Nevada HOA Director Qualifications
Section 1: Overview — Who can serve on a common-interest community board in Nevada
Start with the source. In Nevada, statute sets the rules for who serves on a common-interest community board. NRS Chapter 116 fixes candidate eligibility, the disclosures a candidate must make, the term of office, and a 90-day certification that each board member has read and understands the governing documents and the chapter — and a regulator-first system administers all of it.1 NRS Chapter 116, the Common-Interest Ownership (Uniform Act), is Nevada's version of the 1982 Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, and its central director provision, NRS 116.31034, governs election, terms, eligibility, disclosures, and certification of executive board members.2 Three bodies run the system: the Real Estate Division, the Office of the Ombudsman for Owners in Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels, and the Commission for Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels — and the association files the certification, which the Administrator may see at registration.3 Nevada's scheme is its own. It does not impose Florida's mandatory four-hour director-certification course, and it does not adopt California's Civil Code Section 5105 disqualification rules. The sections that follow show where these qualifications come from, how the eligibility, disqualification, certification, and tenure rules work, what the Legislature and the courts have done lately, and where Nevada sits on the national map.
Section 2: Where director qualifications come from
2A. NRS Chapter 116 and the regulator-first model
The governing statute is NRS Chapter 116, Nevada's enactment of the 1982 Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, and it reaches condominiums, planned communities, and cooperatives.2 The central director section, NRS 116.31034, covers the election of executive board members and officers, the term of office, staggered terms, who may run for or sit on the board, the disclosures a candidate must make, how elections are conducted, and the certification of understanding.1 Two related sections round out the framework: NRS 116.31036 governs how an association removes a board member,4 and NRS 116.3103 sets the standard of care, making officers and members of the executive board fiduciaries.5 What sets Nevada apart is the regulator-first model. The Real Estate Division, the Office of the Ombudsman for Owners in Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels created under NRS 116.625,6 and the Commission for Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels administer these communities.7 Associations register with the Ombudsman under NRS 116.31158,8 and the Administrator may require each board member's certification at that registration.1 Most disputes over governing documents and NRS Chapter 116 must first run through pre-suit alternative dispute resolution under NRS 38.300 to 38.360 — NRS 38.310 in particular — before anyone files a civil action.9 Here is the point for director qualifications: candidate eligibility, the required disclosures, the term of office, and the certification are statutory commands in NRS 116.31034, not matters the governing documents are free to set. The regulators administer and enforce these rules; they do not write the eligibility rules themselves.
2B. The corporate-law layer and manager licensing
Most Nevada associations organize as nonprofit corporations under NRS Chapter 82, and a few form under NRS Chapter 78.10 The corporate act supplies the scaffolding beneath the NRS 116 director provisions: it sets the number and qualifications of directors, the director formalities, and the default rules for director removal under NRS 82.296 and director liability under NRS 82.221.11 These corporate-law defaults sit underneath NRS 116. Where the two meet, the NRS 116.31036 owner-vote removal procedure controls notwithstanding any contrary provision of the declaration or bylaws, so a corporate-law removal default does not displace the statutory owner-vote process for owner-elected directors.4 A separate regime, NRS Chapter 116A, requires community managers to hold a certificate from the Division and to complete mandated education.12 But that rule governs the people an association hires to manage the community, not the volunteers who serve as directors. Manager certification is not a director-eligibility rule, and the two should not be confused. So the order of operation runs this way: the NRS 116 director provisions control, the NRS Chapter 82 corporate act supplies director formalities and defaults, and the governing documents fill what remains.
2C. The declaration, bylaws, and the limits of documentary screens
The declaration and bylaws may add eligibility screens, but they work within the NRS 116.31034 framework rather than displacing it.1 NRS 116.3106 requires the bylaws to spell out the qualifications, powers, duties, terms of office, and the manner of electing and removing members of the executive board — which is why the governing documents can supply detail the statute leaves open.13 The order of precedence runs NRS Chapter 116 first, then the declaration and bylaws, then the NRS Chapter 82 corporate defaults, then any rules. A provision in a governing document that conflicts with the chapter is deemed to conform by operation of law, and the chapter supersedes it.2 In practice, a manager or attorney applies the NRS 116.31034 eligibility limits, the required candidate disclosures, and the certification requirement first, then reads the governing documents for additional screens that do not conflict with the statute. A bylaw screen that contradicts the statutory eligibility framework, the owner-vote removal threshold, or the certification command will not control.
Section 3: Director eligibility, disqualification, certification, and tenure rules
A. Eligibility to serve
Source layer: NRS Chapter 116, supplemented by the governing documents. NRS 116.31034(1) requires that, no later than the termination of declarant control, the units' owners elect an executive board of at least three members, all of whom must be units' owners.1 The board elects the officers, and unless the governing documents say otherwise, an officer need not be a unit owner.1 Every candidate nominated for the board must, in writing, make a good-faith effort to disclose any financial, business, professional, or personal relationship or interest that would result — or would appear to a reasonable person to result — in a potential conflict of interest if elected, and must disclose whether the candidate is a member in good standing; a candidate is not in good standing if he or she owes the association any unpaid, past-due assessments or construction penalties.14 Those are the current required disclosures under NRS 116.31034(9), reflecting the statute as amended through 2023. Directors must be unit owners, but NRS 116.31034(14) lets a representative of an entity or other non-natural owner serve — an officer, employee, agent, or director of a corporate owner; a trustee or designated beneficiary of a trust; a partner of a partnership; a member or manager of a limited-liability company; or a fiduciary of an estate that owns a unit — as long as the person files proof of the relationship and identifies the unit owned.15 How the election itself runs — ballots, secret ballots, quorum, and counting — belongs to our Board Elections coverage.
B. Disqualification and removal
Source layer: NRS Chapter 116. Under NRS 116.31034(10), unless the declarant appoints the person, no one may run for or sit on the board, or serve as an officer, if he or she resides with, is married to, is in a domestic partnership with, or is related within the third degree of consanguinity or affinity to another board member or officer; if he or she stands to gain any personal profit or compensation of any kind from a matter before the board; or if he or she — or his or her spouse, parent, or child — performs the duties of community manager for the association.16 Two narrow exceptions apply: an owner of 75 percent or more of the units may serve and may be related to another board member or officer, unless that owner and the related person would make up a majority of the board; and the relative bar drops away when the number of candidates is less than or equal to the number of seats to fill.17 If a person is not eligible under any provision of the chapter, the association must keep the name off the ballot and must bar the person from serving.16 Delinquency works through the good-standing disclosure, not as an automatic bar: an unpaid, past-due assessment or construction penalty means a candidate is not in good standing and must disclose that fact.14 NRS 116.31036 governs removal of an owner-elected board member. Notwithstanding any contrary provision of the declaration or bylaws, the owners may remove a member other than a declarant appointee, with or without cause, at a removal election in which the votes cast in favor of removal equal at least 35 percent of the association's total voting members and at least a majority of all votes cast.4 Owners call that election by a petition signed by at least 10 percent of the total voting members — or a lower percentage if the bylaws set one.4 How the removal vote is conducted belongs to our Board Elections coverage. And a sitting member whose household member or relative stands to gain personal profit or compensation from a matter before the board must disclose it and abstain under NRS 116.31084.18
C. Board composition, terms, and certification
Source layer: NRS Chapter 116. A board member's term may not run longer than three years, except for members the declarant appoints, and unless the governing documents say otherwise, nothing limits how many terms a person may serve.19 NRS Chapter 116 sets no consecutive-service limit; any term limit has to come from the governing documents.19 The governing documents must provide for staggered terms so that, as far as possible, an equal number of members stand for election each cycle, with exceptions for declarant appointees and members serving a term of one year or less.20 The certification requirement lives in NRS 116.31034(19): within 90 days after appointment or election, each board member must certify in writing to the association, on a form the Administrator prescribes, that he or she has read and understands the governing documents and the provisions of the chapter to the best of his or her ability — and the Administrator may require the association to submit a copy of each member's certification when it registers with the Ombudsman under NRS 116.31158.21 The current subsection number is 19, under the statute as amended through 2023. Board composition also turns on declarant control: NRS 116.31032 sets the period during which the declarant may appoint and remove board members, and NRS 116.31034(1) requires the handoff to an owner-elected board no later than the end of declarant control.22
D. Onboarding and ongoing qualification duties
Source layer: NRS Chapter 116 and NAC 116. The statutory onboarding duty is the 90-day, read-and-understand certification on the Administrator's form — not an education course or an examination.21 This is the sharp contrast with Florida, where a director elected or appointed on or after July 1, 2024 must finish a state-approved four-hour certification course within 90 days, good for seven years, plus an annual one-hour continuing-education course; Nevada asks for no comparable curriculum. The ongoing duties include the conflict-of-interest disclosure and abstention rules of NRS 116.31084, under which a member whose household member or relative stands to gain from a matter before the board must disclose it and abstain.18 NRS 116.3103 sets the standard of care: officers and members of the executive board are fiduciaries who must act on an informed basis, in good faith, and in the honest belief that they are serving the best interest of the association, and they must use the ordinary and reasonable care of officers and directors of a nonprofit corporation, subject to the business-judgment rule and the conflict-of-interest rules that govern nonprofit directors.5 NAC 116.405 lists the factors the Commission may weigh in deciding whether a board member has performed the duties NRS 116.3103 requires — among them acting outside the authority the governing documents grant, acting out of self-interest, gain, prejudice, or revenge, and acts or omissions that amount to incompetence, negligence, or gross negligence.23
Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity
A. Recent bills
No bill enacted in the past 24 months touched the NRS 116.31034 eligibility, disclosure, term, or certification provisions, or the NRS 116.31036 removal provision. The most recent amendment to those director sections was SB378 in the 2023 session. It falls just outside the 24-month window, but it remains the operative law, so we note it here for context.
SB 378 · Ch. 436 · 2023 Regular Session (82nd)
SB378, Chapter 436, revised NRS 116.31034 and NRS 116.31036 to authorize secret electronic ballots for board elections and removal elections, and it adjusted the association website and notice requirements. It did not change the candidate-eligibility limits, the required candidate disclosures, or the 90-day certification.[24]
| Property managers | The eligibility, disclosure, and certification work you run each election cycle is unchanged by SB378; it only modernized the balloting medium and notice mechanics. |
| HOA board members | Director qualifications and the 90-day certification apply exactly as before; SB378 simply added an electronic-ballot option for elections and removals. |
| Community association attorneys | Tell clients the current director-qualification text reflects the 2023 amendment, and that SB378 targeted election and removal mechanics, not eligibility. |
| Homeowners | How directors qualify and certify did not change in 2023; where the association adopts the method, you may now receive and return board-election ballots electronically. |
B. Recent appellate rulings
Kosor v. Southern Highlands Community Association
The Nevada Supreme Court held that the pre-suit mediation-or-arbitration requirement of NRS 38.310 is a mandatory but nonjurisdictional claim-processing rule — one a party can forfeit or waive. So a district court judgment in a homeowner's governance dispute was not void where the parties had waived the requirement.[25] The case matters for board governance because it grew out of a homeowner-director's challenge to continued declarant control of the board, and it confirms that the ADR step, while required, does not strip a court of jurisdiction.
| Property managers | The pre-suit ADR step before a board-governance lawsuit still stands, but skipping it does not automatically void a later court judgment. |
| HOA board members | Governance disputes — including fights over declarant control of board seats — can still reach the courts even when a party raises an ADR objection late. |
| Community association attorneys | Treat NRS 38.310 as a waivable claim-processing rule and raise non-compliance early, because it is not a jurisdictional defect you can invoke after judgment. |
| Homeowners | If you challenge board composition, you must still try ADR first, but a misstep on that step will not necessarily undo a favorable ruling. |
Divina Piazza v. Spring Mountain Ranch Master Association
In an unpublished order, the Nevada Court of Appeals is reported to have held that a civil action for failure to comply with NRS Chapter 116 under NRS 116.4117 requires proof of actual damages.[26] That holding reaches director-qualification disputes because associations have tried to sue board candidates under NRS 116.31034 and NRS 116.4117; the actual-damages requirement narrows those enforcement claims. As an unpublished disposition, it carries only persuasive value.
| Property managers | An association cannot win an NRS 116 enforcement claim against a candidate or director without showing actual damages. |
| HOA board members | A statutory-violation claim tied to candidacy or disclosure needs provable damages, not just an alleged breach, to succeed. |
| Community association attorneys | Plead and prove actual damages before you bring an NRS 116.4117 claim from a director-qualification dispute, and note the order is unpublished and only persuasive. |
| Homeowners | A director facing a statutory-violation suit can point to the actual-damages requirement as a defense where the association alleges no real harm. |
C. Active legislative and regulatory debates
In the 2025 session, SB339 (introduced March 12, 2025) would have required executive-board candidates to undergo a background investigation by the Division and to submit a copy of the report, and it would also have required annual reserve studies and exempted claims under $10,000 from mandatory mediation. The bill failed to advance and did not become law.27 The Commission also runs periodic rulemaking that touches board-member conduct standards under NAC 116, and interested parties keep watching it.
Section 5: National positioning and related coverage
Step back to the national map. Nevada is a heavy-touch, regulator-first state for director qualifications. NRS Chapter 116 sets candidate eligibility, the required candidate disclosures, the term of office, staggered terms, and a 90-day read-and-understand certification by statute, and the Real Estate Division, the Ombudsman, and the Commission administer it.1 In statutory intensity Nevada sits near Florida and California, but its scheme is its own: it relies on a written certification rather than Florida's mandatory four-hour director-certification course, and it does not adopt California's Civil Code Section 5105 rules that disqualify nominees who are not members or who have served the maximum number of terms. That puts Nevada far from light-touch states such as North Dakota, where director eligibility is mostly documentary and left to the bylaws. For a multi-state operator, Nevada is a high-process jurisdiction — statutory candidate disclosures, a board-member certification, mandatory community-manager licensing, and a pre-suit alternative dispute resolution step.12 Because of the regulator-first model and the certification requirement, compliance here is documented to the state, not just kept internally.
HOA Weekly updates its Nevada Director Qualifications coverage each quarter as the Legislature, the Commission, and the Nevada courts act. Federal frameworks rarely dictate director qualifications, but Nevada associations still answer to federal law — the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the FCC OTARD rule — across their broader operations.
Recommendations
For managers and boards, treat the NRS 116.31034 sequence as a fixed checklist each election cycle. Confirm that each nominee is a unit owner — or a qualifying entity representative who has filed proof under subsection 14. Collect the written conflict-of-interest and good-standing disclosures before the ballots go out. Screen for the subsection 10 bars on relatives, personal profit, and the community manager. And calendar the 90-day certification on the Administrator's form for every newly seated member. Keep the signed certifications on file and ready in case the Administrator asks for them at registration under NRS 116.31158. For removals, run both thresholds in advance — a petition from at least 10 percent of voting members to call the election, and favorable votes equal to at least 35 percent of all voting members plus a majority of votes cast to remove — and do not lean on any older supermajority recall language in the bylaws, which NRS 116.31036 overrides. For attorneys advising on enforcement against a candidate or director, plead and prove actual damages before you bring an NRS 116.4117 claim, and complete or expressly address the NRS 38.310 ADR step early. A few developments would change this guidance: a future bill that adds a background-check or education requirement for candidates (a revived SB339-type measure), a published Nevada Supreme Court decision in the pending Southern Highlands anti-SLAPP appeal (No. 89439) that resolves board-disqualification and candidate-disclosure questions on the merits, or new NAC 116 rulemaking that alters board-member conduct standards.
Caveats
NRS 116.31034 has been amended repeatedly through 2023. The eligibility limits, the required disclosures, the term and staggered-term provisions, and the certification — current subsection 19, the 90-day deadline, the Administrator's form, and the registration tie-in — reflect the current statute, but confirm them against the live text before you rely on any specific subsection number, which can shift with future amendments. The Divina Piazza decision is an unpublished Court of Appeals order; because it is unpublished, treat its exact decision date and citation as provisional until you confirm them on the Nevada courts website, and remember it carries only persuasive value. The board-disqualification and candidate-disclosure questions from the Southern Highlands dispute remain unresolved in a pending Nevada Supreme Court appeal, so no controlling merits holding exists on those points yet. This page covers director eligibility, disqualification, certification, tenure, and removal on qualification grounds; the mechanics of conducting elections and removal votes — ballots, secret ballots, quorum, and proxies — live in our Board Elections coverage.
Footnotes
- NRS 116.31034, Election of members of executive board and officers; terms; eligibility; required disclosures; certification ↩
- NRS Chapter 116, Common-Interest Ownership (Uniform Act) ↩
- Nevada Real Estate Division, Office of the Ombudsman for Owners in Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels ↩
- NRS 116.31036, Removal of member of executive board ↩
- NRS 116.3103, Power of executive board; fiduciaries; duty of care; business-judgment rule ↩
- NRS 116.625, Office of the Ombudsman ↩
- NRS 116.600, Commission for Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels ↩
- NRS 116.31158, Registration of association with Ombudsman ↩
- NRS 38.310, Limitations on commencement of certain civil actions ↩
- NRS Chapter 82, Nonprofit Corporations ↩
- NRS 82.296, Directors: Removal; filling of vacancies; and NRS 82.221, Directors and officers: liability ↩
- NRS 116A.400, Person prohibited from acting as community manager without certificate ↩
- NRS 116.3106, Bylaws ↩
- NRS 116.31034(9), Required candidate disclosures ↩
- NRS 116.31034(14), Representatives of entity and other non-natural owners ↩
- NRS 116.31034(10) and (13), Ineligibility and prohibition on serving ↩
- NRS 116.31034(11) and (12), 75-percent-owner and equal-or-fewer-candidates exceptions ↩
- NRS 116.31084, Voting by member of executive board; disclosures; abstention ↩
- NRS 116.31034(2), Term of office and number of terms ↩
- NRS 116.31034(3), Staggered terms ↩
- NRS 116.31034(19), 90-day certification of understanding ↩
- NRS 116.31032, Period of declarant's control of association ↩
- NAC 116.405, Determination by Commission of whether members have performed their duties ↩
- SB378 (82nd Session, 2023), Chapter 436 ↩
- Kosor v. Southern Highlands Community Ass'n, 141 Nev. Adv. Op. 34, No. 87942 (June 18, 2025) ↩
- Divina Piazza v. Spring Mountain Ranch Master Ass'n, No. 88493-COA (Nev. Ct. App. 2025) (unpublished) ↩
- SB339 (83rd Session, 2025), Overview ↩