What can a landlord do with a tenant’s belongings left behind in New Mexico?

In New Mexico, a landlord must store property left after a tenant abandons the unit for at least thirty days and serve written notice of the intent to dispose of it on a date at least thirty days after the notice, but must store it only fourteen days after a voluntary surrender and has no duty to store it more than three days after a writ of restitution is executed. After abandonment, the notice must give a telephone number and address where the tenant can reasonably contact the landlord to retrieve the property, and is personally delivered or sent by first class mail to the tenant’s last known address; if it is returned undeliverable or the last known address is the vacated unit, at least one notice must also go to another address the tenant provided, such as a workplace, a family member or an emergency contact. The landlord must give reasonable access and adequate opportunities to retrieve the property before any disposal. After a writ of restitution, the landlord may dispose of the property in any manner without further notice or liability once the three days have passed, unless the parties agree otherwise. Property with a market value of less than $100 may be disposed of in any manner. Property worth more than $100 may be sold, with any proceeds above what the tenant owes mailed to the tenant’s last known address within fifteen days with an itemized statement, or kept by the landlord, who must credit its fair market value against what the tenant owes and mail any excess within fifteen days. The landlord may charge reasonable storage fees and the prevailing rate for moving, and may require payment before releasing the property, but may not hold it for other debts or for judgments without a previously filed application for a writ of execution. This is N.M. Stat. Ann. § 47-8-34.1.

WhatNew Mexico
Belongings left behindAfter abandonment: store 30 days, 30 days’ notice
What the statute requires firstNotice, a waiting period or storage before disposal

What the statute says

“… the owner shall serve the resident with written notice stating the owner’s intent to dispose of the personal property on a date not less than thirty days from the date of the notice …”

Quoted word for word from the section’s text.

Source

N.M. Stat. Ann. § 47-8-34.1

Read the statute in the New Mexico Statutes (New Mexico Compilation Commission): nmonesource.com.

The linked sections open Justia’s free copy of the code, because the state’s own site has no stable address for each section.

Checked against the statute on November 15, 2026.

This is a summary of a published statute, not legal advice. Rules change, local ordinances can add to them, and the terms of a specific lease may differ. Check the citation and speak to a lawyer before acting.

How Seayora uses this rule

Seayora keeps a lease’s end date and every notice sent through it, with the date it went out, in the lease record — so the dates a rule like this one counts from are on file rather than remembered.

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