which caps redaction labor at $10 per hour). For nonprofit associations, the Nonprofit Corporation Act adds a proper-purpose corporate inspection right that can reach records beyond the twelve statutory categories. The practical lesson for multi-state operators: the Homeowner Association Act supplies real records mechanics — a deadline, a fee cap, a penalty — and should not be treated as a bare disclosure statute, while the corporate inspection right under § 53-8-27 remains an additional avenue for planned-community owners. Recent legislative activity, notably SB 72 in 2025, added electronic-meeting and electronic-voting authority but did not expand or rewrite the records-inspection provisions themselves.
HOA Weekly's New Mexico Records Inspection coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and the New Mexico courts act. Federal frameworks also reach New Mexico associations regardless of the state framework — the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the FCC OTARD rule all apply across their broader operations.
Footnotes
- N.M. Stat. § 47-7C-18 (Association records), New Mexico Condominium Act, NMOneSource (New Mexico Compilation Commission) ↩
- N.M. Stat. § 47-16-5 (Record disclosure to members), current text as enacted by Laws 2019, ch. 30 (SB 150), New Mexico Legislature ↩
- N.M. Stat. § 53-8-27 (Books and records), New Mexico Nonprofit Corporation Act, NMOneSource (New Mexico Compilation Commission) ↩
- N.M. Stat. § 47-16-15 (Applicability), Homeowner Association Act, as enacted by Laws 2019, ch. 30 (SB 150), New Mexico Legislature ↩
- N.M. Stat. § 47-7A-2 (Applicability), New Mexico Condominium Act, NMOneSource (New Mexico Compilation Commission) ↩
- N.M. Stat. § 47-16-7 (Board members and officers; duties; budget), retention of board-member certifications for five years, Laws 2019, ch. 30 (SB 150), New Mexico Legislature ↩
- Senate Bill 72 (2025), Nonprofit Condo Assoc. Remote Business, New Mexico Legislature bill page ↩
- N.M. Stat. §§ 47-16-14 (Attorney fees and costs) and 47-16-17 (Meetings of association; closed sessions), Homeowner Association Act, Laws 2019, ch. 30 (SB 150), New Mexico Legislature ↩
- New Mexico Condominium Act, N.M. Stat. § 47-7A-1 et seq. (general civil enforcement), NMOneSource (New Mexico Compilation Commission) ↩
- Schein v. Northern Rio Arriba Electric Cooperative, Inc., 1997-NMSC-011, 122 N.M. 800, 932 P.2d 490 (N.M. 1997) ↩
- New Mexico Court of Appeals, Formal and Memorandum Opinions (reviewed for records-inspection decisions, 2023–2026) ↩
- Senate Bill 239 (2025), Homeowner Assoc. Lot Owner Remedy, and House Bill 440 (2025), Homeowners Assoc. Liens, New Mexico Legislature ↩