HOA Harassment
“Protection” Turned Into Another HOA Power Imbalance: Nevada Has the Roles Backwards
Nevada law specifically prohibits harassment in homeowners associations. That sounds like a significant protection. But it is far from it- arguably the opposite. And that is where this important story begins.
Introduction
This one goes a little deeper than most recent Nevada HOA Reform posts—but please stay with it. Harassment is a core owner issue showing its head today. Tomorrow may bring another.
The larger owner issue is the process increasingly shaping Nevada HOA governance: an industry with substantial influence over the rules, regulators that too often decline to resolve difficult questions about association authority, and a system that seems far more capable of creating new avenues for boards than meaningful remedies for owners.
Nevada’s treatment of HOA “harassment” provides a revealing example. An owner who says a board member is harassing them under Nevada’s specific HOA harassment law will find that NRED cannot enforce that law. Yet an HOA may be able to accuse the owner of harassment, decide the accusation itself, and potentially use Nevada’s new health, safety and welfare (HSW) framework to impose extraordinary financial consequences.
How Nevada arrived at that result takes a little explaining. The history matters because it exposes something larger than harassment: how regulatory imbalance can become embedded in the system itself.
What Nevada Law Says
NRS 116.31184 applies to community managers, association employees and agents, board members, owners, tenants and guests. It prohibits willful conduct without legal authority that threatens, harasses or otherwise engages in a course of conduct causing harm or serious emotional distress, reasonable apprehension of such harm or distress, or a hostile environment. Violation is a misdemeanor.
What follows is what most HOA owners probably do not know—even as owners are currently being fined by their associations for conduct labeled “harassment.” [1]
When Nevada defined the violations its HOA regulator may investigate and enforce, the Legislature did something unusually specific: It singled out NRS 116.31184—the HOA harassment statute—and expressly excluded it. Not as part of a category of criminal offenses. Not as part of some broad group of conduct. The statute itself. Specifically.
NRS 116.745 continues to define an enforceable Chapter 116 violation as a violation of Chapter 116 “except NRS 116.31184.”
An association may accuse an owner of harassment and “discipline” that owner under its governing documents—documents that, by the way, are not reviewed and approved by Nevada regulators before becoming binding on owners who purchase into the community. But an owner alleging that a board member, manager or other covered person violated Nevada’s actual HOA harassment statute cannot take that statutory violation through NRED’s ordinary Chapter 116 enforcement process.
That power imbalance becomes even more troubling when we look at how we got here.
The Reach Of Administrative Enforcement Was Deliberate
NRS 116.31184 came from AB 395 in 2013. The same legislation that created the harassment prohibition also specifically excluded it from the definition of a Chapter 116 “violation” subject to the administrative enforcement system. That exclusion was therefore not some later oversight or bureaucratic interpretation. It was part of the statutory structure from the beginning.
And the legislative discussion itself exposed why harassment presents a very different problem from an ordinary HOA violation. Lawmakers discussed the reality that HOA disputes can involve passionate and heated exchanges and questioned when one person’s perception of intimidation or bullying crosses the line into legally prohibited conduct.
That concern remains important today. Harassment is heavily dependent on context and perception. Was the communication threatening—or forceful criticism? Was persistence harassment—or an owner repeatedly trying to get an answer? Was an angry exchange intimidating—or simply an unpleasant disagreement? Was someone genuinely being threatened—or did they simply strongly dislike what was being said? Were ulterior motives at play?
Those judgments are considerably more subjective than deciding whether a fence exceeds a height restriction or whether a home was painted an unapproved color. Nevada nevertheless made harassment a misdemeanor. But it did not give the HOA administrative enforcement system authority to adjudicate violations of that statute.
There was good reason for that. It created a meaningful boundary.
The HOA Industry Tried to Move That Boundary
Ten years later, SB 417 sought to change it.
No one can reasonably deny that the temperature surrounding HOA governance has been rising, and it needs to be addressed. Owner frustration has increased. Board members, managers and association attorneys report increasingly hostile encounters with some owners. But the source of that heat is not necessarily as one-sided as the proposed response suggested. It also raises a larger question: Is Nevada even pointed in the right direction in how it responds to that rising tension?
As introduced in 2023, Section 3 of SB 417 would have deleted the specific exclusion of NRS 116.31184 from NRS 116.745. In practical terms, alleged violations of the harassment statute could then have entered NRED’s administrative enforcement system.Testimony supporting SB 417 focused openly on alleged increases in harassment, violence and threats directed at people who work for, manage or volunteer with associations. Representatives supporting the proposal—overwhelmingly industry participants—argued that additional protection was needed.[2]
Owners saw something very different. Opposition testimony warned of the existing power imbalance between owners and associations and of giving the HOA regulatory system additional authority over allegations as subjective as harassment.
The proposal did not survive. The harassment provision was stripped from SB 417 before final passage, leaving NRS 116.31184 outside NRED’s administrative enforcement system. In full disclosure, I was deeply involved in opposing that portion of SB 417. To me, the problem was straightforward: giving the HOA enforcement machinery greater power to act on something as subjective and easily weaponized as “harassment” created an obvious risk that the label could be turned against owners challenging those in control.
At end, the Legislature ultimately left the original boundary in place.
But What About Harassment by the Board?
Lost in much of this debate is the other side of NRS 116.31184. The statute does not merely protect directors and managers from owners. It also applies to directors, managers and association personnel themselves. Yet an owner who believes one of those people has violated NRS 116.31184 still cannot ask NRED to investigate that statutory violation through its ordinary enforcement process.
That creates a peculiar imbalance. The owner is told, in effect: The harassment statute exists, but NRED cannot enforce it for you. At the same time, associations have long used provisions in their own governing documents dealing with harassment, nuisance, interference and similar conduct as grounds to fine owners.
And there is another part of this statutory structure that deserves added owner attention.
One Owner Can Potentially Take Another Owner to Court
NRS 116.31184 expressly reaches owner-to-owner conduct. And NRS 116.4117 provides that, subject to its requirements, a unit owner may bring a civil action against another unit owner for failure or refusal to comply with Chapter 116. So while a harassment violation is a misdemeanor, an allegation involving one owner and another may also find its way into private civil litigation under Chapter 116. To be fair, NRS 116.4117 requires actual damages, but that does not eliminate the practical burden of defending a civil claim once filed and contested.
That deserves attention because it changes the practical dynamics enormously. Criminal enforcement depends upon law enforcement, prosecutors and the criminal justice system. Private civil litigation can be initiated by the owner claiming injury. And once the dispute moves into civil court, resources begin to matter—a lot.
Who can afford an attorney? Who can withstand discovery, depositions and motion practice? Who can absorb years of litigation? Who can risk tens of thousands of dollars—or considerably more—to prove that an unpleasant confrontation was harassment, or that it was not?
Nevada kept NRED out of the harassment determination. But that did not necessarily keep harassment disputes out of adjudication. It may instead have pushed some of them toward the most expensive adjudicatory system available: private civil litigation.
And there, resources can shape what happens long before a judge or jury ever reaches the merits.
That should sound familiar to HOA owners. Nevada may provide rights on paper, but a right that requires substantial personal resources to enforce—or defend against—can look very different in the real world. And now Nevada has added another layer.
Enter Health, Safety and Welfare
During the 2026 HSW rulemaking, CAI’s Nevada Legislative Action Committee submitted proposed language allowing HOA boards to treat harassment, serious emotional distress and a hostile environment as an HSW violation.
The law (NRS 116.31031) permits substantially different treatment of a governing-document violation when the violation poses an imminent threat of causing a substantial adverse effect on the health, safety or welfare of owners or residents. R091-25 before the CIC Commission for a second time, this round lasting nearly a year, was supposed to establish criteria for making that determination. The published version taken into the September 9, 2026 adoption hearing included criteria such as:
failure to exercise reasonable care;
intentional, willful or malicious interference with the use or enjoyment of a dwelling or common element;
willful or grossly negligent destruction or damage;
violations of certain housing, health or safety laws; and
substantially similar conduct directly, immediately or actually endangering an owner, resident or invitee.
But the version apparently approved by the CIC Commission did not preserve meaningful criteria for making the very determination the Legislature expressly directed the Commission to regulate.
Think for a moment about just two of those phrases- both raised before the Commission: failure to exercise reasonable care and substantially similar conduct. Both are extraordinarily broad concepts to place in the hands of a volunteer board—especially absent clear criteria—for deciding whether an owner’s conduct qualifies for HSW treatment. The first can reach a vast range of alleged behavior. The second invites comparison to whatever conduct the board already believes fits the rule.
And the story gets more troubling.
The Published Regulation Contained Additional Guardrails
The version of R091-25 presented to the public before the September 9 adoption hearing contained another subsection directing boards to consider additional circumstances before making the HSW determination. Those provisions supplied important limiting criteria for deciding when speech or criticism could properly be treated as an HSW violation. Then, during the September 9 adoption proceeding—after the public had been given the published text on which to comment—the Commission materially changed Section 2 and deleted that subsection.
The Commission then approved the regulation as changed. As of this writing, the Nevada Register continues to identify R091-25 as the published revised text, and NRED’s September meeting page continues to link the R091-25 adoption material, while the materially changed text approved at the hearing has not yet appeared as a new LCB revised draft.
That procedure is the subject of a separate objection we at NVHOAReform have raised. But for purposes of harassment and this post, what matters here is the result: the Commission approved a broader HSW standard after deleting safeguards that had appeared in the regulation presented to the public. That may soon be the law.
That brings us directly back to who gets to apply that standard?
The Alleged Victim Is Also Prosecutor and Judge
Suppose an owner repeatedly challenges directors at meetings, sends numerous emails, questions association counsel, publishes criticism, demands records or accuses directors of misconduct. Or suppose the owner confronts someone hired by the association—a landscaper, administrative employee, security worker or contractor performing work outside the owner’s home—in a manner the board considers inappropriate. (These are real occurrence HSW fines have been used- not hypotheticals)
The directors consider that behavior excessive, hostile or intimidating. The association has a governing-document provision prohibiting harassment, nuisance or interference—as many associations do. Those same directors hold a “hearing” and decide the owner violated HOA rules deeming the conduct rises to an HSW violation.
Think about that arrangement. The people who say they were harassed are the people deciding whether harassment occurred and how much the alleged harasser should pay. Incredibly, Nevada’s HOA system allows the alleged victim to become prosecutor, judge and collector of the fine—provided the alleged victim is the board. That should concern anyone who cares about even the appearance of due process.
Harassment Is Not an Architectural Violation
Whether a fence is too tall can be measured. Whether an architectural application was approved can usually be documented. Whether someone has been “harassed” is very different. Context matters. Intent matters. Frequency matters. Tone matters. The relationship between the parties matters. And protected criticism matters.
That does not mean genuine harassment should be tolerated. It should not. It means allegations carrying potentially severe financial consequences—including consequences that can ultimately threaten an owner’s home—deserve a decision-making process capable of distinguishing genuine misconduct from criticism, political opposition, personality conflict and persistent efforts to hold an association accountable. Think about that consequence. Even a criminal conviction for harassment would not ordinarily put a person’s home directly at risk. Yet an HOA’s civil enforcement machinery can ultimately do just that.
A volunteer board—particularly one whose own members claim to be the targets—is a very poor tribunal for making that distinction.
This Was Not the Policy Nevada Intended
The history raises a larger and uncomfortable question: Was NRS 116.31184—and now the recent approval of Nevada’s HSW regulation—at least partly an appeasement of the industry’s dominant lobbying interests? From both the path Nevada has taken and the imbalance it has produced, it certainly appears that way to me.
In 2013, Nevada put an HOA harassment prohibition into law but simultaneously structured it so the State’s specialized HOA regulator could not enforce that particular provision. Ten years later, legislation sought to remove that limitation and give the administrative system greater power to pursue alleged harassment. Owners objected, and that provision did not become law. Now, in 2026, Nevada has approved an HSW framework that gives associations another path to characterize owner conduct as threatening, harmful, interfering or dangerous—and potentially attach much more serious financial consequences.
This question then becomes fair: Why does Nevada’s HOA regulator repeatedly respond to concerns advanced by the industry’s dominant lobbying interests about difficult owners, expanding association tools, while leaving owners with comparatively at best weak-or effectively nonexistent-remedy, when the misconduct runs the other direction?
There is also a more basic question. If harassment was sufficiently subjective and serious that Nevada specifically kept NRS 116.31184 outside NRED’s administrative enforcement system—and lawmakers declined an effort in 2023 to change that—why should volunteer directors now be entrusted with making substantially similar judgments when they themselves claim to be the victims?
As another election cycle approaches, lawmakers need to answer to owners why these one-sided outcomes have been allowed to continue on their watch without meaningful correction.
And Look at What Nevada Chooses to Act On
There is one final glaring contrast most owners may not recognize. On a long list of unresolved HOA-governance questions, NRED has not merely declined to provide the clear regulatory answers owners have sought—it has, in several instances, actively resisted efforts to obtain them. For example, the Coalition alone advanced multiple rulemaking petitions that still await formal disposition on recurring issues affecting owner rights and association authority. Yet on harassment and alleged owner misconduct, the regulatory machinery is doggedly pressing forward- despite lawmakers declining in 2023 to bring harassment into NRED’s administrative enforcement system. Nevada has now approved an HSW framework that gives associations another route to characterize owner conduct as threatening, harmful or dangerous.
That contrast deserves attention. When owners ask regulators to clarify limits on association power, the answer too often seems to be delay or silence. When industry interests seek additional tools to deal with owners, action somehow becomes possible. While in this instance, the result arguably moves in the opposite direction from the boundary the Legislature deliberately created—and then declined to remove.
Nevada Has the Roles Backwards
An owner says: “My board member is harassing me in violation of Nevada law.” NRED cannot investigate that alleged violation of NRS 116.31184 through its ordinary Chapter 116 enforcement process. The board says: “This owner is harassing us.” The association may pursue the owner under provisions it wrote .
__________________________
[1] Some associations already impose HSW fines even though NRS 116.31031 directs the Commission to establish the criteria and fine limitations governing those violations as still TBD. Until those standards exist, boards using extraordinary HSW enforcement are making those decisions without the regulatory guardrails the Legislature required. That may leave such fines vulnerable to challenge, particularly where the association cannot identify the standards it used to determine that the conduct qualified for HSW treatment or how the amount of the fine was justified. NRED also should have addressed that gap more directly rather than leaving owners and boards to operate in uncertainty while the required regulatory framework remained incomplete.
[2] NRS 116.745 defines “violation” for NRED/Commission enforcement and currently excludes NRS 116.31184. A separate civil remedy under NRS 116.4117 appears to exist independently because that statute reaches failure or refusal to comply with “any provision” of Chapter 116. Bringing harassment into NRS 116.745 therefore would not necessarily have created a new private right of action, but it could have substantially strengthened and formalized the pathway into private litigation by producing an administrative finding, record or enforcement decision that could later be relied upon in a civil case.
