By Mike Kosor, Founder of NVHOAReform
Lawmakers have all but given up on fixing HOAs. This blog explains why I firmly believe our last chance is the “reconstituted” CIC Task Force now in the works.
The Reputation Problem
For years, Nevada homeowners have asked lawmakers to fix the broken system that governs common-interest communities. And for just as long, lawmakers have shrugged.
The problem isn’t that they don’t know what’s wrong. It’s that three little letters — HOA — seem to make serious policymaking stop cold
Say “HOA,” and most lawmakers hear complaints about barking dogs, weeds, or paint colors. They picture petty disputes between cranky neighbors — not structural governance issues affecting over half of all Nevadans and billions of dollars in real property.
That reputation works to the industry’s advantage — and its pocketbook. Lobbyists portray HOAs as miniature private clubs and boards as harmless volunteers. They dominate many of these mini-governments we live under — and the halls in Carson City each legislative session.
Lawmakers come to see HOA disputes as trivial or self-inflicted — blind to the warning signs of a system tilted against ordinary homeowners.
Owners raise deep problems — boards misusing reserve funds, foreclosing over small debts, silencing critics with lawsuits, or locking them out of elections — while the regulator sits silent and lawmakers dismiss it all as “just an HOA thing.”
But there are signs the tide could be turning.
Governor Joe Lombardo has consistently framed accountability as a cornerstone of his administration.
“Accountability is always the key. Throughout my history in education, law enforcement, and as your governor, our constituents continually say we have to hold the schools [to] more accountability… Less money, more accountability,” he said on September 16 during his reelection campaign kickoff accordng to the Nevada Current.
That principle may now be extending to our biggest investment next to our children — our homes.
Kristopher Sanchez, one of Lombardo’s top cabinet members, claims to be finally pressing the issue.
Maybe — just maybe — a break in the logjam.
The Reality They Overlook
HOAs are not neighborhood hobby groups.
They are mandatory local governments in all but name, exercising taxing power (through assessments), regulatory power (through rules and fines), and even judicial power (through hearings and liens).
In many Nevada communities, they are all but unavoidable.
Boards — and at times self-serving developers who write the rules — wield that authority with almost no oversight. Yes, lawmakers require them to adopt budgets and hold open meetings. But when disputes arise, owners must enter a pay-to-play civil court system where everyone knows the deck is stacked against them.
Calling HOAs “contractual agreements” ranks up there with Santa Claus — yet that is how our civil courts are left to adjudicate them. And this is not kids’ stuff.
The Regulator Façade
As Deborah Goonan of Independent American Communities asks:
“Why are owners expected to comply with their contractual obligations, but HOAs are to be obeyed and paid in full and on time, even when they neglect their own obligations and fiduciary duties for homeowners?”
It’s a fair question — and nowhere does it ring truer than in Nevada.
The Nevada Real Estate Division (NRED) tasked to regulate HOAs, has been captured — bowing to the very industry powers it was meant to oversee. It audits almost nothing and requires that any evidence of HOA misconduct be built and handed to it by owners desperate for justice — only to quietly dispose of those complaints behind a manufactured wall of secrecy that shields the Division from accountability.
Consider this: a developer has controlled a Nevada community of more than 20,000 residents — a small city — for over 26 years, using its own wholly owned company to run daily operations and seating its senior employees as board directors. It’s all out in the open, and yet nothing is done, because it is all supposedly “legal.”
If that doesn’t prove the system is in desperate need of repair, what would? Where is the accountability?
Meanwhile, the Commission for Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels (CICCH Commission)--seven governor appointees’ tasked with adjudicating disputes, making rules, and generally overseeing the system-- has become little more than an industry rubber stamp. Tellingly, one of the commissioners occupying a so-called homeowner seat is the longtime manager of the aforementioned HOA that has remained under developer control for over 26 years.
It’s no wonder lawmakers are frustrated by the lack of effectiveness in a system that, on paper, once looked so promising.
And the cost is real: owners who try to challenge misconduct are forced into costly civil litigation, where boards are shielded by the owners' purses and “prevailing party” attorney fee clauses. Ordinary people face financial ruin just for asking a court to interpret the law.
Why Lawmakers Avoid It
Lawmakers know this is messy.
Fixing it would mean standing up to what may be Nevada’s most powerful industry bloc — developers, vested attorneys, management companies and a well-funded lobbying machine.
It would also mean admitting that the state’s multi-decade experiment with privatizing local governance has failed. Because let’s be honest: HOAs shift large amounts of infrastructure costs off public books.
The price has been widespread dysfunction, hidden taxes, and vanishing accountability.
Dissolving HOAs would be the nuclear option.
So instead, lawmakers avoid it. They toss out token reforms — tinkering with fines or meeting notices — while leaving the core system untouched.
It’s easier to laugh off HOAs as neighborhood squabbles than to admit Nevada handed governmental powers to private corporations with broken guardrails.
A Time When Lawmakers Tried a Reset
In 2019, Nevada lawmakers created the CIC Task Force, charging it to do what lawmakers themselves could not spare the time to do.
The Task Force was meant to review Nevada’s HOA laws in depth, give voice to all stakeholders — owners, managers, board members, and attorneys — and package their findings into well-crafted legislative proposals lawmakers could actually move.
It was born out of a recognition that what Nevada had envisioned two decades earlier had stalled and backslid— while also a statement of belief that Nevada could create a balanced HOA structure. A system where every participant, from owners to boards, stood on equal and fair footing.
The Task Force was supposed to finish what Nevada — under the leadership of state Senator Mike Schneider — had started at the turn of the century.
It never really got out of the starting blocks. Read more: Taming the beast that is HOAs- the CIC Task Force?
For more on how that effort stalled — and why Nevada’s HOA system remains stuck halfway built — see our article Nevada’s HOA System Remains “Unfinished.”
Sanchez Recognizes a Second Chance
Recently, I sat down with Dr. Kristopher Sanchez, Director of the Nevada Department of Business and Industry.
We’ve had a long-running exchange where I urged the CIC Task Force be reconstituted — and I am told, he is now in the process of doing just that.
The Task Force is due to be back up and running after its nearly four-year hiatus by mid-October. This time, according to Sanchez, it will make a difference.
It is a brave move given the certain backlash from powerful interest groups that like the status quo. It would be the first time in decades, the focus could shift from shielding the industry and regulator to holding them accountable.
In any case, this time it has to be different.
It cannot be a façade to rubber-stamp preordained political objectives. It must have real owner participation. It must truly seek to fix what ails the HOA system — a system having a real impact on our homes, neighborhoods, and financial lives.
So far, I like what I've heard from the Director.
Breaking the Stigma
For their part, lawmakers must stop treating “HOA” as a four-letter word — something too petty to touch.
They and our courts must recognize HOAs for what they are: quasi-governments wielding real power over real people, with real consequences when things go wrong.
That starts with listening to owners, not just industry lobbyists. It means funding enforcement, tightening financial oversight, and creating dispute resolution systems that regular people can actually use.
For years, homeowners have watched for real change that never comes. But accountability may have finally entered the conversation — and if Governor Joe Lombardo and Christopher Sanchez follow through, Nevada’s long-untouchable HOA system may soon face the overhaul and oversight it has escaped for decades.
Most of all, it means seeing HOAs not as nuisances — but as neighborhoods.
Because they are. And they deserve better.
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This article is part of the NVHOAReform.com series exploring how Nevada’s HOA system drifts further from public accountability — and how it can be fixed.
Readers may also be interested in:
Nevada Supreme Court Ignores the Law on HOA Disputes—Become Policy Makers In Robes
Nevada Knows Fee-Shifting Is Dangerous — But Uses It In HOAs
The Secrecy Wall: Regulator’s “Confidentiality” Undermines HOA Accountability and Trust
Nevada’s HOA System Remains “Unfinished”
Dispute resolution (ADR) reform must be a Legislative priority
For a complete list of our posts go here.
Go here for NVHOAReoform's current list of HOA Law Changes – Remedies for Consideration.
