About the Mora County Clerk
Mora County traces its settlement to the 1835 Mora Land Grant, when the Mexican government awarded roughly 800,000 acres along the Mora River to about two dozen founding families, and the New Mexico Territorial Legislature formally organized the county on February 1, 1860. The name most likely comes from one of those founding Mora families rather than the Spanish word for mulberry, even though mulberry trees do grow in the valley. Tucked into the southern Sangre de Cristo Mountains between the Carson and Santa Fe National Forests, the county is one of the most rural and most Hispanic in the state, with Spanish-speaking land-grant heirs still tracing title back to the original grant. Population peaked near 14,000 around 1920 when farming, ranching, and timber supported a much larger community, then fell steadily as young people left for work elsewhere, settling at under 5,000 residents today. Wagon Mound, the county's only incorporated village, sits along old Santa Fe Trail and rail routes on the county's eastern plains, a contrast to the mountain villages of the Mora Valley proper.
Cities and Communities Served
Recording jurisdiction runs countywide, not by city limits — if the property sits anywhere within Mora County, this is the Mora County Clerk that will accept the deed. That includes:
Incorporated city: Wagon Mound.
Unincorporated communities: Mora (county seat), Watrous, La Cueva, Cleveland, Guadalupita, Chacon, Holman, Ocate.
Mora, the county seat, is an unincorporated census-designated place rather than an incorporated municipality.
Office Details
Address: 1 Courthouse Drive, Mora, NM 87732
Phone: (575) 387-2448
Hours: Monday - Friday, 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM
Recording Fee: New Mexico charges a flat, statute-set recording fee per document, with an added fee once a document runs past a set number of index entries -- not a percentage of the property's value. Contact the county clerk's office for current amounts.
E-recording: Mora County accepts e-recorded documents in addition to those delivered in person or by mail, per the county clerk's recording information.
Good to know before you go: The counter itself stays open until 4:30 PM, but new documents stop being accepted for recording thirty minutes earlier, at 4:00 PM -- worth arriving ahead of that if you need it recorded the same day.
How to File a Document
- Sign in Front of a Notary -- In Person or Remotely: New Mexico requires the grantor's signature to be acknowledged before a notary public before the Mora County Clerk will accept a deed for recording. New Mexico has permitted remote online notarization on a permanent basis since January 1, 2022, under the state's Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts (NMSA 1978, Sections 14-14A-1 to 14-14A-32) -- the notary handling it must be commissioned and physically located in New Mexico at the time, even if you're signing from somewhere else.
- Attach a Full Legal Description, Not Just an Address: A street address alone won't satisfy New Mexico's requirements -- the deed needs the property's actual legal description (a metes-and-bounds description, a government survey reference, or a platted lot and block, depending on how the parcel was originally surveyed and subdivided), plus a reference to the prior deed that brought the property into the grantor's name, to keep the chain of title intact. You can usually copy the legal description directly from the deed that transferred the property to you.
- Get Both Spouses to Sign if It's Community Property: New Mexico is a community property state, and state law (NMSA 1978, Section 40-3-13) generally requires both spouses to join in a deed transferring community real property -- even when only one spouse's name appears on the title. Skipping the second signature doesn't necessarily void the transfer outright, but it leaves the deed open to being challenged, so it's worth confirming with the Mora County Clerk or an attorney whether your specific situation calls for both signatures before you file.
- File a Real Property Transfer Declaration Affidavit With the Assessor: For most residential property transfers, New Mexico law (NMSA 1978, Section 7-38-12.1) also requires a separate Real Property Transfer Declaration Affidavit to be filed with the county assessor's office -- not the Mora County Clerk -- within thirty days of recording the deed. It's a distinct step from recording itself, used to keep the assessor's records current for property tax purposes, and the assessor's office can supply the current form.
- Record With the County Clerk: Bring, mail, or (where the county supports it) e-file the signed, notarized deed with the Mora County Clerk for the county where the property sits. New Mexico charges a flat, statute-set recording fee per document, with an added fee once a document runs past a set number of index entries -- never a percentage of the property's value -- and the state has no separate real estate transfer tax on top of it. The first page needs roughly an inch and a half of blank space at the top for the clerk's recording stamp, with the document's title placed just below it.
Still Have Questions About Filing With the Mora County Clerk?
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Other Counties in New Mexico
Filing somewhere else in the state? Here are a few other county pages:
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