Nevada’s system for governing common-interest communities is an unfinished masterpiece. Lawmakers began something ambitious in 2005, full of promise. But more than two decades later, homeowners are still living in areas sketched only in pencil. They feel the gaps — gaps the Common-Interest Community (CIC) Task Force was created to find and propose steps to close.
If the Task Force intends to do meaningful work for homeowners this year — something that is far from assured based on how the process has begun — it should start with a structural flaw in HOA governance that affects every homeowner, even if most only encounter it when something goes wrong.
In theory, homeowners have rights under their HOA’s governing documents. In practice, if a board ignores those documents but no one can show “actual damages,” there is often no realistic way to challenge the violation. The state’s ombudsman office has no jurisdiction. And Nevada law generally blocks civil lawsuits unless someone can prove actual harm.
It’s true that in many disputes, homeowners turn out to be mistaken — often because HOA governance is a maze of statutes, bylaws, rules, and decades-old documents that few people fully understand. In those situations, a straightforward explanation of what the rules actually require should be enough to end the conflict, even if the owner doesn’t like the answer.
Unfortunately, in too many HOAs, getting even that basic explanation can feel like pulling teeth. Instead, boards often default to legal counsel, incurring association expense and escalating tensions where a fast, neutral clarification could have resolved the issue early.
But when the owner is right, and the board is the one misapplying or ignoring the governing documents, what then?
Thousands of homeowners are governed by rules that can be misapplied, inconsistently enforced, or quietly reinterpreted — and unless you have deep pockets or political connections, there is effectively nowhere to go for meaningful help. That leaves ordinary homeowners out in the cold.
This isn’t a technical oversight, and it isn’t new. Lawmakers have been hearing versions of this problem for years — it’s a major reason the Task Force exists in the first place.
Outside the HOA world, this kind of power structure would raise immediate red flags.
In public governance, oversight doesn’t rely solely on the good behavior of the governing body itself. Independent watchdog agencies, inspectors general, ethics commissions, public records enforcement, and formal petition processes all exist to question and review government decisions. Whether the officials making those decisions — or the decisions themselves — comply with the law can ultimately be tested without the average resident risking financial ruin simply for asking.
In HOAs, most of those independent guardrails simply do not exist. The same board that adopts policies also interprets them, applies them, and defends them — often relying on internal legal advice that homeowners never see, and with few realistic avenues for outside review.
Compounding that lack of guardrails are contract-style fee-shifting provisions that don’t exist in public governance. When the law tries to balance power, it usually lets the weaker party recover fees — not the stronger party.
When “Go to Court” Isn’t a Real Option
Supporters of the status quo often say homeowners can seek declaratory or injunctive relief in court. Technically, maybe. Practically, it’s unrealistic.
Courts tend to see HOA governance disputes as minor neighborhood conflicts, even when the issues involve significant questions of authority and financial impact. And even trying to get clarity on something as basic as when a developer must turn over control of a community — or whether a board had authority to impose a large special assessment — can expose homeowners to devastating financial risk.
Prevailing-party attorney fee provisions, embedded in nearly every HOA’s governing documents, mean that if a homeowner loses, they may have to pay the association’s legal bills on top of their own. For most families, that risk alone makes court a non-starter.
When the formal dispute system carries the possibility of financial ruin, it isn’t really a remedy. It’s a deterrent.
Which raises an obvious question: What’s wrong with the American Rule — the system used in most civil courts, where each side pays its own legal fees?
And if the Task Force is serious about reform that actually changes the balance for homeowners, this is exactly the kind of issue it should be willing to take on.
So while Nevada’s system looks like it offers remedies on paper, in real life many disputes over what HOA documents actually mean simply go unresolved. The board’s interpretation stands — not because it’s right, but because there’s no affordable way to test it.
Nevada’s innovative use of the CIC Commission to adjudicate statutory disputes — taking them out of an ill-suited civil litigation system — must be used as a template to address governing document disputes as well. The Task Force should be looking at a straightforward solution: an administrative pathway, modeled on a declaratory judgment process, where homeowners and boards alike could receive fast, economically realistic, neutral determinations on governing document interpretations in non-damages disputes. The existing Referee Program could serve as the framework, with expanded authority.
Industry groups will likely argue that HOAs are private contracts and that government should stay out. That ship has sailed. Lawmakers have spent decades layering statutory requirements onto common-interest communities — regulating elections, budgets, reserves, disclosures, collections, and governance procedures. When government builds a system like this, it also assumes responsibility for ensuring what it has built is not used to unfairly trap or silence the very homeowners it was meant to protect.
That’s the first problem.
The Second Problem: Legal Advice Becomes Governance in Private
The second problem is less visible, but just as important: the growing use of confidential legal advice in everyday HOA governance.
HOA boards, like public bodies, rely on legal counsel. Treating that advice as confidential is appropriate when the goal is to protect the association’s legal position. But legal consultation in HOAs has increasingly moved into routine governance interpretation, where “protection” can begin to look less like shielding the association and more like insulating directors and their advisers from scrutiny by the very homeowners affected.
Discussions that once would have taken place in open meetings — debates over how governing documents or statutes should be interpreted — now occur in executive session simply by having counsel in the meeting. It opens the door to enforcing CC&Rs against owners and shaping governance policy in private.
Most homeowners already wonder who is really running their communities — the directors they elected, or the vendors contracted to provide management and legal services. When key interpretations of authority are developed behind closed doors and presented as settled legal conclusions, that question only becomes harder to dismiss.
Interpretations about how rules operate in a community can be shaped out of sight of the very homeowners those interpretations will bind. What avenue do owners have to petition to change a rule — or even an obsolete CC&R provision — short of something resembling a constitutional amendment process? The blending of governance power with private contract enforcement has serious downsides that deserve far more attention than they receive.
Power Without Outside Review
HOAs aren’t just social clubs. They exercise governance powers that look a lot like local government — rulemaking, enforcement, and internal decision-making that can lead to fines, liens, and even foreclosure.
But there’s a key difference.
Local governments make rules, but whether those rules comply with the law can be tested in courts that stand outside the governing body. In HOAs, the same structure that makes and enforces the rules also interprets its own authority — backed by confidential legal advice that homeowners never see.
That concentration of power makes accountability more important, not less.
Courts in the public arena recognize that government bodies can’t rely on legal advice as both a shield and a sword — invoking it to justify decisions while keeping it entirely beyond scrutiny. A similar fairness principle deserves discussion in the HOA context.
If a board’s answer to a homeowner challenge is essentially, “This is the rule because our lawyer says the law requires it,” that shouldn’t be the end of the story.
Governance Without a Gathering Place
At the same time, a trend that should be alarming to owners is reshaping HOA governance: the shift toward virtual-only meetings.
Technology can expand access and remote participation is a great addition. But when virtual meetings become the only option — with no physical location where homeowners can gather — something important is lost.
In-person meetings aren’t just about watching a board vote. They’re about neighbors seeing each other, sharing concerns, organizing around issues, and making their presence felt in a way that changes the tone of decision-making. Screens flatten that dynamic. Participation becomes controlled, timed, and managed. Virtual-only governance may be convenient, but it also reduces the visibility and collective presence that make public oversight real. That tradeoff favors the people already in power.
Owners should not have to form lobbying groups or something resembling unions just to have their collective voices heard by the people governing their own neighborhoods.
It’s true that many HOA meetings draw only a handful of attendees. But low routine turnout doesn’t mean the right to gather has lost its value. The ability to assemble in person becomes most important precisely when governance decisions cross a line and residents feel the need to show visible, collective concern.
When the only “assembly” allowed is a managed online comment queue at the screen, the balance between governed and governing shifts even further away from the people who live under the rules.
Will the Task Force Actually Listen?
That starts with bringing homeowners to the table in a meaningful way and asking them directly what they are experiencing. The industry voice is already clear and often the only one in the room, and it comprises much of the Task Force itself. But the Legislature created the Task Force with the expectation that homeowner perspectives would be actively sought and seriously considered.
So far, the public notice and meeting format have done little to make that possible. A five-day advance meeting notice and three minutes at the screen simply will not work as “listening” for most homeowners, especially on issues this complex and consequential. When the people most affected by HOA governance can’t materially participate, the process begins to look less like reform and more like maintenance of the status quo. If that continues, the Task Force’s credibility as a vehicle for homeowner-focused reform will rightly be questioned.
The Bigger Picture
This isn’t that HOA boards are bad and regularly make controversial decisions. If you are like many, lucky enough to have a good board and a healthy community, that’s great. But will it stay that way? Are the structural foundations strong?
This is about those select few who do not act in good faith — and a system where the mechanisms that normally keep governing power accountable are weak, inaccessible, or slowly eroding. When even a few pieces are missing, the masterpiece becomes hard to recognize.
Hope is not a strategy — or viable insurance — for what is likely your largest investment.
Lawmakers didn’t create Nevada’s CICCH Commission just to sit in judgment of violators. It was meant to roll up its sleeves — drawing on its judicial experience and the years of stakeholder, mostly homeowners, who appear before it seeking help —and address the many regulatory ambiguities that affect how communities are governed. The Task Force should acknowledge and quickly reinforce that role, which appears to have faded, and then focus its attention on the structure itself.
Right now, Nevada homeowners don’t have enough of either.
Continuing the Conversation
The issues raised here are structural, and reasonable people can disagree about how best to address them. That’s why this discussion shouldn’t end with one article.
In a companion post, we take up the most common objections to these reform ideas — from concerns about attorney-client privilege to questions about fee-shifting, government involvement, and virtual meetings — and respond to them directly.
If you’re wondering, “But what about…?” there’s a good chance it’s covered there.
Read next: “We’ve Heard the Pushback — Here’s Why HOA Reform Still Matters.”
