# ESA Letter in Los Lunas, NM: Defined by What It Doesn't Do

> New Mexico defines an emotional support animal as one that does not work or perform tasks. In housing, that absence is the correct description, not a defect.

- Source: https://supportanimal.com/blog/new-mexico-emotional-support-animal/los-lunas/
- Publisher: Support Animal (supportanimal.com)
- Updated: 2026-09-05
- License note: informational content; not legal or medical advice.

## Key facts

- Population: 19,907
- Households renting: 24%
- Typical pet deposit (as a pet): Article 11 does not decide it
- Typical pet rent (as a pet): $30-$50/mo for pets
- Breed/weight limits common: yes
- Pet fees, deposits, and breed limits with a valid ESA letter: none (FHA reasonable accommodation)

## A village where three homes in four are owned

Los Lunas is a **village**, not a city: the local government is the Village
of Los Lunas, and the distinction is on its own letterhead. The 2024 Census
estimate puts it at 19,907 people, twelfth among New Mexico's twenty largest
places, in Valencia County.

Its tenure figures are the mirror of Gallup's. Of 6,906 occupied homes,
**1,657 are rented: 24.0 percent** on the 2020–2024 American Community
Survey five-year estimate, third-lowest of the twenty, against 30.0 percent
statewide. Median gross rent is **$1,110**, above the $1,067 New Mexico
median, which most of those twenty places are not.

That combination (few rentals, priced high), describes a place people move
to in order to buy, where the rental stock is smaller and the leasing office
has less reason to bend. It is a market where a tenant asking for an
exception wants the vocabulary exactly right.

New Mexico supplies the vocabulary. It defines an emotional support animal
by what the animal does not do.

## The definition, verbatim

**NMSA 1978, § 28-11-2(A)**:

> "**'emotional support animal', 'comfort animal' or 'therapy animal' means an animal selected
> to accompany an individual with a disability that does not work or perform tasks for the
> benefit of an individual with a disability and does not accompany at all times an individual
> with a disability**"

Read it slowly. Every operative clause is a negative. Does not work. Does
not perform tasks. Does not accompany at all times. New Mexico defined the
category by subtraction. It is what remains once the service-animal
functions are taken away.

The subsection immediately after it does the subtracting explicitly. **§ 28-11-2(B)** defines a
"qualified service animal" as a dog or miniature horse trained to assist a person with a
disability, and then adds:

> "but 'qualified service animal' **does not include a pet, an emotional support animal, a
> comfort animal or a therapy animal**"

Named, and shown the door. That is genuinely bad news for anyone hoping New
Mexico had quietly folded the two categories together. It is not, however,
bad news about housing, and the reason is written at the top of the same
section.

## Where the definition stops working

§ 28-11-2 opens with four words that fix its reach: **"As used in the Service Animal Act."**
And **§ 28-11-1.1** says what that Act is:

> "Chapter 28, **Article 11** NMSA 1978 may be cited as the 'Service Animal Act'."

So the definition and the exclusion govern Article 11: sections 28-11-1.1
through 28-11-6, which are about being admitted to buildings open to the
public, access to common carriers, and the misdemeanour for falsely
presenting an animal. They do not reach § 28-1-7, the Human Rights Act's
housing provision, and they do not reach the federal Fair Housing Act, which
is not New Mexico law at all.

A landlord's adviser who quotes § 28-11-2(B) at you has quoted an accurate
sentence from a statute about public access. The scope clause is the answer,
and it is four words long.

## Use the accurate word: the statute rewards it

Article 11 does carry a criminal provision, and it is narrower than the
rumour about it. **§ 28-11-6**:

> "A person shall not **knowingly present as a qualified service animal** any animal that does
> not meet a definition of 'qualified service animal' pursuant to Section 28-11-2 NMSA 1978."

The offence is calling the animal a service animal when it is not. Asking a
Los Lunas landlord for a housing accommodation for an animal you describe
accurately as an emotional support animal is not that conduct, and the
section says nothing about housing paperwork.

The practical instruction falls straight out of it: **never upgrade the description.** Write
"emotional support animal" in the request. It is the phrase the New Mexico code itself uses, it
keeps you clear of § 28-11-6, and it puts the request into the body of law where it belongs.

## The housing question is asked in different words

Here is why the absence in § 28-11-2(A) is not the weakness it looks like.

The federal accommodation duty, 24 C.F.R. § 100.204, implementing the Fair
Housing Act, makes it unlawful to refuse:

> "**reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services**, when such
> accommodations may be **necessary** to afford such person **equal opportunity to use and enjoy
> a dwelling**"

No training standard. No task list. No demand that the animal do anything at
all. The test is whether an exception to the rule is necessary for equal
enjoyment of the home, and an animal whose help is its presence can satisfy
that test exactly as written, without ever performing a task.

Article 11's definition asks what the animal does. The housing provision
asks what the person needs. They are different questions, and only the
second one is being decided in a leasing office.

## If you live in a mobile home park, one more section applies

New Mexico has a large mobile-home-park population, and a park changes its
rules under its own statute rather than under the general one. **§
47-10-15.1** sets out how, and subsection (B) is worth reading twice:

> "**Existing pets that are in compliance with the mobile home park rules or regulations shall
> be exempt from any provision of new rules or regulations that would prohibit those pets**
> provided those are not a nuisance violating the public peace, health or safety."

Subsection (A) adds procedure: management must give residents at least
**sixty days'** notice of proposed new or amended rules, must allow a
**thirty-day comment period**, and the new rules cannot take effect before
sixty days after the notification date.

So a park that decides to go pet-free cannot apply that decision to an
animal already living there in compliance with the old rules. That is a
statutory grandfather clause, it exists nowhere else in the New Mexico code,
and it is separate from, and in addition to, any accommodation request.

## What that shifts onto the file

If the animal's training is irrelevant, everything rests on the two things
that are relevant: a disability, and a connection between that disability
and this animal in this home. Neither is observable from the doorway. Both
are professional findings.

New Mexico's own procedure says so in the plainest terms available. The Human Rights Bureau's
rule at **9.1.1.8(F)(3) NMAC** puts the burden of evidencing a disability on the complainant,
and names "the written certification of a physician or other appropriate medical authority" as
the way it is carried. The state has no statute listing who may write a housing letter, and no
form. This rule is the closest thing to a standard New Mexico has published.

## Getting the finding made

Your own treating clinician is the best source of it, and worth asking
first: a provider with a real history with you writes the most durable
document there is. Weigh the friction honestly. New Mexico's specialist
mental-health capacity is concentrated in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and
being close to that concentration is not the same as being seen quickly.
Those practices carry demand from most of the state, waits run to months,
and a clinician who does not make disability determinations may simply
decline to make one.

A licensed evaluation is that same assessment, arranged deliberately and on
a known timeline: a licensed professional decides whether a disability
exists and whether the animal is necessary here, and issues documentation
where the assessment supports it. Where it does not, it says so, which is
precisely what makes the document worth something when it does.

New Mexico wrote your animal into its code as a set of things it does not
do. In housing you are not being asked what it does.

## What Los Lunas landlords can and cannot do

**Cannot:**
- May not refuse to rent, or refuse to negotiate, because of a physical or mental disability: NMSA 1978, § 28-1-7(G)(1).
- May not discriminate because of disability in the terms, conditions or privileges of the rental or in the facilities and services provided with it, § 28-1-7(G)(2). This is the state provision a charge attached to an assistance animal is met by.
- May not use the three-day substantial-violation route over an animal. § 47-8-3(V)'s closed list does not include one. The route is a written seven-day notice and cure under § 47-8-33(A), served within thirty days of the breach or knowledge of it.
- May not raise at trial any ground outside the written notice, § 47-8-33(G).
- May not retaliate by raising rent, cutting services or bringing an action for possession within six months of a fair housing complaint made to a government agency, on pain of liability for two times the monthly rent: §§ 47-8-39(A)(4), 47-8-48(C).

**Can:**
- Must make a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services where necessary to afford equal opportunity to use and enjoy the dwelling, but under 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B) and 24 C.F.R. § 100.204, not under New Mexico law, which imposes that duty only on employers.
- May adopt a no-pets rule only where it is reasonably related to its purpose and applied to all residents fairly, § 47-8-23(B)–(C), and may impose one mid-tenancy only with reasonable notice and only where it does not work a substantial modification of the bargain: § 47-8-23(F).
- May demand only a reasonable deposit, and only to recover damage caused to the premises, § 47-8-18(A). Under a lease shorter than a year the deposit may not exceed one month's rent; under an annual lease anything above one month's rent obliges the owner to pay passbook-rate interest.
- Is outside the state Act only in the narrow cases § 28-1-9 describes: the single-family exemption at (A), with its reservations and its condition that no prohibited advertisement was used, and the separate owner-occupied exemption at (D) for four families. The federal Fair Housing Act draws its own exemptions and is unaffected.

## How to get an ESA letter in Los Lunas

1. **Check that you qualify**, Answer a short screening about how your condition affects daily life in Los Lunas. No diagnosis paperwork needed up front. (About 5 minutes: free)
2. **Connect with a licensed professional**, You are matched with a provider licensed for New Mexico clients who reviews your situation in a telehealth evaluation. (Telehealth evaluation)
3. **Complete your evaluation**, The professional evaluates whether an emotional support animal alleviates symptoms of a condition recognized in the DSM-5. Honest evaluations, not everyone qualifies. (Most of Our Applicants Qualify)
4. **Receive your signed letter**, Your letter arrives on the professional's letterhead with their license number: the documentation New Mexico landlords may lawfully request. (Typically within days of approval)
5. **Send it to your landlord**, Submit the letter with a short reasonable-accommodation request. Pet fees, pet deposits, and breed limits no longer apply to your animal in Los Lunas. (Protection under FHA + state law)

## Conditions that can qualify for an ESA

No fixed government list exists. A licensed professional evaluates whether an animal alleviates symptoms of a DSM-5-recognized condition, commonly:

- Generalized anxiety disorder
- Major depressive disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Panic disorder
- Social anxiety disorder
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Bipolar disorder
- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Phobias with housing impact
- Chronic stress affecting daily function

## Housing help in Los Lunas

- [Village of Los Lunas](https://www.loslunasnm.gov/) (city government)
- [Valencia County](https://www.co.valencia.nm.us/) (county government)
- [Western Regional Housing Authority](http://wrha-nm.org/) (regional housing authority)
- [New Mexico Legal Aid](https://newmexicolegalaid.org/) (legal aid)
- [Housing New Mexico (MFA)](https://housingnm.org/) (state housing authority)

## Frequently asked questions

### New Mexico defines my animal as one that does not work or perform tasks. Is that a problem?

Not for a housing request. The definition in § 28-11-2(A) is a description written for Article 11, where the question is who gets into a public building with an animal. The housing question is whether an exception to a rule may be necessary for equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, and that test says nothing about tasks. An animal whose help is its presence can meet it as written.

### The same subsection says the animal "does not accompany at all times." What is that doing there?

It is part of the same subtraction. Section 28-11-2(A) builds the category by listing what separates it from a trained service animal, and constant accompaniment is one of the things it lists. It is a definition, not a condition imposed on a tenant, and like everything else in that section it operates only where the Service Animal Act operates.

### My landlord sent me § 28-11-2(B), which says my animal is not a qualified service animal. Is that accurate?

The quotation is accurate and the conclusion drawn from it is not. Subsection (B) does place a pet, an emotional support animal, a comfort animal and a therapy animal outside the term qualified service animal. What it decides is who qualifies under that Act. It does not decide a request made under § 28-1-7 or under the federal Fair Housing Act, neither of which uses the term at all.

### How far do the words "As used in the Service Animal Act" reach?

As far as § 28-11-1.1 says, and no further: that section provides that Chapter 28, Article 11 NMSA 1978 may be cited as the Service Animal Act. So the definitions govern §§ 28-11-1.1 through 28-11-6: admittance to public places, access to common carriers, interference, and the false-presentation offence. The Human Rights Act is a different article, and federal law is not New Mexico law at all.

### Could describing my animal get me into trouble under the misrepresentation statute?

Only if you describe it as something it is not. Section 28-11-6 makes it a misdemeanour to knowingly present as a qualified service animal an animal that does not meet the § 28-11-2 definition. Asking for a housing accommodation for an animal you call an emotional support animal is not that conduct. The safe practice is also the accurate one: use the phrase the code uses and never upgrade it.

### Los Lunas is a village rather than a city. Does that change the housing rules?

No. The Village of Los Lunas is the local government here and the designation matters for who runs the town, not for which statutes apply to a tenancy. The Human Rights Act reaches any housing accommodation as defined in § 28-1-2(K), and the federal duty applies to dwellings without regard to the class of municipality they sit in.

### Only a quarter of homes here are rented and rent runs above the state median. Does a tight market matter?

It matters practically rather than legally. With 1,657 renting households out of 6,906 and a $1,110 median gross rent against New Mexico's $1,067, there are fewer units, fewer professional managers and less pressure on an owner to be flexible. That makes it more important that a request is put in writing, described accurately and supported by a document, because there is less room to walk away and try elsewhere.

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Get evaluated by a licensed provider: https://my.supportanimal.com/qualify?sa_source=blog&sa_medium=blog&sa_campaign=esa-guides&sa_content=markdown&ref=blog&sa_term=new-mexico-emotional-support-animal%2Flos-lunas