Surveys suggest that not all—arguably not even the majority—of HOA boards are viewed by owners as doing a poor job. Many associations function smoothly, and many board members volunteer their time with sincerity and fairness. But most HOA board considered acceptable is not good enough when you consider over half of all Nevadans live in them. The presence of well-functioning HOAs does not negate the growing dissatisfaction and structural risks that affect the broader system- nor importantly, does it immunize those current "good" HOAs into the future.
What fails to be capture, as explored in Dissatisfied-don’t look to regulatory complaints- is the large gap between private owner frustration and public complaints. So, what’s not working? This blog proposed two interrelated dynamics, the reform paradox, and where to look for fixes.
Part 1- Inexperience and the Governance Burden Dynamic
HOA board members are tasked with responsibilities that rival those of local governments. Without formal training or institutional support, even conscientious volunteers may:
Alienate owners, violate open meeting laws, or fail due process;
Rely heavily on attorneys or property managers (explored in Delegation of Authority) without understanding their fiduciary role;
Mismanage assessments, contracts, or reserve funds.
Beyond honest mistakes, many boards function in legal and procedural gray areas or advance vested agenda.
Common Gray Areas Boards Routinely Enter (and are exploitable)
Workshops and informal gatherings that evade open meeting laws; (explored in the blog Secret HOA Board meetings- “workshops”)
Email voting, can be used to improperly avoid public scrutiny; (explored in the blog Email Board approvals- an unguarded door to abuse)
Conflicts of interest, especially with long-term vendors or declarant-affiliated board members (Conflict-of-Interest Rules Ripe for Reform);
Virtual-only meetings, which limit owner participation post-COVID;
Three-bid rule avoidance, where procurement standards under NRS 116.31086 are inconsistently applied.
These practices (find more here) persist because consequences are rare, owners are not engaged, and the mechanisms meant to prevent abuse are either ignored or compromised a result of Nevada’s weak regulatory framework (Part 2). In addition, courts still treat HOAs as private corporations or contractual collectives—not as the quasi-governments they’ve become. This shifts enforcement responsibility to the very people most harmed: homeowners.
As detailed in Cost-Shifting HOA Justice: Time to Draw the Line, homeowners are forced to bear the cost of enforcing rights that exist on paper but remain inaccessible in practice.
When Personal Agendas Take Over
James Madison pointed out, “If men were angels there would be no need for government.” People are not transformed into angels when they buy into an HOA or become board members. Unfortunately, some board members seek office not to serve the community but to settle scores, silence critics, or push narrow interests. Without oversight, such conduct becomes normalized.
Selective enforcement benefits allies and punishes dissenters.
Abuse of executive session and operating in gray areas conceals board decisions from the membership.
Weaponization of defamation law has emerged, where boards or declarant’s sue owners for speaking out. As argued in Anti-SLAPP and HOA Governance, homeowners need legal protection for engaging in protected speech about community governance.
Part 2- Weak Oversight Creates A Damaging Circular Dynamic
Regulatory Oversight Lapses → Board Misconduct
Weak state oversight doesn’t just allow bad boards to misbehave—it creates the conditions explored in the post Owner apathy (not just a national problem) that feed and embolden insiders to tighten their grip leaving owners under assaults.
Nevada Real Estate Division (NRED) locks complaints in a vault, alleging it is doing its job but fights audits and oversights using a shield of confidentiality.
As explored in my letter and testimony before the CICCH Commission (explored in depth in the post Nevada HOA Commission Meeting Shows Why A Hard Reset Is Needed), I allege the Commission does little more than rubber-stamp what it is feed by NRED, boards, managers and counsel learn the same lesson every time: rules are flexible — consequences are not.
This isn’t a side-issue nor should it be dismissed as “typical bureaucratic stuff”. It is the engine driving the bulk of HOA issues in Nevada.
Misconduct → Owner Apathy
As owners’ concerns are ignored and meetings-both community and regulatory- become hollow formalities, they disengage. "Why bother?" becomes the norm.
Complaints that disappear into black boxes-regulatory-or ignored- community- discouraging future reporting and validating a false narrative oversight is effective.
Low turnout for HOA elections and participation at regulatory oversight meetings further entrenches the same leadership and their self-serving favored vendors.
Civic apathy isn’t just a national problem. HOA owner disengagement allows the dynamics of apathy to flourish. As described in Underreporting of HOA Dissatisfaction, low turnout and silence are often mistaken for approval. But the real result is:
Uncontested elections;
Entrenched power;
Rubber-stamp governance dominated by vendors and insiders.
Owner Apathy → Even Weaker Regulatory Oversight
Regulators and legislators gauge urgency by public voices and pressure. When owners go silent- whether it be contentment or apathy- agencies lose incentives for investigative rigor.
In turn, CIC Commission and Legislators are left absent benchmarks for reforms and resources.
Industry interests fill the void leading to capture.
This cycle doesn’t affect all associations. But like a virus in the air, it can spread into vulnerable environments where transparency is lacking, owners are disengaged, and boards face little scrutiny- characteristics of most HOAs.
As such, even in HOAs where owners are broadly satisfied, it’s important that:
Homeowners stay involved, informed, and empowered; and
Boards continue to follow the law and stay out of the gray, regardless of whether they are being actively watched.
The vaccination against systemic failure exists: sunlight; owner participation; and a regulator that actively seeks out and looks behind vulnerable doors.
This circular dynamic can only be broken if regulators (NRED and the CIC Commission) provide visible, credible enforcement—incentivize- certainly not discourage- owners to stay engaged, for boards to follow the rules, and provide the necessary data for reform and resources.
Part 3- The Reform Paradox: Data and Oversight Must Precede Reform—But Reform Is Needed to Get Data and Oversight
HOA reforms face a circular dilemma:
You need better data and stronger oversight to justify and shape reform.
But those conditions won’t improve without reforming the legal and institutional structures that suppress transparency and public accountability.
This is why the Coalition is pushing for foundational reforms first—such as public disclosure laws, regulatory independence, and mandatory data collection—as preconditions for broader policy changes. Several systemic problems further corrode the foundations of Nevada's HOA system. They demand focused legislative and regulatory attention.
Part 4- Where to look for fixes
Privatized Enforcement and Financial Burden
The post Cost-Shifting HOA Justice: Time to Draw the Line details how enforcement of rights under NRS 116 is effectively privatized. HOAs, treated as private corporations, use community funds to pursue or defend litigation, while homeowners must finance their own lawsuits—even when challenging unlawful actions. This asymmetry discourages valid claims and fosters impunity.
Broken Conflict-of-Interest Safeguards
Declarant-affiliated boards and long-term vendor relationships create deeply entrenched conflicts of interest. HOA Conflict-of-Interest Rules Flawed and Ripe for Reform highlights how Nevada law exempts affiliated directors from certain fiduciary constraints, enabling self-dealing, contract abuse, and a blurring of loyalty between the board and third-party interests.
Retaliation and Lack of Speech Protection
Anti-SLAPP – what HOA owners need to know Anti-SLAPP- what HOA owners need to know to protect themselves shows declarant’s and HOA boards have used defamation lawsuits to retaliate against homeowners who speak critically about governance. Given the present contract bias of HOA disputes without statutory protection this tactic silences dissent and weakens owner oversight. Legislative action is needed to cement and clarify anti-SLAPP laws to HOA-related.
Regulatory Capture and Institutional Inertia
As discussed in the Nevada Current article HOA regulator ineffective, captured by the industry the Commission must address or dispel the belief by so many. Yet, Nevada's CICCH Commission frequently avoids issuing findings, permitting confidential settlements and/or informal resolutions demanding no accountability. (Read this letter for a deeper understanding). This abdication of responsibility allows harmful practices to persist unchecked and deprives the public of precedent, deterrence, and clarity.
Collapse of the CIC Task Force
The Taming the Beast blog recounts how the state's designated stakeholder forum—the CIC Task Force—was allowed to go dormant (last used in 2020), eliminating the only structured venue for policy review and homeowner input. Reviving this task force is critical to restoring balance in policy development and ensuring legislative decisions reflect homeowner realities.
Part 5- Proposed Fixes
1. Reconstitute the CIC Task Force
As discussed in Taming the Beast, Nevada’s dormant CIC Task Force must be revived and empowered to propose legislation and ensure homeowner inclusion. Legislators took this extraordinary measure, recognizing owner representation was absent the process, to ensure laws and regulations back up engaged owners.
2. Bring Sunlight to NRED Investigations
You cannot address the need for HOA reforms if you lack an understanding. Effective reform depends on understanding the scope, nature, and prevalence of problems. Without reliable, disaggregated data on HOA governance failures, owner complaints, enforcement outcomes, or financial practices, several core problems arise:
Selective or anecdotal policymaking: Policymakers are forced to rely on isolated horror stories or self-interested industry narratives, which may obscure systemic issues or exaggerate outliers.
Invisible burden on homeowners: Without tracking complaint outcomes or foreclosure statistics, the actual toll of aggressive enforcement, conflicts of interest, or infrastructure neglect is hidden.
Suppressed legislative urgency: In the absence of quantifiable evidence of harm, lawmakers face difficulty justifying the political costs of reform. Industry actors can more easily claim there is “no real problem.”
Limited ability to measure success: Reforms, if enacted, cannot be evaluated or fine-tuned because there’s no baseline or follow-up data to compare. Nevada can not accomplish HOA reform in the dark.
The mismatch between NRS 116.757 and NAC 116A.270 creates secrecy where transparency is needed. Information from investigative efforts must be public (with appropriate personal information redaction) and case closures should trigger public disclosure of findings.
3. Fix Structural Cost-Shifting
As detailed in Cost-Shifting HOA Justice:
Stop boards from suing owners who assert their rights under NRS 116;
Remove or reform prevailing party clauses that punish rightful challenges (Why Prevailing Party Provisions Fail Owners);
Expand access to Nevada’s Short Trial Program (STP) and provide affordable, public-interest adjudication options.
4 Protect Homeowner Participation and Free Speech
Codify anti-SLAPP protections to HOA-related speech. No homeowner should face litigation for speaking at a board meeting, criticizing community governance, or simply seeking to be a candidate in an HOA election. "It is difficult to image a denser pall cast over association governance than the prospect of being named in a lawsuit for simply..." applying to serve or seeking enforcement of the rules and laws. (Duffey v Superior Court, Cal App 4th 425 (1992)). My real world story you have to read to believe.
5. Confront Regulatory Capture and Vendor Dominance
Restore public confidence by ending the HOA industry’s dominance over regulatory interpretation.
Final Thought
Those living in HOAs must share the blame for the current state of affairs. They did not create it, maybe never recognized it, and now flying blind. Owner have failed to unite in an organized common cause to produce intelligent legislation or demand accountability that addresses these fundamental HOA defects.
HOAs are not the same as public entities- and not just a contract between an owner and the HOA. The defenses or offhanded suggestions of “simply vote the bums out” and “change the governing documents” are without merit. Owners need cooperation and assistance to accomplish reform.
Nevada’s HOA system is at a crossroads. Volunteers can only do so much when systemic forces reward opacity, penalize oversight, and silence dissent. Reform won’t come from better intentions alone. It requires rules with teeth, regulators with independence, and owners who refuse to remain silent.
Sunlight. Participation. And an enforcement system worthy of the public trust. That’s how we must start to fix a compromised system half of all Nevadan’s call home.
Start your participation adding your voice to the Coalition. Join, it is free
