What a Landlord Cannot Do in New Mexico
The main limits New Mexico law puts on landlords — lockouts and utility shutoffs, entering without notice, retaliation, deposits, fees and discrimination — each with the statute or official source.
In short: a New Mexico landlord cannot evict without a court order, cannot punish a tenant for asserting legal rights where state law protects them, and must follow the state's rules on entry, deposits and fees shown below.
| Lockouts & utility shutoffs | Without a court order, an owner may not exclude or remove a resident by fraud, changing/plugging locks, blocking entrances, interfering with utilities or services, removing belongings, disabling appliances, or making the unit inaccessible/uninhabitable. Resident may abate 100% of rent for each affected day, recover a civil penalty of 2x monthly rent, recover possession or terminate, and get damages. The owner need not pay utility bills the resident failed to pay. No landlord's lien on tenant property (§ 47-8-36.1). |
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| Landlord entry notice | 24 hours' written notice stating the purpose and date and a reasonable time frame, unless otherwise agreed. No notice needed for repairs/services within 7 days of the resident's request, when accompanied by a public inspector or utility/cable representative, or in an emergency. Owner must try to accommodate a resident's reasonable alternate time. Unlawful or harassing entry: injunction, termination, and damages. Source: NMSA 1978, § 47-8-24 |
| Landlord retaliation | An owner may not raise rent, reduce services, or bring/threaten an eviction because, within the previous 6 months, the compliant resident complained to a code-enforcement agency, joined/organized a residents' association, exercised UORRA rights (including written repair requests), made a fair housing complaint, won or has pending a lawsuit against the owner about the residency, testified for another resident, or lawfully abated rent. Retaliation is a defense to eviction; owner is liable for 2x monthly rent plus attorney's fees. Uniform increases applied to all similar units at the end of a term are allowed (§ 47-8-39(C)). |
| Security deposit limit | No cap for leases of one year or more (but if the deposit exceeds one month's rent on an annual lease, the owner must pay annual interest). For rental agreements shorter than one year: max one month's rent. Statute permits a 'reasonable deposit'. Last month's prepaid rent is not counted as a deposit (§ 47-8-18(B)). NMOneSource pages are rendered by JavaScript; section text was read in a browser on the official Compilation Commission site. Source: NMSA 1978, § 47-8-18(A) |
| Penalty for withholding | Missing the 30-day statement: owner forfeits the right to withhold any part of the deposit, to counterclaim in a suit to recover it, and to sue separately for property damage, and owes the resident's court costs and reasonable attorney's fees. Bad-faith retention: additional $250 civil penalty payable to the resident. See Garcia v. Thong, 1995-NMSC-030 (annotation on the official page). Source: NMSA 1978, § 47-8-18(D)-(E) |
| Late fees | Only if the rental agreement provides for one; max 5% of the rent for each rental period in default, calculated on rent only (not deposits, fees, or utilities). Owner must give notice of the late fee no later than the last day of the next rental period. Amended by Laws 2025, ch. 122, § 6, effective June 20, 2025 (previously 10%), per the official annotation. Courts have denied late fees where the owner failed to give the required notice (Hedicke v. Gunville, 2003-NMCA-032). Source: NMSA 1978, § 47-8-15(D) |
| Rent control / increase limits | Statewide preemption: no political subdivision or home-rule municipality may enact rent control on privately owned real property. Exception for privately owned property receiving government benefits/funding under contract to provide reduced rents to low- or moderate-income tenants. Enacted Laws 1991, ch. 23. Source: NMSA 1978, § 47-8A-1 |
| Statewide ban on refusing Section 8 / source of income | No statewide protection. 2025 HB 339, which would have added 'source of income' as a protected category for housing under the Human Rights Act, died. A similar 2024 bill (HB 25) was reported as failing in committee. |
| Cameras & privacy | No landlord-specific camera statute. Voyeurism — intentionally viewing, photographing, videotaping, filming, webcasting, or recording another person's intimate areas without knowledge and consent in a bedroom, bathroom, or other place with a reasonable expectation of privacy — is a misdemeanor (fourth-degree felony if the victim is under 18). Owner entry generally requires 24 hours' written notice of the purpose, date, and estimated time. 'Instrumentality' expressly includes camcorders, digital and phone cameras, and electronic devices of any type. Source: NMSA 1978, §§ 30-9-20, 47-8-24 |
| Other rental fees | Every published rental listing must disclose in plain language all costs of the rental agreement: the base rent plus an itemized, readily identifiable description of every fee or charge that will be assessed during the residency. An owner is not liable for a third-party website's failure to show the costs the owner provided. Lease fees may be raised only with written notice at least 60 days before the periodic rental date or before the end of a fixed term (one rental period for residencies shorter than a month). Under the Unfair Practices Act, it is an unfair or deceptive trade practice to charge an applicant any fee other than a screening fee or deposit, or one not published in the listing, or to charge fees not included in the rental agreement. Late fees are capped at 5% of rent per rental period in default. |
Can I sue my landlord in New Mexico? · All New Mexico tenant rights
General legal information, not legal advice. Laws change and local rules can differ; check the linked official source or talk to a lawyer about your situation.