Landlord Atlas

What does New Mexico law require a landlord to repair?

Verified August 30, 2026 All New Mexico topics →

New Mexico's standard is a safe condition rather than fit and habitable: the owner must substantially comply with the applicable minimum housing codes materially affecting health and safety, put and keep the premises in a safe condition, keep common areas safe, maintain the electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating and air conditioning facilities and appliances in good and safe working order, handle waste receptacles and removal, and supply running water, a reasonable amount of hot water at all times, and reasonable heat.

Cited to NMSA 1978, Sec. 47-8-20 (obligations of owner) (A)-(E) and 14 more cited sources · Verified August 30, 2026

Where a minimum housing code applies, that code sets the owner's maximum duty under the section — a ceiling, not a floor, which is the reverse of most states. The tenant's remedy is a rent abatement taken without going to court: after written notice of the conditions needing repair and seven days without a remedy, the resident may abate one-third of the pro-rata daily rent for every day from the notice date until the conditions are fixed, or one hundred percent per day where the dwelling is uninhabitable and the resident has moved out because of it. The resident may instead terminate on a seven-day written notice, though a reasonable attempt to remedy defeats termination. New Mexico has no repair-and-deduct right and no essential-services remedy, and it requires no rent to be paid into court. Rights and remedies cannot be waived by either side, and retaliation for a repair complaint made within the previous six months — including a written complaint made to the landlord — is barred, with liability of two times the monthly rent plus prevailing-party fees.

New Mexico habitability & repairs at a glance

Where the duty comes from Statute — no independent court-created warranty operates alongside it
Duty source details The duty is statutory: the Uniform Owner-Resident Relations Act, and within it NMSA 1978 section 47-8-20, which lists the owner's obligations. New Mexico's courts closed the common-law route before the Act existed — in Barham v. Baca (1969) the Supreme Court stated the rule that there is no implied warranty by the landlord that the leased premises are safe or fit for occupancy — and in T.W.I.W., Inc. v. Rhudy (1981) the same court restated that holding as there being no implied warranty of habitability in New Mexico, then routed the tenant's heat complaint into section 47-8-20 because the Legislature's Act encompasses the issues. No New Mexico decision in the 57 years since Barham has recognized a court-made warranty of habitability in a lease. The Act is treated as remedial and in derogation of the common law, and is to be liberally construed.
Who is covered Statewide — no coverage split
Where the repair standards live More than one source does real work — the details on this page say which
What must be kept in repair Section 47-8-20(A) lists six duties: substantially comply with the requirements of the applicable minimum housing codes materially affecting health and safety; make repairs and do whatever is necessary to put and keep the premises in a safe condition; keep common areas in a safe condition; maintain in good and safe working order and condition the electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, air conditioning and other facilities and appliances, including elevators, supplied or required to be supplied by the owner; provide and maintain receptacles for ashes, garbage, rubbish and other waste and arrange for removal; and supply running water, a reasonable amount of hot water at all times, and reasonable heat. Two things about that list are unusual. The standard is a safe condition, not fit and habitable — the phrase fit and habitable appears nowhere in the Act. And subsection (B) makes a local code the ceiling rather than the floor: if a minimum housing code applies to the premises, the owner's maximum duty under the section is set by the code-compliance paragraph. The Supreme Court read the two together to mean that where a code applies, code compliance governs, and the other five duties remain as minimum standards where there is no applicable code. The same subsection also says the obligations are not intended to change existing tort law, so the negligence track Barham v. Baca decided survives alongside the statute. Section 47-8-20 was last amended in 1999 and the 2025 amendments to the Act did not touch it.
Heat standard type A duty to supply heat or maintain temperatures while the unit is occupied
Heat standard details The owner must supply running water, a reasonable amount of hot water at all times, and reasonable heat. New Mexico states no temperature, no hours, and no season — reasonable is the whole standard. Two exceptions are written into the paragraph: it does not apply where the building is not required by law to be equipped for that purpose, or where the unit is built so that heat or hot water is generated by an installation within the resident's exclusive control and supplied by a direct public utility connection. The Supreme Court put the burden of proving an exception on the owner, holding that the Legislature intended to require owners to provide reasonable heat unless they could show some specific law exempting them. Two limits travel with it: where a minimum housing code applies to the premises, the code sets the duty instead; and in a single-family residence the parties may agree in writing, for consideration and in good faith, that the resident performs this duty, while in multi-unit housing they may not.
Headline repair day count 7 days
Notice and repair-window rules Seven days is the owner's period to act, and it starts from written notice — which is mandatory for both tracks and is the precondition tenants most often miss. On the abatement track, the resident gives the owner written notice of the conditions needing repair, and if the owner does not remedy them within seven days of the notice the right to abate rent attaches. On the termination track, the resident's written notice must specify the acts and omissions constituting the breach and state that the rental agreement will terminate on a date not less than seven days after receipt if a reasonable attempt to remedy is not made within seven days. That wording is softer than it looks: an owner who makes a reasonable attempt to adequately remedy the breach before the stated date defeats the termination, even if the problem is not actually fixed. Where the last day to remedy falls on a weekend or a federal holiday, the Act extends the period to the next day that is neither. Neither track is available if the condition was caused by the deliberate or negligent act or omission of the resident, a member of the resident's family, or another person on the premises with the resident's consent. And the two tracks cannot be combined: a resident who proceeds by terminating may not also abate for the same violation in the same rental period, and the reverse, though either may be used for the same problem in a later rental period.
Repair and deduct No — no statute or decision authorizes it — New Mexico gives a tenant no right to have a repair done and charge the cost against rent. No provision of the Act creates one — the Act's only provision for taking money out of a tenant's funds is the security-deposit section — and no New Mexico decision creates one either. The state substituted the per-day rent abatement of section 47-8-27.2 for the repair-and-deduct pattern that most states in its family use. Nothing forbids a resident from paying for a repair; there is simply no statutory right to recoup it from rent, so a resident who deducts is short on rent and exposed to a nonpayment action, while a resident who abates by the statutory formula after written notice and seven days is not.
Rent withholding or escrow Yes — at least one lawful path exists — How: withholding on the tenant's own action, no court filing first — New Mexico's remedy is a rent abatement the resident takes without going to court, and it is the only formula of its kind in this area. After written notice of the conditions needing repair, if the owner does not remedy them within seven days, the resident may abate one-third of the pro-rata daily rent for each day from the date the resident gave notice through the day the conditions are remedied — and if they continue unremedied into a later rental period the same rate keeps running. The rate rises to one hundred percent of the rent for each day where the dwelling is uninhabitable and the resident does not live in it as a result; both halves are required, so a resident who stays in the unit does not get the higher rate. Note where the clock starts: abatement runs from the notice date, not from the eighth day. The seven days are a condition that makes the right vest, not a period taken out of the calculation, so a condition fixed on day twenty abates twenty days, not thirteen. The remedy does not reach the unavailability of an amenity. There is no escrow and no deposit into court at any point: New Mexico has no rent-into-court requirement, and the resident may also counterclaim in a nonpayment action for anything recoverable under the agreement or the Act, subject to the statute's proviso that the resident remains responsible for the rent specified in the rental agreement during the period of possession — lawful abatement reduces what that rent is. A court also keeps its own power to apply equitable abatement, which the Act preserves expressly. Written notice is not optional: New Mexico's Court of Appeals has denied abatement to a resident who gave no written notice of the needed repairs before the owner's nonpayment notice arrived, and has denied the hundred-percent rate where the premises were not in fact uninhabitable.
Termination over habitability failures Yes — a statute states the right — Where the owner fails to perform the section 47-8-20 obligations and there is either a material noncompliance with the rental agreement or a noncompliance with the Act materially affecting health and safety, the resident may terminate by written notice specifying the acts and omissions and stating that the agreement terminates on a date not less than seven days after receipt if a reasonable attempt to remedy is not made in seven days. A reasonable attempt by the owner before that date stops the termination. When the agreement is terminated and possession restored, the owner must return the balance of any prepaid rent and of the deposit the resident is entitled to. Fire and casualty run on a separate and faster track: where damage substantially impairs enjoyment of the unit, the resident may vacate and notify the owner in writing within seven days afterwards of the intention to terminate, in which case the agreement ends as of the date of vacating, or — if continued occupancy is lawful — may vacate only the unusable part, with liability for rent reduced in proportion to the diminution in the fair rental value of the unit. The resident remains responsible for damage caused by his own negligence.
Essential-service remedies No distinct treatment beyond the general duty — New Mexico has no essential-services menu. The section that once carried the resident's general remedies for an owner's breach was repealed effective July 1, 1995 and nothing replaced it, so there is no right to procure a substitute service and deduct it, no substitute-housing allowance, and no accelerated clock for heat, water, hot water, or electricity. A failure to supply running water, hot water, or reasonable heat is an ordinary breach of the owner's obligations, handled on the same written-notice-plus-seven-days abatement track as anything else, at one-third of the pro-rata daily rent per day — the hundred-percent rate applies only where the unit is uninhabitable and the resident has moved out. An owner who knowingly shuts services off, rather than failing to keep them working, is in different territory, covered with the lockout and utility-shutoff rules.
Retaliation protection Protected by a general retaliation statute — The statute counts six months: an owner may not raise the rent, decrease services, or bring or threaten to bring an action for possession because the resident did one of the protected things within the previous six months. It is a lookback that fixes which tenant acts are protected, not a presumption — nothing shifts to the owner because the owner acted inside it. Older sources still show three months, which was the window until 1999. — The section states a prohibition, and the violation is both a defense in any action for possession against the resident and a route to the Act's remedies — two times the amount of the monthly rent, with prevailing-party attorney fees and court costs available to whichever side wins. Since June 2025 that money is private liability rather than a civil penalty; copy describing it as a civil penalty is describing the earlier text. Two limits are easy to miss. The protection reaches only a resident who is in compliance with the rental agreement and not otherwise in violation of any provision of the Act, so a resident who is behind on rent generally loses it. And a separate section lets an owner bring a possession action anyway in five situations: where the code violation was caused primarily by the resident's own lack of reasonable care, where the resident is in default in rent, where there is a material noncompliance with the agreement that would otherwise support termination, where the resident knowingly commits or consents to a substantial violation, and where complying with the code requires alteration, remodeling or demolition that would effectively deprive the resident of the unit. Bringing such an action does not release the owner from liability for the habitability obligations. There is also a safe harbor: the owner may raise rent or change services at the end of the term or as the agreement provides if the change is consistent with what is imposed on residents of similar units, is not directed at the particular resident, and is uniform. — Seven acts are listed: complaining to a government agency responsible for enforcing a minimum building or housing code about a violation applicable to the premises materially affecting health and safety; organizing or joining a residents' union, association or similar organization; acting in good faith to exercise rights under the Act, which the statute says expressly includes making a written request or complaint to the owner to make repairs; making a fair housing complaint to an agency enforcing anti-discrimination laws in rental housing; prevailing in a lawsuit as plaintiff or defendant, or having a lawsuit pending against the owner about the residency; testifying on behalf of another resident; and abating rent under the Act's termination or abatement sections. The third and the seventh matter most here: New Mexico protects the complaint made to the landlord, in writing, not only the complaint made to a code agency, and it protects the act of abating rent itself — though that protection is only as good as the abatement, which fails if there was no right to abate. A court has held that complaining about something the Act does not regulate, such as noisy neighbors, is not exercising a right the Act provides.
Damages, penalties, and defenses Beyond termination and abatement, a resident may recover damages and obtain injunctive relief for any material noncompliance with the rental agreement or with the owner's statutory obligations, and that remedy is in addition to the notice-and-terminate track. Attorney fees and court costs go to the prevailing party in any suit to enforce the agreement or the Act — both directions, and since 2025 the provision reaches applicants as well as parties to a rental agreement. A resident harmed by a lease provision the owner deliberately used knowing it was prohibited recovers damages plus fees. In a nonpayment action the resident may counterclaim for anything recoverable, and bad faith cuts both ways: fees and costs go to the owner where the resident's defense or counterclaim is meritless and not raised in good faith, and to the resident where the owner's action or reply is. The owner's defenses: the condition was caused by the deliberate or negligent act or omission of the resident, the resident's family, or someone on the premises with the resident's consent; the noncompliance results solely from circumstances beyond the owner's control, which leaves the resident with termination or abatement but no damages and no injunction; the complaint concerns an amenity, which the abatement section excludes; the resident gave no written notice; the unit was not in fact uninhabitable, where the hundred-percent rate is claimed; and, on retaliation, that the resident was in default or otherwise in violation of the Act, or that the change was uniform across similar units. The Act also states that the obligations it imposes are not intended to change existing tort law, so a negligence claim for injury from a defective condition is a separate track.
Can the duty be waived or shifted Repairs may be delegated only within uniform-act-style limits
Waiver and delegation rules Waiver is barred outright, and unusually the bar runs both ways: no rental agreement may provide that the resident or owner agrees to waive or to forego rights or remedies under the law. That sentence is the whole of section 47-8-16 and it has not been amended since 1975. A resident who suffers from a lease provision the owner deliberately used knowing it was prohibited may recover the damages resulting from applying it, plus attorney fees. What the Act does allow is delegation of the work, on conditions. For a single-family residence the parties may agree that the resident performs the waste-removal and water, hot-water and heat duties and specified repairs, maintenance, alterations and remodeling, but only in writing, for consideration, entered into in good faith and not to evade the owner's obligations. For any other dwelling unit only specified repairs, maintenance, alterations or remodeling may be delegated, in a separate writing signed by both parties, supported by consideration, in good faith, and only if the agreement does not diminish what the owner owes the other residents — the service duties themselves are not delegable in multi-unit housing. And a backstop overrides both: any such arrangement does not diminish the owner's obligations, and a resident's failure to perform work the owner delegated cannot be a basis for eviction or be treated as a material breach by the resident. New Mexico lets an owner delegate the work and never the liability.
Leading court decisions Barham v. Baca, 80 N.M. 502, 458 P.2d 228 (1969) — Stated the rule that even though there is no implied warranty by the landlord that the leased premises are safe or fit for occupancy, the landlord is liable for injuries resulting to the tenant from latent defects known to the landlord and concealed from the tenant. The tenant, injured when plaster fell from a bedroom ceiling, won: the judgment against the landlord was affirmed on a negligent-repair theory. This is the decision New Mexico's no-implied-warranty rule rests on, and it is also the reason the state's answer to defective conditions was tort rather than warranty before the Act. • T.W.I.W., Inc. v. Rhudy, 96 N.M. 354, 630 P.2d 753 (1981) — Restated Barham v. Baca as holding that there is no implied warranty of habitability in New Mexico, and held that the Uniform Owner-Resident Relations Act encompasses the issues instead, with the owner's obligations section governing a tenant's complaint about a lack of heat. On the heat duty itself the Court held that the Legislature intended to require owners to provide reasonable heat unless they could show some specific law exempting them, placing that burden on the owner. It also read the code-ceiling subsection to mean that where a housing or building code applies, the code-compliance paragraph governs, while the other enumerated duties are the minimum standards where no code applies. Its statement of how much rent may be abated applied a section repealed in 1995 and has been replaced by the statutory formula.
Local rules Local codes do not merely add to New Mexico's state duty — where they apply they can replace part of it. If a minimum housing code applies to the premises, section 47-8-20(B) makes substantial compliance with that code the owner's maximum duty under the section, and the Supreme Court read the statute's other enumerated duties as the minimum standards where no code applies. So the municipal or county code where the property sits is the first place to look, and in a place without one the statutory list is the operative standard. One question New Mexico law leaves open: whether the statewide construction code counts as an applicable minimum housing code for this purpose. The Supreme Court raised it, noted that the Act's definition of codes includes building codes, and expressly declined to decide, so no answer to it can be given here.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, New Mexico Habitability & Repair Laws (verified August 30, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/habitability/new-mexico/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

City habitability pages in New Mexico

Notes and caveats

Common questions: New Mexico habitability & repairs

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

Does New Mexico have an implied warranty of habitability?
Statute — no independent court-created warranty operates alongside it. The duty is statutory: the Uniform Owner-Resident Relations Act, and within it NMSA 1978 section 47-8-20, which lists the owner's obligations. New Mexico's courts closed the common-law route before the Act existed — in Barham v. Baca (1969) the Supreme Court stated the rule that there is no implied warranty by the landlord that the leased premises are safe or fit for occupancy — and in T.W.I.W., Inc. v. Rhudy (1981) the same court restated that holding as there being no implied warranty of habitability in New Mexico, then routed the tenant's heat complaint into section 47-8-20 because the Legislature's Act encompasses the issues.
How long does a landlord have to make repairs in New Mexico?
7 days. Seven days is the owner's period to act, and it starts from written notice — which is mandatory for both tracks and is the precondition tenants most often miss. On the abatement track, the resident gives the owner written notice of the conditions needing repair, and if the owner does not remedy them within seven days of the notice the right to abate rent attaches.
Can a tenant repair and deduct in New Mexico?
No — no statute or decision authorizes it — New Mexico gives a tenant no right to have a repair done and charge the cost against rent. No provision of the Act creates one — the Act's only provision for taking money out of a tenant's funds is the security-deposit section — and no New Mexico decision creates one either.
Can a tenant withhold rent for repair problems in New Mexico?
Yes — at least one lawful path exists — How: withholding on the tenant's own action, no court filing first — New Mexico's remedy is a rent abatement the resident takes without going to court, and it is the only formula of its kind in this area. After written notice of the conditions needing repair, if the owner does not remedy them within seven days, the resident may abate one-third of the pro-rata daily rent for each day from the date the resident gave notice through the day the conditions are remedied — and if they continue unremedied into a later rental period the same rate keeps running.
Can a landlord retaliate against a tenant who complains about repairs in New Mexico?
Protected by a general retaliation statute — The statute counts six months: an owner may not raise the rent, decrease services, or bring or threaten to bring an action for possession because the resident did one of the protected things within the previous six months. It is a lookback that fixes which tenant acts are protected, not a presumption — nothing shifts to the owner because the owner acted inside it.
Can a lease make the tenant responsible for repairs in New Mexico?
Repairs may be delegated only within uniform-act-style limits. Waiver is barred outright, and unusually the bar runs both ways: no rental agreement may provide that the resident or owner agrees to waive or to forego rights or remedies under the law. That sentence is the whole of section 47-8-16 and it has not been amended since 1975.

Citations

How this record was verified: The New Mexico Compilation Commission's official annotated compilation of NMSA 1978 chapter 47, the publisher of record for the statutes: every section of article 8 relied on here read in full with its statutory-history line, amendment notes and case annotations, including sections 47-8-4, 47-8-5, 47-8-9, 47-8-14, 47-8-16, 47-8-17, 47-8-20, 47-8-27, 47-8-27.1, 47-8-27.2, 47-8-29, 47-8-30, 47-8-31, 47-8-36, 47-8-39, 47-8-40 and 47-8-48. The same Commission's historical compilation, chapter 47 in the 1996 supplement, read for section 47-8-27.2 as originally enacted in 1995. On the New Mexico Legislature's own server, the enacted House Judiciary Committee substitute for 1999 House Bill 48 and the 2025 measure that became Laws 2025, chapter 122, together with the Legislature's complete bill record for the 2026 regular session — all 812 measures, with every one of the 70 enactments listed by title — and for the 2025 regular and both 2025 special sessions. And the official reporter texts of Barham v. Baca and T.W.I.W., Inc. v. Rhudy, both read in full.