How to File a Motion to Seal an Eviction in Nevada

To file a motion to seal an eviction in Nevada, submit a Motion to Seal Summary Eviction to the Justice Court that handled your original case, identify one of three legal grounds under NRS 40.2545, serve a copy on your landlord, and either wait for the judge’s decision on the paperwork or attend a hearing if the landlord opposes it. If the judge grants the motion, the file is treated as though the eviction never happened.

First, Check Whether Your Record Already Sealed on Its Own

Before drafting anything, confirm you actually need a motion. NRS 40.2545 seals certain eviction files automatically:

If the court dismissed the summary eviction, the file seals immediately when that order is entered.
If the court denied the landlord’s eviction, the file seals ten judicial days after the denial order.
If you filed a tenant’s affidavit contesting the eviction and the landlord never filed a complaint within 30 days, the file seals automatically on day 31.

There is also a narrower carve-out for summary evictions granted between March 12, 2020 and May 20, 2022, during the COVID-19 emergency period. If your case falls in any of these buckets, call the Justice Court clerk and confirm the file’s status before spending time on a motion.¹

If none of these apply, keep going.

Choose Your Legal Ground

NRS 40.2545 gives you three routes to ask the court to seal the file. Pick the one that fits your situation, because the motion form asks you to check a box.

Stipulation With the Landlord

The cleanest path is a written agreement. If you and your landlord both sign a stipulation asking the court to set aside the eviction order and seal the file, you can submit it directly and skip a contested hearing. This tends to work when the underlying issue has been resolved, such as back rent paid or lease obligations satisfied, and the landlord has no reason to fight the sealing.¹

Rule 60 Relief

You can also ask the court to set aside the underlying eviction judgment under Rule 60 of the Justice Court Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 60 grounds include mistake or excusable neglect (for example, you never received the eviction notice), newly discovered evidence, fraud or misrepresentation by the landlord, or a judgment that is void. Motions based on mistake, new evidence, or fraud must be filed within six months of the eviction order. Other Rule 60 grounds have no fixed cutoff but must still be filed within a reasonable time.²

Interests of Justice

This is the most common ground when there’s no stipulation and Rule 60 doesn’t fit. You ask the judge to find that sealing serves the interests of justice and that those interests outweigh the public’s right to access the record. The statute directs the court to weigh at least three factors, without limitation:

Circumstances beyond your control, such as job loss, medical emergencies, or domestic violence.
Other extenuating circumstances, like a habitability dispute or a genuine misunderstanding about a lease term.
How much time has passed since the eviction order. More time generally helps.

Because the judge has room to weigh anything else relevant to fairness, your motion needs concrete facts. “I lost my job in January 2024 after my employer closed” carries more weight than a vague reference to hardship.¹

Fill Out the Motion

The core document is a Motion to Seal Summary Eviction form. Nevada Justice Courts provide fillable versions, often free. Washoe County Justice Court posts a downloadable version on its website, and Nevada Legal Services also offers a template. If you can’t find one online, call or visit the clerk at the Justice Court where your case was heard.

Pull these details from your original case before you sit down with the form:

The full name of the Justice Court, including township and county
The case number
The landlord’s name as it appeared on the case (the plaintiff)
Your name as it appeared on the case (the defendant)

On the form, select the legal ground. Attach a signed stipulation if that’s your route. If you’re arguing interests of justice, use the space provided or attach a separate page and explain what happened in specific, factual terms.³

Also prepare a proposed order. This is a short document stating that the court has reviewed your motion and orders the eviction case file sealed. Having it ready lets the judge sign immediately if the motion is granted, instead of pushing you back into more paperwork.

File, Serve, and Handle the Fee

File the completed motion with the clerk at the Justice Court that handled the original eviction, using the same case number. Bring at least two extra copies so the clerk can stamp them and hand one back for your records and one for the landlord.

After filing, serve a copy on the landlord, or on the landlord’s attorney if one appeared in the original case. Regular mail is acceptable. Complete a Certificate of Mailing documenting what you sent, when, and to what address, then file that certificate with the court. Many tenants file the Certificate of Mailing at the same time as the motion, which cuts a second trip to the courthouse.

Filing fees vary by Justice Court. As one reference point, North Las Vegas Justice Court charges $74 for a petition to seal records. Confirm the fee with your court’s clerk before you go. If you can’t afford it, apply for a fee waiver through the Nevada courts. The application requires three documents: the fee waiver application itself, a request for submission, and a proposed order granting the waiver. You’ll need to show you can’t pay. If granted, the waiver lasts one year. If denied, there is no appeal, and you’ll need to pay the fee to move forward.⁴

What Happens After You File

The landlord has a response window after being served. In most Nevada Justice Courts that’s around 10 days, but local rules vary, so check with the clerk. Two things can happen from there.

If the landlord doesn’t respond, you typically submit your proposed order to the court. With no opposition on file, the judge reviews the motion on the paperwork alone. If it meets the statute, the judge signs the order and the file is sealed without a hearing.

If the landlord files an opposition, the court schedules a hearing. Bring supporting documentation: proof of the circumstances behind the eviction, receipts for paid rent, or anything else that backs the ground you selected. The judge decides after hearing both sides. When the motion is granted, the court issues an order directing the clerk to seal the eviction case file, and the clerk pulls it from public access.¹

What Sealing Does, and What to Do About Screening Companies

Once the court seals the file, NRS 40.2545 provides that “all proceedings recounted in the eviction case court file shall be deemed never to have occurred.” You can legally answer “no” if a rental application asks whether you’ve been evicted, and courts, government entities, and the public can no longer access the file through normal channels.¹

Tenant screening companies are a separate problem. They pull data from court records and hold it in their own databases. Sealing stops new searches from turning up the record, but a company that scraped it before sealing may still list it, and there’s no guarantee private databases update on their own.

If a sealed eviction still appears on a background check, dispute it directly with the screening company. Describe the error, include a copy of the sealing order, and follow up in writing if you started by phone. The company generally has 30 days to investigate and report back. If it confirms the record is inaccurate, it must correct or delete the entry, and it can notify any landlord who already received the flawed report.⁵

Ask the court for several certified copies of the sealing order. You may need to send one to each screening company that has your record, and keeping a copy with your rental applications lets you address the issue on the spot if a landlord’s background check hasn’t caught up.

1
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 40.2545 – Unlawful Detainer: Sealing of Eviction Case Court File Under Certain Circumstances
2
Nevada Legislature. Justice Court Rules of Civil Procedure
3
Washoe County. Motion to Seal Summary Eviction Form
4
State of Nevada Self-Help Center. Court Fees and Fee Waivers
5
Federal Trade Commission (Consumer Advice). Disputing Errors on Your Tenant Background Check Report