Nevada HOA Rules: Assessments, Fines, and Restrictions

Nevada HOA rules come from NRS Chapter 116, and they cut both ways: your association can charge assessments, fine you, place a lien on your home, and in some cases foreclose, but the same statute limits those powers and gives you specific rights around notice, hearings, elections, and property use. Knowing which powers are real and which restrictions the HOA cannot legally impose is what keeps you out of trouble.

What Governs Your HOA

Every Nevada association runs on a three-tier stack of documents. The Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CC&Rs) sits at the top and defines the HOA’s powers, your obligations, and community standards. A common-interest community can only exist in Nevada if a declaration was recorded in every county where the community sits. If the CC&Rs were never recorded, they have no legal force.

Bylaws come next. They govern how the board is elected, how meetings run, and how votes are counted. They deal with the association’s internal machinery, not what you can do with your property.

At the bottom are the rules and regulations the board adopts. Parking, landscaping specifics, common-area use. The board can change these on its own, without a homeowner vote, but each rule must be reasonably related to its stated purpose and enforced uniformly. A rule the association enforces against some owners and not others cannot be enforced against anyone.¹

Assessments and Special Assessments

Regular assessments fund the association’s day-to-day operations: landscaping, insurance, security, common-area upkeep. The board’s authority to collect them, impose late charges, and levy fines for nonpayment comes from NRS 116.3102.² The amount is set each year through a budget the board adopts and then sends to homeowners for ratification.³

Ratification is where many homeowners get caught. The board sends a budget summary, then holds a meeting 14 to 30 days later. Unless a majority of all owners in the community vote at that meeting to reject the budget, it passes automatically. Empty room, silent majority, still passes.⁴ If the budget is rejected, the prior year’s budget continues.

Special assessments are separate charges for major expenses the regular budget cannot cover: emergency roof replacement, unexpected infrastructure work. Nevada law does not cap them, and depending on your CC&Rs, a homeowner vote may or may not be required. A single special assessment can run into the thousands per unit.

To limit those surprises, every association must have a professional reserve study at least once every five years, projecting future repair and replacement costs for the components the HOA maintains. The board must review results annually and adjust funding accordingly.⁵

When the HOA Can Lien or Foreclose

The moment an assessment becomes due and unpaid, the HOA has a lien on your home. Automatic. That lien is senior to nearly every other claim on the property, with the exception of government tax liens and encumbrances recorded before the CC&Rs.⁶

Nevada is one of a small number of states with a “superlien” provision. Under NRS 116.3116, the HOA’s lien for unpaid assessments jumps ahead of your first mortgage for up to nine months of delinquent regular assessments, plus collection costs. If the association forecloses, the first mortgage holder can lose its security interest in the property. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regulations can shorten the superlien priority period, but it cannot drop below six months.⁶

The practical takeaway: falling behind on HOA dues carries the same urgency as missing mortgage payments. Ignoring it produces a lien that grows monthly and can end with the association foreclosing on your home for a relatively small sum.

Fines and the Notice You’re Owed

Your HOA cannot simply post a fine to your account when it believes you have broken a rule. The association must first send written notice identifying the specific provision you allegedly violated, describing the violation, including a photograph if the violation concerns your property’s physical condition, and giving you a reasonable chance to fix it.⁷

If the problem is not resolved, the board must hold a hearing before it can fine you. You have the right to attend and contest the alleged violation. By default that hearing is held in executive session, closed to other residents. You can request in writing that it be held publicly, and the board must then conduct it publicly.⁸

Fines are capped by statute. Unless the violation poses an imminent threat to health, safety, or welfare, the association cannot fine you more than $100 per violation, and no more than $1,000 total per hearing.⁷ The fine must also be proportional to the severity of the violation. And you must have received written notice of the specific rule at least 30 days before the alleged violation occurred. An HOA that fines you for a rule it never gave you notice of has not met its legal burden.

What Your HOA Cannot Restrict

Several state and federal laws override HOA authority in ways that come up constantly in Nevada communities.

Flags and Political Signs

Your HOA cannot prohibit you from flying the American flag or the Nevada state flag anywhere within the portion of the community you have exclusive use of, provided the flag is made of cloth, fabric, or paper and displayed from a pole, staff, or window. The association can adopt reasonable rules on placement and manner, but an outright ban is unenforceable, and if you have to sue to enforce this right, you can recover attorney’s fees.

Political signs get similar protection. You can display any number of political signs in your exclusive-use area, one per candidate, party, or ballot question, each 24 by 36 inches or smaller. If you rent your unit out, you cannot post political signs without your tenant’s written consent.

Satellite Dishes and Antennas

The FCC’s Over-the-Air Reception Devices (OTARD) rule is a federal regulation that preempts any HOA restriction unreasonably delaying, preventing, or increasing the cost of installing a satellite dish or antenna. It covers dishes one meter or smaller, antennas for broadcast television, and certain fixed wireless antennas. Reasonable placement rules are allowed; blanket bans and rules that block signal reception are not.⁹ Complaints go directly to the FCC.

Accessibility, Security, and Energy Modifications

Nevada law protects your right to add accessibility features such as ramps and railings, additional locks for security, and shutters for security or energy efficiency, even when the CC&Rs are silent or hostile.¹⁰ Wind energy systems are protected if your unit sits on two or more acres, though you need written consent from every property owner within 300 feet of your boundary.

Architectural Approval for Everything Else

Outside the categories the law protects, you cannot change the exterior of your unit or any common element without the association’s permission. Paint colors, fencing, landscaping, roofing materials, structural additions. Most associations require you to submit plans to an architectural review committee before starting work, and skipping that step is a reliable way to be ordered to tear out your changes at your own expense.¹⁰

Board decisions on these applications cannot be arbitrary or capricious. If the board approves one neighbor’s fence design and rejects yours under identical circumstances, that inconsistency can be challenged.² Before you submit, ask for the association’s written architectural guidelines. Proposals that clearly align with published standards are much harder to reject.

Maintenance: Who Fixes What

The association maintains, repairs, and replaces the common elements: roads, sidewalks, pools, clubhouses, landscaping, shared building components. Each homeowner maintains their own unit.¹¹ Your CC&Rs can shift some responsibilities, so read them carefully. Exterior walls, roofing, and drainage systems that straddle the line between units and common areas are frequent sources of friction.

When a dispute arises over who is responsible for a particular repair, check the CC&Rs first. If the documents are ambiguous, get a written determination from the board before spending your own money on something the association should be covering.

Meetings, Elections, and Recall

The association must hold at least one meeting of all homeowners each year.¹² Special meetings can be called by the president, a majority of the board, or homeowners representing at least 10 percent of the voting membership.

Board elections must be conducted by secret ballot, on paper or electronically. At least 30 days before ballots are prepared, the association must notify every homeowner of their eligibility to run. Once ballots go out, you get at least 15 days to return yours, and no quorum is required for the election to be valid.¹³

Board members can be recalled with or without cause. A recall requires at least 35 percent of all voting members to participate, and a majority of those voting must favor removal.¹⁴

Executive board meetings must also be open to homeowners. The board must post an agenda in advance and allow homeowner comment at the beginning and end of each meeting. Minutes and audio recordings of open meetings must be made available to any homeowner who requests them.¹⁵

Resolving a Dispute With Your HOA

Nevada requires you to try to resolve things before suing. Under NRS 38.310, you cannot file a lawsuit over the interpretation or enforcement of CC&Rs, bylaws, rules, or assessment procedures until the dispute has been submitted to mediation. You also have to exhaust any internal procedures spelled out in the governing documents. A judge will dismiss a lawsuit filed without those steps.¹⁶

If informal resolution fails, file a complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman for Owners in Common-Interest Communities, part of the Nevada Real Estate Division. The Ombudsman investigates, provides informal mediation, and can refer matters for formal proceedings before the Commission for Common-Interest Communities.¹⁷

The Commission can order the violator to stop the conduct, require corrective action, impose administrative fines of up to $1,000 per violation, remove a board member from office for knowing and willful violations, and require the violator to pay the Division’s investigation costs and attorney’s fees. Each day of noncompliance with a Commission order counts as a separate violation.

Selling Your Home

If you sell in a Nevada HOA community, you must provide the buyer with a resale package at your expense. The package must include the CC&Rs, bylaws, and current rules; a statement of the monthly assessment and any unpaid obligations on your account, including fines, collection costs, and attorney’s fees; the current operating budget and year-to-date financial statement with a reserve summary; disclosure of any pending lawsuits against the association; and a description of all transfer fees.¹⁸

The association can charge you a preparation fee, capped at $185. If you need the documents faster than three business days, the association can charge an additional expedite fee of up to $100. Both caps increase annually by no more than 3 percent, tied to the Consumer Price Index.¹⁸ Order the package early in your listing process so it does not hold up your closing.

1
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 116.31065 – Rules
2
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 116.3102 – Powers of Units’ Owners’ Association
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Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 116.3115 – Assessments for Common Expenses
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Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 116.31151 – Annual Distribution to Units’ Owners of Operating and Reserve Budgets
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Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 116.31152 – Study of Reserves
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Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 116.3116 – Liens Against Units for Assessments
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Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 116.31031 – Power of Executive Board to Impose Fines and Other Sanctions
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Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 116.31085 – Right of Units’ Owners to Speak at Certain Meetings
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eCFR. 47 CFR 1.4000 – Restrictions Impairing Reception of Television Broadcast Signals, Direct Broadcast Satellite Services, or Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Services
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Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 116.2111 – Alterations of Units
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Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 116.3107 – Upkeep of Common-Interest Community
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Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 116.3108 – Meetings of Units’ Owners
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Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 116.31034 – Election of Members of Executive Board
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Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code NRS 116.31036 – Removal of Member of Executive Board
15
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 116.31083 – Meetings of Executive Board
16
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 38.310 – Limitations on Commencing Civil Actions
17
Nevada Department of Business & Industry. Homeowners Association Complaints
18
Nevada Legislature. Nevada Code 116.4109 – Resales of Units