Year 15, the Qualified Contract waiver, and a 30-year floor — New Mexico

New Mexico's floor is 30 years, not 55 — and the QAP already says so

Section I.E of the current QAP states it directly: "All Projects are subject to an 'extended low-income housing commitment' for at least 30 years, as required by Code Section 42(h)(6). Housing New Mexico complies with this requirement with a Land Use Restriction Agreement (LURA) filed when the Project is Placed In Service." The QAP's own Glossary confirms the components: Compliance Period is "a minimum period of 15 years"; Extended Use Period is the period of affordability following the Compliance Period, for which "the minimum...required by Code is fifteen years"; and Affordability Period is defined as their sum — "30-year minimum plus any additional time required and documented in the LURA."

That 30-year figure is identical between the 9% and 4% QAPs — both carry the same Section I.E language verbatim, and both enforce it through the same LURA mechanism filed at Placed In Service.

This corrects an assumption worth flagging directly: an earlier internal note characterized New Mexico's floor as 35 years — 15 plus a 20-year state-specific minimum. Reading the current QAP's own text finds a different structure. The universal floor every Project must meet is 30 years, matching the federal minimum other states typically default to. Thirty-five years is a real number in New Mexico's QAP, but it describes something else entirely: the minimum commitment needed to earn any points under a separate, elective scoring criterion, covered next — not a baseline requirement.

A mandatory Qualified Contract waiver — and it has applied since 2003

Section I.F, "Waiver of Qualified Contract," is unambiguous: "By submitting an Application for an allocation of tax credits to a Project in accordance with this QAP, the Applicant and Project Owner agree to waive their right to request that Housing New Mexico present a 'Qualified Contract' for the Project in accordance with Code Section 42(h)(6)." The one carve-out is foreclosure: the Extended Use Period can end early only through foreclosure or an instrument in lieu of foreclosure, and even then existing low-income tenants keep eviction and rent protection — at tax-credit rents — for three years afterward, matching the statutory tenant protection under §42(h)(6)(E)(ii).

This isn't a new policy. Housing New Mexico's own Preservation FAQs page states: "In New Mexico, LIHTC properties began to automatically waive their QC right in 2003. This means that only properties developed before 2003 are vulnerable to loss via the QC process; however, many of these properties have waived their QC right during ownership changes or other processes." For essentially every currently-active New Mexico LIHTC deal, the Year 15 qualified-contract exit that federal law nominally allows was never available in the first place — it was waived at the Application stage, years before Year 15 ever arrives.

The scoring criteria reflect that same reality rather than ignoring it. "Sustaining Affordability" (Section V.D, worth up to 10 points) explicitly rewards a new acquisition or rehabilitation Application that resolves a legacy risk — one of its four qualifying conditions is an existing project that is "eligible to make a Qualified Contract request." The QAP treats a QC-eligible property as a preservation opportunity for a different, incoming developer to capture points on, not as an exit ramp the original owner can use going forward.

Buying extra years is worth real points, up to a hard ceiling

Section V.G, "Projects Committed to a longer Extended Use Period," is the QAP's elective, scored path beyond the 30-year floor: "Projects committing to at least a 35-year Affordability Period (15-year initial Compliance Period plus at least a 20-year Extended Use Period) are eligible for up to 8 points based on the length of the Affordability Period." The election is made on page 1 of the Universal Rental Development Application and is enforced through the LURA, with a joinder for any leasehold interest.

This research found no tier beyond 50 years and 8 points, and no "permanent affordability" election, anywhere in the currently effective 2026 9% QAP text. A separate, general web search surfaced language suggesting a permanent-affordability option tied to "the maximum allowable period allowed under New Mexico law," but that language could not be located in the current QAP itself — it may reflect an older QAP version, a misreading, or a provision this research simply didn't surface. Until it's confirmed directly against a current QAP section or a signed LURA, it shouldn't be treated as available today; 50 years for 8 points is the verified ceiling.

The reviewed 2026 4% QAP carries the identical 30-year floor and the identical Qualified Contract waiver language, but this research did not find a parallel scored incentive for electing a longer Affordability Period anywhere in the 4% document — the point table above appears to be a 9% competitive-round feature specifically.

Monitoring doesn't stop at Year 15 — it runs the full Extended Use Period, at a lower fee

Section VIII governs monitoring for the life of the deal, not just the initial Compliance Period. Annual inspections continue — a minimum unit sample of the Project's Set-Aside Units, or 100% of units in mixed-income and mixed-use properties — alongside a review of certifications, income documentation, leases, and rent records. Housing New Mexico "reserves the right, under the provisions of the Code and the Project's LURA, to perform an audit of any Project that has received an allocation of tax credits" at any point during the Extended Use Period. The Project Owner's annual certification runs to 29 separate items, including direct compliance with the statutory conditions attached to the QC waiver itself — no refusal to lease based on a Section 8 voucher, no eviction without good cause under §42(h)(6)(E)(ii)(I), and no gross rent above the Section 42 maximum under §42(h)(6)(E)(ii)(II) — plus Violence Against Women Act compliance, utility allowance accuracy, and Fair Housing findings.

The compliance fee already established elsewhere in this guide's New Mexico coverage is confirmed directly in this section: $50 per set-aside unit per year through the 15-year Compliance Period (payable annually by January 31, or as a lump sum before Form 8609 issuance), dropping to $20 per set-aside unit per year "beginning in year 16" for the remainder of the Extended Use Period, with a $1,500 late fee for missing the January 31 deadline. Annual certifications and reports are due by March 31 each year through Housing New Mexico's Web Compliance Management System, and annual audited property financial statements are due within 120 days of the Project's fiscal year end — for the full contractual term, not just the first 15 years.

Noncompliance follows a defined process, not an immediate 8823 filing: a written "Notice of Non-Compliance" gives the Project Owner 30 days to respond, followed by a 30-day cure period that Housing New Mexico can extend up to six months for good cause. Only after the cure period expires does Housing New Mexico notify the IRS — within 45 days — attaching whatever corrections the owner made in the meantime.

What EZFeasi doesn't do yet for New Mexico's long tail

EZFeasi has no New Mexico LURA-tracking tool, no compliance-fee calculator tied to unit count and allocation year, and nothing that flags whether a specific property falls into the shrinking, pre-2003 population of deals that might still carry live Qualified Contract eligibility. Confirming that status for any real property means pulling its actual LURA and allocation history from Housing New Mexico directly — it is not something this phase's research, or any dataset EZFeasi has loaded, can determine on its own.

This phase's citations point to the currently effective 2026 QAP, not the 2025 QAP Phase 1 of this guide cites. The two documents are substantially renumbered relative to each other — what Phase 1 cites as Section III (site control, set-asides, scoring) sits at Section IV and Section V in the 2026 version, and what Phase 1 cites as Section IV (fees, cost limits, basis boosts) sits at Section III. A future update to Phase 1 should account for that renumbering rather than assume the two QAPs share a structure.