Recovering Belongings After a Lockout-Style Eviction

Attorney Answer

Everything turns on one fact: whether a court ever issued a writ of restitution against you. If it did not, what happened was an illegal self-help lockout and New Mexico law gives you a real remedy. If it did, the landlord only had to hold your property for three days — not thirty.

NMSA 1978, § 47-8-36(A) prohibits an owner, except where there has been abandonment or surrender, from knowingly excluding, removing, threatening to remove, or dispossessing a resident without a court order — including by blocking any entrance to the dwelling unit, removing the resident's personal property, or any willful act that renders the unit or the property in it inaccessible. Padlocks, boarded windows, and a threat of arrest for coming back describe that section closely. Section 47-8-36(C) gives the resident abatement of one hundred percent of the rent for each day possession was denied, restitution of the premises under §§ 47-8-41 and 47-8-42 or termination of the agreement, and damages.

The belongings are governed by NMSA 1978, § 47-8-34.1, and the periods differ sharply depending on how the tenancy ended. On abandonment, the owner must store the property thirty days and give written notice of intent to dispose at least thirty days out, § 47-8-34.1(A). On voluntary surrender, fourteen days, § 47-8-34.1(B). But where the tenancy ended by a writ of restitution, the owner has no storage obligation beyond three days after the writ is executed and may then dispose of the property without further notice, § 47-8-34.1(C). Property worth under $100 may be disposed of in any manner; property worth more must be sold or retained with an accounting within fifteen days, § 47-8-34.1(D)–(F).

So the "30 day notice" you were told about is real, but it applies to abandonment. It is not a universal rule, and if a writ was executed the three-day rule is what governed.

What you can do

1. Go to the court clerk in your county — magistrate, metropolitan, or district — and ask whether an eviction case was ever filed against you, whether a writ of restitution was issued, and whether it was executed. Get copies of everything in the file. 2. If there is no case, you were locked out without a court order and § 47-8-36 is your claim. 3. If a writ was executed, check the date it was executed and compare it to when your property was removed. 4. Make a written inventory of everything left behind, with your best value estimate for each item, and gather any photos, receipts, or insurance records. 5. Send the landlord a dated written demand for the return of your property and, for anything worth more than $100, the accounting § 47-8-34.1(F) requires. 6. Keep any police report, body camera reference, or written trespass warning from the day you were told you would be arrested. 7. Take the court file, the inventory, and the demand letter to New Mexico Legal Aid. A lockout with children involved is exactly the kind of case they take. 8. If you have a lawyer already and have not heard back, call and say a writ-of-restitution date may be running against your property claim.