N.M. Stat. » N.M. Stat. / Chapter 30 / Article 14
New Mexico Statutes

N.M. Stat. § 30-14-6 (2026)

No trespassing notice; sign contents; posting;

✓ current as of May 2026
Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section NM-LEGnmonesource.com JustiaChapter on Justia CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar 
requirement; prescribing a penalty for wrongful posting of public
lands.
    A. The owner, lessee or person lawfully in possession of real property in New
Mexico, except property owned by the state or federal government, desiring to prevent
trespass or entry onto the real property shall post notices parallel to and along the
exterior boundaries of the property to be posted, at each roadway or other way of
access in conspicuous places, and if the property is not fenced, such notices shall be
posted every five hundred feet along the exterior boundaries of such land.

   B. The notices posted shall prohibit all persons from trespassing or entering upon
the property, without permission of the owner, lessee, person in lawful possession or his
agent. The notices shall:

       (1)    be printed legibly in English;

       (2)    be at least one hundred forty-four square inches in size;

      (3)     contain the name and address of the person under whose authority the
property is posted or the name and address of the person who is authorized to grant
permission to enter the property;

       (4)     be placed at each roadway or apparent way of access onto the property,
in addition to the posting of the boundaries; and

       (5)    where applicable, state any specific prohibition that the posting is directed
against, such as "no trespassing," "no hunting," "no fishing," "no digging" or any other
specific prohibition.

    C. Any person who posts public lands contrary to state or federal law or regualtion
[regulation] is guilty of a petty misdemeanor.

History: 1953 Comp., § 40A-14-7, enacted by Laws 1969, ch. 195, § 2; 1979, ch. 186,
§ 3.

                                     ANNOTATIONS

Bracketed material. — The bracketed material was inserted by the compiler and is not
part of the law.

Failure to post notices not a valid defense to liability for trespass at common law.
— Where plaintiffs filed a complaint against defendants seeking injunctive relief and
damages arising from claims for common law trespass based on allegations that
defendants performed certain earthwork on plaintiffs’ land, the district court did not err in
denying defendants’ jury instruction modeled on the text of the criminal trespass statute,
30-14-16 NMSA 1978, which imposed a duty on landowners to post notices on the
boundaries of their property in order to subject individuals to trespass liability for any
entries thereon, because this section cannot be fairly read to change the common law of
trespass, which does not require posting of property in order for an unauthorized entry
to constitute a trespass. Holcomb v. Rodriguez, 2016-NMCA-075, cert. denied.
Notes of Decisions
Cited in 4 cases, 2016–2017 · leading case: Holcomb v. Rodriguez, 2016 NMCA 075 (N.M. Ct. App. 2016).
Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment
Holcomb v. Rodriguez, 2016 NMCA 075 (N.M. Ct. App. 2016). · cites it 28× “The district court should have submitted a jury instruction modeled after NMSA 1978, Section 30-14-6 (1979) on Plaintiffs’ trespass claims; 4.”
State v. Merhege, 2017 NMSC 16 (N.M. 2017). · cites it 6× “3d 286 (holding “that Section 30-14-6 sets out a standard by which a property may be deemed ‘posted’ ” for purposes of determining whether an intruder can be prosecuted under Section 30-14-1(A)).”
Holcomb v. Rodriguez, 2016 NMCA 75 (N.M. Ct. App. 2016). · cites it 28× “The district court should have submitted a jury instruction modeled after NMSA 1978, Section 30-14-6 (1979) on Plaintiffs’ trespass claims; 4.”
State v. Merhege (N.M. 2017). · cites it 6× “3d 4 286 (holding “that Section 30-14-6 sets out a standard by which a property may be 5 deemed ‘posted’ ” for purposes of determining whether an intruder can be prosecuted 6 under Section 30-14-1(A)).”
N.M. Stat. § 30-14-6(A): 4 cases
Holcomb v. Rodriguez, 2016 NMCA 075 (N.M. Ct. App. 2016). “The district court should have submitted a jury instruction modeled after NMSA 1978, Section 30-14-6 (1979) on Plaintiffs’ trespass claims; 4.”
State v. Merhege, 2017 NMSC 16 (N.M. 2017). “3d 286 (holding “that Section 30-14-6 sets out a standard by which a property may be deemed ‘posted’ ” for purposes of determining whether an intruder can be prosecuted under Section 30-14-1(A)).”
Holcomb v. Rodriguez, 2016 NMCA 75 (N.M. Ct. App. 2016). “The district court should have submitted a jury instruction modeled after NMSA 1978, Section 30-14-6 (1979) on Plaintiffs’ trespass claims; 4.”
State v. Merhege (N.M. 2017). “3d 4 286 (holding “that Section 30-14-6 sets out a standard by which a property may be 5 deemed ‘posted’ ” for purposes of determining whether an intruder can be prosecuted 6 under Section 30-14-1(A)).”
N.M. Stat. § 30-14-6(B): 2 cases
State v. Merhege, 2017 NMSC 16 (N.M. 2017). “3d 286 (holding “that Section 30-14-6 sets out a standard by which a property may be deemed ‘posted’ ” for purposes of determining whether an intruder can be prosecuted under Section 30-14-1(A)).”
State v. Merhege (N.M. 2017). “3d 4 286 (holding “that Section 30-14-6 sets out a standard by which a property may be 5 deemed ‘posted’ ” for purposes of determining whether an intruder can be prosecuted 6 under Section 30-14-1(A)).”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.