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.
How Other States Addressed the Question Directly
Nevada is not alone in confronting how virtual technology fits into HOA governance. In California, for example, the Davis-Stirling Act historically required that even when meetings were conducted by teleconference or electronic means, a physical location still be designated where members could attend and observe in person. Virtual participation was permitted—but not as a substitute for a meeting place. When California later adjusted its statutes to accommodate broader virtual use, it did so explicitly through legislative amendment.[3]
The point is not that Nevada must copy California. It is that when legislatures intend to authorize virtual-only governance, they say so clearly. They define terms, set conditions, and impose guardrails. Nevada’s Chapter 116 contains no such amendment and no such authorization.
Nevada Addressed Remote Governance Explicitly
After COVID, Nevada amended its Open Meeting Law to address remote governance.[4] In doing so, the Legislature distinguished between elected and non-elected public bodies.
Certain non-elected public bodies may conduct meetings without a physical location, but only under defined statutory conditions—including requirements for electronic access and contemporaneous availability of supporting materials.[5]
Elected public bodies, however, are treated differently. And Nevada drew an even firmer line: they may not consider a contested case or adopt a regulation solely by remote technology unless a physical location is provided where members of the public may attend and participate.[6]
That distinction matters. When Nevada addressed remote governance directly, it made clear that virtual-only access is not equivalent to physical presence. The Legislature authorized virtual-only meetings on defined statutory conditions and required a physical location when a public body considers a contested case or adopts a regulation. Physical presence remained a legal requirement in specified contexts.
When the Legislature chose to define and limit remote governance elsewhere, it did so explicitly. It did not do so for HOAs. Chapter 116 contains no express amendment redefining “place” or authorizing boards to eliminate physical attendance entirely. The authority to eliminate physical meetings cannot be presumed.
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).[7]
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.
Notably, when similar statutory language was examined under California’s Davis-Stirling Act prior to amendment, community association counsel there took the opposite approach. Rather than treating silence as authorization, California counsel advised that a physical meeting location remained required unless and until the Legislature amended the statute to permit purely virtual meetings.[8] In other words, the absence of express authorization was treated as a limitation on board authority—not as permission to proceed.
The contrast is not about geography or which attorney got it right. It is about interpretive posture. When an attorney’s opinion alone becomes the operative rule, ambiguity hardens into practice without legislative amendment, regulatory clarification, or judicial confirmation. If that interpretation is later rejected, it is not the advisor who bears the institutional risk—it is the association and its members.
Attorney opinion is not law
Legal opinions do not convert statutory silence into affirmative permission. They do not eliminate uncertainty. They reflect the attorney’s interpretation of the law. Yet in the HOA context, opinions are often treated as they are the law.
When a board hears that its attorney believes a practice is “permitted,” it may reasonably understand that statement as confirmation of legality—not as one possible interpretation within an unresolved statutory question. If the ambiguity is not made explicit, the board may treat interpretation as confirmation of legality—rather than as one possible reading of an unsettled statute.
That raises a harder question about professional responsibility. When counsel knows a statute is ambiguous, and knows the board is likely to treat the opinion as operational clearance, does counsel have a duty to make the uncertainty explicit—and to advise the board of the option, or even the prudence, of seeking authoritative clarification from the regulator before acting?
If ambiguity is not clearly framed, and no effort is made to obtain a definitive interpretation, uncertainty is not resolved—it is converted into policy by default. And if that interpretation is later rejected, it is the association and its members—not the advisor—who bear the consequences.
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.[8] That silence has practical consequences.
Most HOA boards are volunteer bodies. They are accustomed to relying on professionals—community managers for operations and attorneys for legal compliance. When statutory ambiguity is not clarified by counsel or the regulator, boards tend to defer to the interpretation offered to them. If counsel advises that a practice is “permitted,” and no regulator has said otherwise, that interpretation is often treated as sufficient authority to proceed.
In that environment, advisory interpretation becomes operational authorization—not because it has been formally approved, but because no definitive ruling displaces it.
Regulators may respond that they were not asked to issue a formal interpretation. Administrative agencies generally act through complaints, adjudication, or rulemaking—not through unsolicited advisory opinions. But that response reveals the structural difficulty and real value of the Commission. When clarification depends on a formal complaint, an enforcement proceeding, or a contested case, the practical cost of obtaining certainty can be significant. Associations may hesitate to invite scrutiny. Boards may avoid seeking guidance that could trigger review. Owners who press for clarification may be portrayed as escalating conflict rather than resolving ambiguity.
The problem is compounded when owners raise recurring statutory questions directly in Commission settings, including through public comment, and no follow-up occurs. Even informal complaints—if acknowledged and acted upon—could prompt clarification, whether through agenda placement, interpretive guidance, or referral for formal consideration. When recurring ambiguity is raised in open meetings and receives no institutional response, uncertainty does not disappear. It persists.
The predictable result is institutional drift. Ambiguity remains untested, interpretation governs by default, and practices harden into norms—not because the law changed, but because no authority intervened.
In a regulatory system, unresolved questions are ultimately resolved in practice by those with power. When silence persists, deference fills the gap.
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 clarification rather than seeking formal guidance, rulemaking, or adjudicatory resolution from the 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
NVHOAReform 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 identify where Nevada law affirmatively authorizes virtual-only HOA governance, no statute, regulation, or adjudicated decision is cited. The practice continues not because authority has been established, but because no definitive ruling has displaced advisory interpretation.
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] see NRS 116.31083(4) — Notice of meeting must include the time and place of the meeting.
[2] see NRS 116.31083(8) — Minutes and audio recordings must reflect the date, time, and place of the meeting.
[3] see Cal. Civ. Code § 4090 (prior to 2023 amendment) (requiring teleconference meetings to include at least one physical location open to members). See also 2023 Cal. Stat. ch. 311 (A.B. 648), amending §§ 4090 and 5450 to authorize meetings by teleconference or electronic means without designating a physical location, subject to statutory conditions.[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
[4] see NRS 241.020(2)(d), (4) (2023), as amended by 2021 Nev. Stat., ch. 444 (A.B. 245) and 2023 Nev. Stat., ch. 70 (A.B. 219). The statute requires that a public body’s notice include the physical location of the meeting unless the body is authorized to meet without a physical location under specified statutory conditions, including provisions addressing public access and participation. The amendments do not create a blanket authorization for elected public bodies to operate on a permanently virtual-only basis, but instead preserve physical access as the baseline while permitting remote meetings only where enumerated criteria are satisfied.
[5] see NRS 241.020(11)(b)(2) — mandatory posting of supporting materials when no physical location.
[6] see NRS 241.023(1) — physical location required for contested cases and regulation consideration.
[7] Barbara Holland, A virtual place is a space for HOA meetings, Las Vegas Review-Journal (Jan. 7, 2025).
[8] Can Meetings Be Purely Virtual? By Kelly G. Richardson, Esq., CCAL https://www.roattorneys.com/blog/can-meetings-be-purely-virtual
[9] 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/
