When a homeowners’ association tells you that a rule is mandatory, enforceable, or backed by the state, most homeowners assume something important: that the rule was created through a lawful, transparent process.
In Nevada, that assumption is supposed to be correct.
When a state agency writes regulations—especially regulations that affect homeowners, HOAs, fines, disputes, or enforcement—the agency does not get to make them up as it goes. Nevada law requires the agency to follow a specific, step-by-step process designed to protect the public. That process exists to ensure fairness, transparency, and accountability.
That law is called the Administrative Procedure Act, or APA.
The APA exists for a simple reason. State agencies are not the Legislature. They do not have free-standing authority to create binding rules unless they do so in the exact way the Legislature has authorized. The process matters because it determines whether the public has notice, whether there are clear standards, and whether decisions are made according to rules rather than discretion.
Here is the part most homeowners never hear.
Before an agency can adopt new regulations, the APA requires it to first adopt the rules that explain how rulemaking itself works. These are the agency’s procedural rules—rules that explain how proposals are submitted, how petitions are reviewed, how issues get placed on agendas, and how decisions are made and announced. Without those procedures, there is no clear or lawful process.
At the Nevada Real Estate Division (NRED), the agency that oversees homeowners’ associations, those foundational procedures have never been adopted. Yet NRED has continued to advance substantive regulations affecting HOAs and homeowners anyway. And the Commission for Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels (CICCH)—the body that must approve those regulations before they become final—has allowed that process to move forward.
This is not about whether a particular HOA rule is good or bad. It is not about politics or policy preferences. It is about something more basic: rules being imposed on homeowners through a process that never followed the rules required by law.
The APA Assumes Procedure Comes First
Nevada law does not leave this to agency discretion. NRS 233B.050(1) requires that each agency adopt regulations prescribing the procedures for the adoption, amendment, or repeal of regulations. These are not internal guidelines or informal staff practices. They are the public-facing rules that explain how rulemaking is initiated, how participation occurs, how submissions are evaluated, and how decisions are made.
The statute also requires agencies to adopt and make available their “rules of practice”—the regulations that describe the nature and requirements of the agency’s formal and informal proceedings. These rules are essential. They tell the public what process applies, what standards govern agency action, and how matters before the agency are resolved.
The statutory design is straightforward: first, adopt procedural rules; then, conduct substantive rulemaking within that framework.
NRED Has Not Adopted Required Procedural Regulations
After reviewing the regulatory chapters administered by NRED—including NAC 116, NAC 116A, NAC 119, NAC 119A, NAC 645, and related chapters—I have not been able to locate any regulation that prescribes agency-specific rulemaking procedures for either the Division or the Commission itself.
Nor do there appear to be adopted “rules of practice” as contemplated by NRS 233B.050. I have requested these rules from the Division. None have been provided. While the Division has not formally confirmed their absence, no such regulations have been identified, cited, or made available.
That omission is consequential. Without adopted procedural regulations, there is no clear legal framework governing how agency actions are initiated, processed, or decided. That gap is not cured by custom, staff practice, or institutional familiarity. The APA requires regulations, not habits.
The Petition Problem
Between July and September of this year, multiple petitions under NRS 233B.100 were submitted. (The complete list can be found here) To date, none have been noticed for consideration, scheduled for review, or processed under any identifiable procedure. Although the petitions appear in the Commission’s December 2025 meeting materials under the heading “Workshop Submission,” they did not appear on any agenda for discussion or action.
What remains in limbo is not abstract. These petitions address core questions that shape everyday life in a common-interest community—and they mirror the issues homeowners most frequently raise when they contact the Division, attend Commission meetings, or seek help resolving disputes. They include petitions concerning who is eligible to serve on an HOA board and how conflicts of interest are evaluated; when declarant control is legally required to end, and whether boards must use competitive bidding and fair procurement practices when spending association funds.
Other pending petitions seek clarity on transparency after Division investigations, including what information homeowners are entitled to see once an enforcement matter is closed. Still others address how meetings are defined and conducted—whether “workshops” are subject to open-meeting requirements, when virtual-only meetings are permissible, and whether boards may approve association business through email outside of noticed meetings.
There are also petitions addressing election fairness, including whether board candidates are entitled to reasonable access to owner email lists so that elections are contested on equal footing rather than controlled by incumbents. These are not edge cases or theoretical disputes. They are the subjects that consistently generate complaints, frustration, and abandonment because homeowners cannot obtain clear answers or timely decisions.
These topics also align closely with the categories that dominate Ombudsman complaint reporting year after year—governance conflicts, elections, meetings, transparency, and board accountability—underscoring that the issues stuck in procedural limbo are the very ones homeowners most often seek state intervention to resolve.
None of these issues has been accepted or rejected. None has been scheduled for deliberation. None has received a written determination. Instead, they exist in a procedural void—acknowledged enough to be listed in meeting materials, but never advanced to the point where the Commission must act. That outcome is not the result of discretion exercised under clear rules. It is the predictable consequence of having no rules of practice at all.
The Commission Is Not a Bystander
This procedural failure cannot be laid at the Division’s feet alone. The CICCH is the body charged with reviewing and approving regulations before they are forwarded for final adoption. It is not merely advisory. By statute, the Commission is the final policy gatekeeper in this regulatory chain. As such, it bears independent responsibility to ensure that regulations brought before it are lawfully promulgated and procedurally sound.
I raised this issue directly with the Commission at its most recent quarterly meeting. The concern was not abstract. It was specific and structural: how can the Commission approve substantive regulatory amendments when the agency has not adopted the procedural regulations and rules of practice that the APA requires as a predicate to lawful action?
That question goes to the Commission’s own obligations. Approving regulations under these circumstances does not cure the defect—it institutionalizes it.
When Defense Replaces Compliance
When this procedural defect was brought directly to the Commission’s attention at that December 2025 meeting, the issue was not corrected or deferred for resolution. Instead, the Attorney General’s Office defended the Division’s ongoing rulemaking posture, notwithstanding the absence of adopted procedural regulations and rules of practice required by NRS 233B.050.
The Attorney General’s participation does not alter the Commission’s obligations. While the Attorney General’s Office represents the Division and may defend its actions when concerns are raised, the CICCH is not relieved of its independent statutory responsibility as the body charged with reviewing and approving regulations. The Commission cannot delegate compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act to counsel, nor can it rely on litigation-style advocacy as a substitute for statutory prerequisites. When the absence of required procedural regulations is raised on the record, the Commission’s duty is not to accept assurances, but to ensure that the legal conditions for lawful rulemaking are actually met before further action is taken.
Key Point
The Attorney General’s defense did not cure NRED’s APA violation—it institutionalized it by substituting advocacy for the procedural compliance the law requires.
Why This Matters for Current Rulemaking
The same procedural vacuum that necessitated the petitions now surrounds ongoing substantive rulemaking. Without adopted procedures, there is no defined standard governing agenda placement, public participation, evaluation of proposals, or the form and timing of agency decisions.
What results is not just confusion, but concentrated discretion—where process is improvised internally while the public is left without clear rights or expectations. That is precisely the imbalance the APA was enacted to prevent.
Structural, Not Technical, Noncompliance
This is not a minor oversight or a technical defect. The APA’s procedural requirements are the Legislature’s safeguard against arbitrary agency action. They are what transform regulation from an internal administrative exercise into a lawful public process.
Proceeding without those rules reverses the statutory design. It leaves homeowners and other regulated parties in procedural limbo while substantive authority is exercised without a lawful foundation—and with the Commission’s approval.
The Request Is Simple—and Required by Law
In light of these circumstances, I have requested an explanation. I have asked the Commission to identify the status of pending petitions and to outline the process that will be followed for their disposition.
More fundamentally, before the CICCH approves further substantive regulations, it must insist that NRED do what the Legislature required years ago: adopt the procedural regulations and rules of practice that NRS 233B presumes.
Nevada homeowners—and the public at large—are entitled not just to regulation, but to lawful regulation adopted through a process the law actually authorizes.
