# ESA Letter in Roswell, NM: A Fee Bar That Stops at the Door

> New Mexico promises no additional charges for an assistance animal — in buildings open to the public and on common carriers. Dwellings are not on the list.

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

## Key facts

- Population: 47,176
- Households renting: 31.4%
- Typical pet deposit (as a pet): § 28-11-3 does not reach it
- Typical pet rent (as a pet): $20-$35/mo for pets
- Breed/weight limits common: sometimes
- Pet fees, deposits, and breed limits with a valid ESA letter: none (FHA reasonable accommodation)

## The sentence a search puts in front of you first

Type "New Mexico assistance animal fee" into anything and you will land on nine words of
§ 28-11-3(A)(1) that look like the end of the argument.

Here is the clause with the sentences it actually lives among:

> "A. Notwithstanding any other provision of law: (1) a person with a disability who is using a
> **qualified service animal** shall be admitted to **any building open to the public and to all
> other public accommodations and shall be allowed access to all common carriers** … A person
> shall not deny an individual with a qualified service animal entry to a building open to the
> public or to any public accommodation or deny access to a common carrier, **regardless of any
> policy of denying to pets entry** to that building, public accommodation or common carrier. **A
> person shall not be required to pay any additional charges for the qualified service animal**,
> but may be liable for any damage done by the qualified service animal …"

"Shall not be required to pay any additional charges." It is exactly the sentence a Roswell tenant
facing a $35 monthly pet charge is hoping exists. And it stops at the door of the building it is
about.

## Two separate reasons it does not follow you home

**The list of places.** Read what § 28-11-3(A)(1) covers: a building open to the public, all other
public accommodations, and common carriers. A dwelling is not a building open to the public, an
apartment is not a public accommodation, and a lease is not a common carrier. Dwellings appear
nowhere in the section, not in the entry rule, not in the charges sentence, not in the direct
threat exception at § 28-11-3(B), which is itself confined by its own words to "a public
accommodation or common carrier."

**The animal.** Every protection in the section attaches to a **qualified service animal**, and
§ 28-11-2(B) provides that the term "does not include a pet, an emotional support animal, a
comfort animal or a therapy animal." So even if the section had covered rentals, an emotional
support animal would be standing outside the class it protects.

Both failures are independent. Fix one and the other still holds. New
Mexico's White Cane Law has a second version of the same promise at §
28-7-3(C), for a guide dog in the places that section lists, and it fails a
housing question the same way.

The blunt statement of New Mexico law: **there is no state statute that bars
a landlord from charging for an assistance animal.** Saying that plainly on
the page is worth more than letting a reader discover it at a leasing office
in the Chaves County heat with a printout in their hand.

## The market that argument happens in

Roswell rents 5,596 of its 17,838 occupied homes, **31.4 percent** on the
2020–2024 American Community Survey five-year estimate, close to the 30.0
percent New Mexico average and well under Las Cruces at 44.1 percent.

Median gross rent is **$876**, a hundred and ninety-one dollars below the
$1,067 state figure and roughly three-fifths of what Rio Rancho pays. The
2024 Census estimate puts the city at 47,176 people, fifth in New Mexico and
the largest for a long way in any direction. The city's own description of
itself is the hub of southeastern New Mexico.

Cheap rent does not make a pet charge small. Thirty-five dollars a month
against $876 is a larger bite than fifty dollars against Rio Rancho's
$1,514, and in a market where a lot of the stock is older single-family
houses let by individual owners, the charge is often set by someone making a
judgement rather than applying a corporate schedule.

## The provisions that do reach a tenancy

Two, working together.

**The exception itself is federal.** 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B) makes discrimination include "a
refusal to make **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**." That is what obliges a landlord to set a no-animals rule aside.

**The charge is reached by state law.** § 28-1-7(G)(2) makes it unlawful to discriminate "in the
terms, conditions or privileges" of a rental because of a physical or mental disability. A fee
attached to an animal that is present because of a disability is a term of the tenancy applied
because of that disability.

Neither provision contains the words "additional charges," and neither one
names an animal.

## What changes when a prohibition is replaced by a principle

Section 28-11-3(A)(1) is a flat rule. You could photocopy it and hand it
across a counter, and it would answer for itself in a museum lobby.

Section 28-1-7(G)(2) and the federal duty are not like that. They are
general propositions, and turning them into an answer about your dog takes
three linked steps that have to be set out in order: this person has a
disability; this animal is in the home as a required accommodation for it;
therefore a charge attached to the animal is a charge attached to the
disability.

Only the first step is a fact rather than a legal conclusion, and it is a
fact that a tenant cannot supply about themselves. That is why the shape of
a New Mexico request is different from a public-access dispute. A
public-access dispute is won by citation. A housing request is won by a
written record.

The Human Rights Bureau's own procedure says as much. Under **9.1.1.8(F)(3) NMAC**, a complainant
alleging a disability "must offer evidence of the disability … during the course of the
investigation," and that evidence "may be provided by the written certification of a physician or
other appropriate medical authority." Complaints go to the Bureau within three hundred days of the
alleged act under § 28-1-10(A).

## What Roswell has locally, and what it does not

The city and Chaves County both run reachable offices, and New Mexico Legal
Aid keeps a Roswell office on East Fourth Street that handles housing
matters.

Public housing is a gap that should be stated rather than papered over.
Roswell's public housing falls to the Eastern Regional Housing Authority,
which serves a dozen southeastern and eastern counties and **has no working
website**. The domain answers a request with an empty page. There is also a
housing authority in Roswell, Georgia whose site looks convincing for
several screens and has nothing to do with New Mexico. If you need the local
authority, get the number from the city or the county rather than from a
search result.

## Getting the finding made in the southeast

Ask a clinician you already see before you do anything else. An assessment
written by someone with a treatment record for you is the strongest version
of this document, and it is free if the relationship already exists. The
friction in this corner of the state is supply: New Mexico's specialist
mental-health capacity sits in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, several hours
north; the southeast leans on a thin set of community providers and primary
care; waits run into months, and a general practitioner may decline to make
a disability finding about mental-health functioning they do not treat.

Where that route is not open, an evaluation by a licensed provider is the
same examination arranged on purpose. A licensed professional works out
whether an impairment substantially limits a major life activity and whether
this animal answers it, then writes the certification, or declines to, which
happens and which is the reason a certification that is issued means
anything.

New Mexico's promise of no additional charges is real. It is made to a
different animal, in a different building. What reaches your lease is an
argument, and an argument needs its first step in writing.

## What Roswell 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 Roswell

1. **Check that you qualify**, Answer a short screening about how your condition affects daily life in Roswell. 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 Roswell. (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 Roswell

- [City of Roswell](https://roswell-nm.gov/) (city government)
- [Chaves County](https://www.chavescounty.gov/) (county government)
- [New Mexico Legal Aid](https://newmexicolegalaid.org/) (legal aid)
- [Housing New Mexico (MFA)](https://housingnm.org/) (state housing authority)
- [Law Access New Mexico](https://lawaccess.org/) (legal aid)

## Frequently asked questions

### Does "shall not be required to pay any additional charges" apply to my Roswell rental?

No. Read the places § 28-11-3(A)(1) names: any building open to the public, all other public accommodations, and common carriers. A rented house is none of those. Dwellings are absent from the entry rule, from the charges sentence and from the direct-threat exception at § 28-11-3(B), which is itself limited by its own words to a public accommodation or common carrier.

### Would the section help if my animal were in a public building?

Not for an emotional support animal. Every protection in § 28-11-3 attaches to a qualified service animal, and § 28-11-2(B) states that the term "does not include a pet, an emotional support animal, a comfort animal or a therapy animal." So the section fails a housing question twice over, on the place and on the animal, and each failure stands independently of the other.

### Is there any New Mexico statute at all that bars a pet fee for an assistance animal?

There is not. The two provisions that promise no extra charge (§ 28-11-3(A)(1) and the White Cane Law's § 28-7-3(C)) are both about public places, not tenancies. Some states have written a housing fee bar; New Mexico has not, and saying so plainly is more useful than sending a tenant to a leasing office with the wrong citation.

### What does the White Cane Law say, then?

Section 28-7-3(C) gives a totally or partially blind person the right to be accompanied by a guide dog "specially trained for the purpose, in any of the places listed in this section" without paying an extra charge. Those places are streets, sidewalks, public buildings, common carriers, hotels, lodging places and places of public accommodation, amusement or resort. A leased home is not among them, and a guide dog is not an emotional support animal.

### What do I cite instead for a Roswell tenancy?

Two provisions doing different jobs. 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B) obliges a housing provider to make a reasonable accommodation in rules, policies, practices or services where it may be necessary for equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling. That is what sets a no-animals rule aside. Then § 28-1-7(G)(2) reaches the money, because a fee attached to an animal that is present because of a disability is a term of the tenancy applied because of the disability.

### Who runs public housing in Roswell?

The Eastern Regional Housing Authority, which covers Chaves and eleven other eastern and southeastern counties. It has no working website (the domain that answers for it serves an empty page), so there is no link to give, and the contact details should come from the city or Chaves County. Do not use the housing authority site that turns up for the name Roswell in a search: that body is in Roswell, Georgia.

### Roswell rents well below the state median. Does the cheaper market change the analysis?

It changes the arithmetic rather than the law. Median gross rent here is $876 on the 2020-2024 American Community Survey five-year estimate, one hundred and ninety-one dollars under New Mexico's $1,067, so a thirty-five dollar monthly charge takes a bigger share of the rent than a fifty dollar charge does in Rio Rancho. The provisions that decide the request are identical.

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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%2Froswell