Virtual meetings can be useful. They can reduce travel time, allow snowbirds and working owners to listen in, and make it easier for people with mobility or health constraints to participate. No one is arguing that technology itself is the problem.
The problem is virtual-only governance: when an HOA board makes remote access the only way owners can observe board business, year after year, as a matter of routine rather than necessity. That shift does not merely modernize meetings. It separates owners from the governance of their own association and weakens accountability in ways Nevada law never clearly authorized.
This is not hypothetical. Some associations have not allowed owners to physically attend a board meeting since COVID. Owners are told to “log in,” and that is treated as if it were the same thing as being present. It is not.
What Nevada law actually requires: a real “place,” not a screen
Nevada’s HOA meeting statute requires notice of the “time and place” of executive board meetings.[1] The statute also requires minutes to reflect the date, time, and place of the meeting.[2] The term “place” is not defined, but in ordinary usage and longstanding practice, it means a physical location where people may attend.
Nothing in NRS Chapter 116 states that a virtual platform constitutes a “place.” Nothing authorizes an HOA board to eliminate a physical meeting location altogether. And nothing says that remote access replaces the right to attend at a place.
Some associations argue that because virtual-only meetings are not expressly prohibited, they must therefore be allowed. That reasoning reverses how governance authority works. Boards do not acquire new powers through silence, particularly where owner access and participation are concerned. The relevant question is not whether exclusion has been outlawed, but whether it has been affirmatively authorized. Nevada law contains no such authorization.
Virtual meetings themselves are not the issue. Remote access can supplement attendance and expand participation for some owners. The issue arises when virtual access becomes the only form of access.
At that point, what is lost is not convenience, but assembly.
Why “you can log in” is not the same as access
A meeting structure can be technically open while still denying meaningful access in practice. Virtual-only meetings fragment owners into isolated participants, each mediated through a platform controlled by the board or its management. Owners cannot see who else is present, cannot gather before or after meetings, and cannot register shared concern through physical presence.
Presence matters. Physical meetings allow owners to observe board conduct in context, recognize shared issues, exchange information informally, and experience governance as a collective activity. Those features do not depend on speaking rights; they depend on being there.
Eliminating the physical option removes that dimension entirely.
When governance becomes contested, assembly matters most
HOAs are not social clubs. They govern communities where participation is mandatory and consequences are real. Nevada law imposes fiduciary duties on directors precisely because board decisions affect people who cannot easily opt out.
Physical access plays a unique role in that governance structure. It enables observation, collective presence, spontaneous accountability, and civic legitimacy. Virtual tools can expand access. They should not be used to replace it entirely—especially in the absence of clear legal authority.
The loss of physical meetings may seem minor when issues are routine and consensus exists. The real consequences appear when disagreement arises between owners and those governing the association. That is precisely when the ability to assemble matters most.
Physical meetings allow owners to recognize shared concerns, exchange information informally, and present themselves as a collective presence before the board. Assembly signals that an issue is not isolated or personal, but communal. It is one of the few ways homeowners in a common-interest community experience governance together rather than as disconnected individuals.
Virtual-only meetings change that dynamic entirely. Participation occurs through a platform controlled by the board or its management. Owners are reduced to separate squares on a screen, often muted, with limited ability to see who else is present, speak with neighbors, or organize around shared issues. The structure of the meeting itself fragments collective participation.
In calm times, that fragmentation may go unnoticed. In times of conflict—over fines, assessments, rule enforcement, or board decisions—it becomes decisive. The loss is not simply physical proximity. It is the loss of the owners’ practical ability to assemble as a community when governance decisions most affect them.
That is why the question of “place” is not a technical one. It is about whether the law preserves a meaningful opportunity for collective presence when accountability matters most.
When interpretation substitutes for authority
The persistence of virtual-only HOA meetings has been reinforced by industry commentary that treats statutory ambiguity as sufficient justification to proceed. In a Las Vegas Review-Journal column addressing HOA meeting practices, attorney Adam Clarkson was asked whether a virtual meeting could satisfy the statutory requirement that notice include the “place” of the meeting. His response was: Yes, that is our interpretation… Designating the place requires specifying the actual virtual location (i.e., how and where to login).[4]
That response matters precisely because it is an attorney’s opinion on which boards may rely in discharging their fiduciary duties, yet it is not supported—either in the article itself or, based on the research conducted for this post—by any statutory definition of “place,” any controlling regulatory interpretation from NRED or the CICCH Commission, or any Nevada case law addressing whether a virtual platform alone satisfies NRS 116’s “time and place” requirement.
Legal opinions do not convert statutory silence into affirmative permission. They do not eliminate uncertainty. And they do not reallocate risk away from the association. When boards rely on advisory interpretations in the absence of authoritative guidance, the association and its members—not the advisor—bear the consequences if that interpretation is later rejected.
Why regulatory silence matters
The Nevada Real Estate Division and the CICCH Commission are charged with administering and enforcing NRS Chapter 116. Yet despite years of virtual-only practice in some communities, neither has squarely addressed whether a virtual platform alone satisfies the statutory requirement of a “place,” or whether boards may permanently eliminate physical attendance.
NRED’s publicly available HOA meeting guidance discusses notice, minutes, recording requirements, and executive session topics, but does not resolve whether “place” may be satisfied exclusively through a virtual platform.[3] That silence has allowed boards and advisors to treat the practice as de facto acceptable, not because it has been approved, but because it has not been stopped.
In a regulatory system, unresolved questions are resolved in practice by those with power. Over time, practices harden into norms—not because the law changed, but because no authority intervened.
The fiduciary issue boards cannot ignore
Boards owe fiduciary duties to act in the best interests of the association and its members. That duty includes exercising reasonable care, avoiding unnecessary risk, and not adopting governance practices that predictably undermine owner participation without clear legal authority.
Here, the risk is not abstract. Boards are choosing to rely on legal opinions offered in the absence of authoritative guidance rather than seeking clarification from the very regulators empowered to provide it. If that interpretation proves wrong, it is not the advisor’s opinion that bears the cost—it is the association itself: through disputes, regulatory complaints, litigation expense, and loss of owner trust.
This is what makes the issue fiduciary in nature. It is not about technology. It is not about convenience. It is about risk allocation. Boards and their counsel are deciding—implicitly—that it is acceptable to weaken owner access now and resolve legality later, if ever. That is a governance choice, and it places the association squarely in the line of fire.
The more responsible course is straightforward: seek regulatory clarification, pursue rulemaking, or adopt interim practices—such as hybrid meetings—that preserve physical access while the question is resolved. Choosing not to do so is not neutrality. It is a decision.
When asked directly, regulators still do not point to authority
NVHOARefomr asked the Nevada Real Estate Division a direct question: What statutory authority allows an HOA to hold executive board meetings on a permanently virtual-only basis with no physical place for owners to attend?
The response did not identify any statute authorizing that practice.
Instead, the Division provided general reference materials — including guidance about directors participating electronically, pandemic-era flexibility, and advisory commentary about virtual meeting logistics. None of those sources address the legal question at issue: whether a virtual platform alone satisfies the statutory requirement that meeting notices include a “place.”
In other words, even when the regulator is asked directly to point to where Nevada law authorizes virtual-only HOA governance, the answer remains indirect. The practice continues not because it has been clearly approved, but because it has not been clearly prohibited — a gap that shifts risk from policymakers to homeowners and associations.
Why this now belongs before the CIC Task Force
This is exactly the type of issue the CIC Task Force was created to address. The Task Force has both the mandate and the opportunity to clarify what “place” means in the context of HOA governance and to assess whether permanent virtual-only meetings are consistent with the intent of NRS 116. It can act promptly to restore consistency, transparency, and confidence in how associations conduct their meetings. Where the NRED and the CICCH Commission have declined to squarely answer the question, the Task Force has the authority to take it up directly—or to formally direct the regulator to do so, as the statutory framework contemplates.
The bottom line for owners
If your HOA does not offer owners a physical location where they may attend executive board meetings, that is not a matter of modernization. It is a governance choice that Nevada law does not clearly authorize and regulators have not clearly approved.
“Place” still means a place owners can attend. Virtual access may supplement that requirement, but it does not replace it. When boards eliminate the physical option entirely, owners are not simply being asked to adapt to technology—they are being separated from the governance of their own communities.
Virtual-only HOA meetings are wrong—even if you can log in.
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[1] NRS 116.31083(4) — Notice of meeting must include the time and place of the meeting. Nevada Legislature, Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 116.
https://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-116.html#NRS116Sec31083
[2] NRS 116.31083(8) — Minutes and audio recordings must reflect the date, time, and place of the meeting.
Id.
[3] Nevada Real Estate Division, Understanding HOA Board Meetings.
Addresses notice, minutes, recordings, and executive session topics but does not state that a virtual platform alone satisfies the statutory “place” requirement.
https://red.nv.gov/Content/CIC/Program_Training/Frequently_Asked_Questions/Board_Meetings/
[4] Barbara Holland, A virtual place is a space for HOA meetings, Las Vegas Review-Journal (Jan. 7, 2025).
