The HOA Access-to-Counsel Problem
- Mike Kosor
- Aug 18
- 6 min read
One of the questions I am asked most often by Nevada HOA owners is simple: “Can you recommend a lawyer?” Unfortunately, I rarely have a good answer.
Nevada HOA law assumes homeowners can enforce the rights the Legislature gives them. That assumption depends on something rarely discussed: Can an owner actually find qualified counsel willing to take the case?
HOA law is specialized. It involves statutes, regulations, governing documents, election rules, records rights, fines, collections, architectural controls, and administrative procedures. An owner often does not simply need a lawyer. The owner needs a lawyer who understands HOA law.
And there are very few experienced attorneys willing to represent homeowners in these disputes. That is where the system begins to fail.
The Lawyers Who Know HOA Law Usually Work for the Other Side
There is an obvious economic reason. An association can be a client for years. A management company may provide access to numerous associations. An insurer, developer or collection operation may generate recurring matters.
The vast majority of attorneys who regularly practice HOA law represent associations, boards, managers, collection interests, insurers, developers, or other industry participants—often exclusively.
The typical homeowner has one dispute. That creates a legal market in which the lawyers most familiar with HOA law are disproportionately concentrated on the institutional side.
But there is a second issue that deserves greater attention.
What Business Does HOA Enforcement Generate?
Association counsel may do considerably more than answer an occasional legal question for a board. Depending upon the firm and association, legal work can include:
General counsel. Advising boards about meetings, elections, records, governing documents, contracts and statutory compliance.
Enforcement. Preparing violation letters, interpreting governing documents, advising hearing committees and boards, and pursuing enforcement against owners.
Collections. Demands for delinquent assessments, liens, collection proceedings and related legal work.
Foreclosure. Advising or participating in collection matters that can ultimately threaten an owner's home.
Litigation. Defending associations when owners sue and bringing claims on behalf of associations against owners.
Insurance work. Defending covered association or board claims and interacting with insurers concerning litigation.
Governing-document work. Drafting amendments, rules, enforcement policies and other documents that can later become the subject of disputes with owners.
Developer and management interests. Some firms also work within the broader HOA industry, representing developers, declarants, managers or other institutional participants.
And lawyers active in this field may also participate in legislative and regulatory advocacy concerning the laws and procedures governing HOA disputes.
None of that establishes misconduct. But it creates an economic reality Nevada policymakers should acknowledge: the more HOA disputes are escalated into enforcement, collection, and litigation, the more legal work the system generates for the professionals who routinely represent associations.
When Conflict Produces Business
Association counsel represents the association, not the individual directors serving on the board. But the board decides when the association seeks legal advice, whether that advice is followed, and whether additional legal services are authorized. The owners collectively pay the bill.
Consider how that relationship can work in an owner dispute.
A board seeks legal advice about an owner’s conduct or an owner’s challenge to board authority. Counsel advises the board on how to respond.
That advice may resolve the issue. But an important economic question remains: Is the incentive to recommend the least-cost reasonable resolution for the association and its owners, or the course that is most protective of the board’s position—even if that leads to additional notices, hearings, enforcement, collection activity, or further legal consultation?
If the owner disputes the association’s position, counsel will likely be asked to defend the advice already given, interpret additional governing documents, respond to correspondence, participate in hearings or ADR, pursue collection or enforcement remedies, or litigate- all generating billings.
One HOA dispute can therefore generate legal work at almost every stage.
That does not mean lawyers manufacture disputes. Nor does it mean association lawyers should not vigorously represent their client.
It means something more basic. The same system that relies heavily on association counsel to advise how a dispute should be handled can financially reward continued reliance on counsel when the dispute continues.
That structural incentive deserves attention because counsel’s client is the association—the collective body of owners—not the individual directors whose decisions may have created or prolonged the dispute.
A dispute-resolution system heavily dependent on lawyers inevitably creates economic beneficiaries from that dependence. That should matter when Nevada considers whether owners really need better access to lawyers—or whether they need a system that requires lawyers less often.
The Potential Conflict in HOA Reform
This becomes particularly important when attorneys and other HOA industry representatives participate in shaping the legislation and regulations governing owner remedies.
Association attorneys have valuable expertise. Policymakers should hear from them. But policymakers should also recognize that reforms can affect the economic structure of the legal market itself.
Consider reforms that would:
resolve disputes earlier;
require a neutral administrative merits determination;
bring governing-document disputes within administrative review;
provide clearer statutory standards;
reduce unnecessary enforcement and collection escalation;
require meaningful regulatory enforcement; or
allow owners to obtain inexpensive decisions without filing lawsuits.
Those reforms could benefit both owners and associations by reducing unnecessary conflict and legal expense. They could also reduce the amount of legal work generated by HOA disputes.
That does not disqualify association counsel from participating in the policy debate. Their experience can be useful and important. But it does mean policymakers should distinguish between what best protects the existing association-side legal model and what best serves associations and their owners. Those interests are not necessarily the same.
“You Can Sue” Is Not an Owner Remedy
Nevada's current system frequently pushes disputes out of administrative enforcement and toward private ADR or litigation when the issue is characterized as involving governing documents rather than NRS 116 itself.
For most homeowners, that distinction means little. The association may still be exercising power over the owner's home, money, voting rights, records, speech or use of property.
Yet the practical answer can become: Hire a lawyer. But that is not meaningful protection for many owners. The association already has counsel and normally pays that counsel with association funds—including money contributed by the very homeowner challenging the association. The homeowner must locate specialized counsel, pay personally and accept the possibility of substantial litigation expense and fee exposure.
A statutory right that depends upon that system is a right many homeowners cannot realistically exercise.
Nevada Needs Less Dependence on Lawyers
The answer is not simply to find more lawyers willing to represent homeowners. The better answer is to reduce the number of HOA disputes that require lawyers in the first place. Nevada should provide owners and associations an early, affordable and neutral merits determination before a dispute becomes litigation.
That is not a new idea. For years, HOA reform efforts have sought to create a meaningful, low-cost process in which an independent decision-maker actually addresses the merits of an owner-association dispute before the parties are pushed into court. Those proposals have repeatedly met resistance from association-industry attorneys and other industry representatives.
NVHOAReform has been making this case for years. The Coalition has repeatedly proposed replacing Nevada’s current procedural hurdles with an early, neutral merits determination and reducing the extraordinary financial risk owners face when enforcement depends on private litigation. Those proposals have repeatedly encountered opposition from association-industry representatives, including attorneys whose practices operate within the existing dispute system.
That history matters. A system that resolves disputes earlier and more cheaply benefits owners and can reduce association legal expenses. But it also reduces the amount of legal work generated when disputes instead move through demand letters, ADR, enforcement proceedings and litigation.
None of that means industry lawyers oppose reform simply to protect legal fees. But policymakers should recognize the economic structure surrounding the debate.
The people arguing about how much lawyers should be required in the HOA dispute system include professionals whose businesses benefit when that system requires lawyers.
Nevada should judge reform by a different question:
What dispute process gives owners and associations the earliest, fairest and least expensive opportunity to obtain a neutral decision on the merits?
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This Reform Has a History
Readers interested in how NVHOAReform's dispute-resolution proposal developed can review these earlier articles:
The proposed alternative: an early, inexpensive merits determination rather than forcing owners toward litigation.
Why potential attorney-fee liability can deter homeowners from enforcing statutory rights.
Dispute Resolution (ADR) Reform Must Be a Legislative Priority — September 2025
Why Nevada's existing ADR process needs structural—not cosmetic—reform.
Nevada’s HOA System Remains “Unfinished” — September 2025
The larger problem created by rights without an effective enforcement mechanism.
What Nevada Missed in HOA Dispute Reform—Time to Finish the Job — December 2025
Why prior legislative changes failed to provide owners a meaningful low-cost merits decision.
How mandatory procedures can create the appearance of dispute resolution without actually deciding who is right.
The common thread has remained the same: owners should not need tens of thousands of dollars and specialized counsel simply to obtain a neutral answer about whether their HOA acted lawfully.
