New Mexico dropped its percentage formula in 1995, so older figures describe repealed law
NMSA 1978 § 45-3-719 now reads as the uniform text: a personal representative “is entitled to reasonable compensation for his services,” may renounce a will’s compensation provision before qualifying when there is no contract with the decedent about it, and may renounce all or part of the fee by a written renunciation filed with the court. Laws 1995, ch. 210, § 38 repealed the 1976 section and enacted this one, effective July 1, 1995.
The repeal matters when reading anything older. The compilation’s annotations describe the former law’s “general compensation formula,” including a reduced rate on cash assets (In re Estate of Corwin, 1987), and several reported decisions on fee amounts were decided under it. A percentage attributed to New Mexico comes from that repealed formula, not from the current section.
Some points from the older cases are about timing and records rather than rates, and the compilation still lists them, marked as decided under former law: compensation was allowed only once the representative’s duties were finished, because only then could the court evaluate the services (In re Hildebrand’s Estate, 1953), and payments a representative made to itself without a filed claim or a court order were disallowed (In re Will of Hamilton, 1981).
The check on a reasonable fee is § 45-3-721, enacted by the same 1995 act: after notice to all interested persons, on an interested person’s petition, or on motion in a supervised administration, the court may review “the reasonableness of the compensation determined by the personal representative for his own services” and of anyone the representative employed, and may order an overpaid person to refund the excess.
Source: NMSA 1978 §§ 45-3-719, 45-3-721 (with compilation annotations), read from the enacting state’s own official publication on 2026-10-13. Quoted wording is the statute’s; the surrounding explanation is this site’s reading of it and is not legal advice.