Nevada HOA Fining Authority

Section 1: Overview — Fining authority in Nevada

Nevada sits near the strict end of the spectrum on HOA fining power. The state adopted the full Uniform Common-Interest Ownership Act, and lawmakers wrote one of the country's most prescriptive fining procedures into that statute, then backed it with an active regulator, mandatory manager licensing, and a lien framework that still keeps fines outside its most powerful tool. The Nevada Common-Interest Ownership Act, codified at NRS Chapter 116, governs condominiums, planned communities, and cooperatives created on or after January 1, 1992, and it reaches back to cover some older communities in limited ways; pre-1992 condominiums may fall under NRS Chapter 117, and condominium hotels answer to NRS Chapter 116B.¹ Nevada does something most states don't: it layers a regulator on top of the statute. The Real Estate Division (NRED), housed in the Department of Business and Industry, administers the law. The Commission for Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels (CICCH) writes the regulations. And the Office of the Ombudsman runs an intervention-affidavit complaint process along with an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) pathway that many associations use before a dispute reaches court.² The fining power itself lives in NRS 116.31031, and the statute reads as an instruction, not a suggestion: boards must give pre-violation notice, offer an opportunity to cure, and hold a hearing before the executive board, and the law caps the fine amount for ordinary violations.³ For any board or manager, the question that matters most downstream is whether an unpaid fine can become a lien and support foreclosure. It can become a lien. But the NRS 116.3116 super-priority that lets an association's lien jump ahead of a first mortgage reaches only assessments and certain other charges — not fines — so a fine-only balance generally cannot support a nonjudicial foreclosure sale.⁴ The Quick-Reference table below lays out the mechanics before the detailed discussion that follows.

Section 2: Quick-Reference Fining Mechanics Table

Here's Nevada's fining picture at a glance. Both columns reflect NRS Chapter 116, which covers condominiums and planned communities under a single framework, so the parameters match across community types. The numeric parameters — the fine cap, the notice period, the cure period — reflect the statute as amended through the 2021 session, and given how often Nevada amends this chapter, a board should reverify them. Section 3 sources every value in the table.

Both columns reflect the Nevada Common-Interest Ownership Act, NRS Chapter 116, which treats condominiums and planned communities identically. The NRS 116.3116 super-priority lien covers assessments and certain charges — not fines. Nevada amends these numeric parameters often, so verify each figure against the current statute before relying on it. Last verified: July 14, 2026.

Section 3: Fining mechanics in detail

3A. Source and outer limits of fining authority

The power to fine in Nevada comes from a single statute: NRS 116.31031, titled "Power of executive board to impose fines and other sanctions for violations of governing documents."³ It applies the same way to condominiums and planned communities within Chapter 116's scope, and that uniformity is one of Nevada's defining features — single-family planned communities get the same statutory treatment as condominiums, rather than being left to their recorded covenants alone. Chapter 116 is Nevada's enactment of the Uniform Common-Interest Ownership Act. This page focuses on the fining mechanics themselves.

The statute caps the fine. For an ordinary violation — one that doesn't pose an imminent threat of substantial harm to the health, safety, or welfare of owners or residents — the fine "must not exceed $100 for each violation or a total amount of $1,000 per hearing against each unit's owner or tenant or invitee."³ The board must set the amount in line with the severity of the violation and in accordance with the governing documents. When a violation does pose an imminent health-and-safety threat, as Commission regulations define it, the cap disappears, though the board still has to size the fine to the severity of the violation. The cap doesn't reach charges or costs that accrue once a fine goes past due, either. These figures reflect the statute as amended through the 2021 session, and because Nevada amends Chapter 116 in nearly every regular session, a board should reconfirm the current numbers before relying on them.

The regulator shapes how boards exercise, and how the state polices, that fining authority. NRED administers Chapter 116 and Chapter 116A. The Commission adopts regulations — including the criteria that define an imminent health-and-safety violation — and conducts disciplinary hearings. The Ombudsman assists owners and boards and runs the intervention-affidavit and ADR process.² Nevada also requires community managers to hold a state certificate under NRS Chapter 116A; nobody may act as a community manager without one.⁵ That licensing regime, paired with mandatory board-member certification, keeps Nevada's fining decisions inside a supervised system rather than leaving them to unregulated boards. Governing documents still matter: a board may fine only if its governing documents authorize fines, and those documents can add procedural protections beyond the statutory minimum, though they can't cut below the statutory floor.³

3B. The required fining procedure

NRS 116.31031 lays out a mandatory sequence, and every step counts as a statutory prerequisite. First, at least 30 days before the alleged violation, the owner — and anyone else who might face the fine — must receive written notice of the governing-document provision behind the violation (NRS 116.31031(4)(a)). Second, within a reasonable time after the board discovers the violation, it must send written notice covering the specific violation, a proposed cure, the fine amount, and the date, time, and location of the hearing (plus a photograph for a physical-condition violation), along with a reasonable opportunity to cure or contest the violation at that hearing (NRS 116.31031(4)(b)).³ Third, the board must actually hold the hearing. NRS 116.31085(4) keeps that hearing in executive session unless the person facing sanction requests in writing that it be open. That person can attend every portion of the hearing related to the violation, receives due process as Commission regulation defines it — including the right to counsel and to present witnesses — and gets written notice of the board's decision within a reasonable time.⁶ And if a board member who owes unpaid assessments takes part in the hearing or votes on the fine, that action or vote is void (NRS 116.31031(9)).³

Continuing violations run on their own clock. If a board imposes a fine and the owner doesn't cure the violation within 14 days — or a longer period the board sets — the violation becomes a continuing one, and the board may add another fine for each 7-day period, or part of one, that it stays uncured, capped at the amount of the original fine (NRS 116.31031(7)). The board can impose those additional fines without a further cure opportunity and without the notice and hearing that subsection 4(b) otherwise requires, and the ordinary dollar caps don't apply to them.³ One detail matters here: the 14-day cure clock doesn't start until the board delivers its written decision to the sanctioned person (NRS 116.31085(4)).⁶ A past-due fine can't carry interest, though it may pick up costs the association incurs in a civil action to enforce it (NRS 116.31031(11)).³

Owners and associations have an administrative alternative to court, too. The Ombudsman at NRED accepts intervention affidavits, can convene an informal conference or mediation, and can refer substantiated violations to the Division's compliance section and, from there, to the Commission for disciplinary action. ADR under NRS Chapter 38 is a common step for disputes over how a board interprets or enforces its governing documents.² The practical takeaway is straightforward: a Nevada fine imposed without the statutory notice-and-hearing steps stands vulnerable to reversal, and Nevada's procedure demands far more of a board than states where enforcement rests mainly on recorded covenants.

3C. Enforcement of unpaid fines: assessments, the super-priority lien, and foreclosure

NRS 116.3116 gives the association a lien on each unit for assessments and certain other charges, and it elevates a portion of that lien to priority "prior to" a first security interest. That super-priority piece amounts to exactly nine months of common-expense assessments, based on the periodic budget, that would have come due in the nine months right before the association records its notice of default and election to sell — plus charges incurred under NRS 116.310312 for maintenance and nuisance abatement, plus enforcement costs capped by NRS 116.3116(5), reported at $165 for a demand or intent-to-lien letter, $325 for a notice of delinquent assessment, $90 for an intent-to-record letter, $400 for a notice of default, and $400 for a trustee's sale guaranty.^4,7 That super-priority is Nevada's hallmark. When the association forecloses it, the sale can wipe out a first deed of trust. The Nevada Supreme Court confirmed as much in SFR Investments Pool 1, LLC v. U.S. Bank, N.A., 130 Nev. 742, 334 P.3d 408 (2014), holding that the HOA super-priority lien is a true priority and that foreclosing it can extinguish a first mortgage.⁸ The 2015 Legislature answered with Senate Bill 306, adding lender notice and cure rights that mirror NRS 107.090's notice provisions, to fix the due-process problems federal courts had flagged in the pre-2015 "opt-in" notice scheme.⁹

Here's the point that matters most for this page: the super-priority covers assessments and certain charges — not fines. Fines can sit inside the association's overall lien and count as collectible obligations, but they never reach super-priority status, which stays limited to the nine-month assessment piece plus NRS 116.310312 charges and capped costs.⁴ Beyond priority, a fine-only balance generally can't be foreclosed at all. NRS 116.31162(6) states that an association "may not foreclose a lien by sale based on a fine or penalty for a violation of the governing documents," unless the violation posed an imminent threat to health, safety, or welfare, or the penalty addressed a failure to keep a construction schedule under NRS 116.310305.⁷ In practice, an unpaid fine for a paint color or a landscaping violation can't, on its own, trigger a nonjudicial foreclosure sale. The foreclosure process itself runs through NRS 116.31162 to 116.31168, and it now requires notice to the owner and to holders of security interests, reflecting the post-2015 reforms.⁷ Chapter 116 doesn't establish suspension of voting or amenity rights as a fining tool; where a community uses it, that power comes from the governing documents and has to operate within the statute's limits.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

4A. Recent bills

The 2025 Legislature considered one bill that touches directly on fining and collections: Senate Bill 121, which would have changed how late fees and past-due obligations accrue under Chapter 116. It didn't survive the session.

4B. Recent appellate rulings

One appellate ruling this year speaks directly to how Nevada's super-priority lien interacts with partial payments toward HOA debt.

4C. Active legislative or regulatory debates

Nevada's Legislature meets in regular session only in odd-numbered years, so the next window for statutory change to fining, the lien, or foreclosure won't open until the 2027 (84th) session — the same session to which the vetoed SB 121 returns.¹⁰ In the meantime, the Commission keeps adopting and updating NAC Chapter 116 regulations, including the criteria that define an imminent health-and-safety violation and mark the boundary of the fine cap.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Nevada sits at the most-engaged end of the national spectrum on fining authority. As a full UCIOA state, it pairs one of the country's most prescriptive statutory fining procedures — a hard dollar cap, mandatory pre-violation notice, a cure opportunity, and a hearing — with one of the few active state regulators, putting it alongside high-engagement states like California, Florida, and Colorado and setting it apart from the many CC&R-primary states where enforcement rests mainly on recorded covenants and general nonprofit-corporation law. Two features define Nevada specifically: the regulator — NRED, the Commission, and the Ombudsman — combined with mandatory community-manager licensing under NRS Chapter 116A, and the NRS 116.3116 super-priority lien, which can extinguish a first mortgage on foreclosure. That super-priority is a genuine Nevada hallmark, but it reaches only assessments and certain charges. It never reaches fines, and a fine-only balance generally can't be foreclosed nonjudicially.

HOA Weekly updates this Nevada coverage quarterly as the Legislature, NRED and the Commission, and the Nevada appellate courts act. Federal law applies to Nevada associations too, regardless of what the state framework says — notably the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which can reach third-party collection of fines, along with the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, and the OTARD rule.

1. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.1201, Applicability; NRS Chapter 117, Condominiums (for pre-January 1, 1992 condominiums) ↩
2. Nevada Real Estate Division, About the Ombudsman's Office ↩
3. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.31031, Power of Executive Board to Impose Fines and Other Sanctions for Violations of Governing Documents ↩
4. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.3116, Liens Against Units for Assessments ↩
5. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116A.400, Person Prohibited From Acting as Community Manager Without Certificate ↩
6. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.31085, Right of Units' Owners to Speak at Certain Meetings; Procedure Governing Hearings on Alleged Violations ↩
7. Nevada Legislature, NRS 116.31162, Foreclosure of Liens: Limitations on Type of Lien That May Be Foreclosed ↩
8. Supreme Court of Nevada, SFR Investments Pool 1, LLC v. U.S. Bank, N.A., 130 Nev. 742, 334 P.3d 408 (2014) ↩
9. Nevada Legislature, 2015 Senate Bill 306, Amending NRS Chapter 116 to Add Lender Notice and Cure Rights ↩
10. Nevada Legislature, Senate Bill 121 (83rd Session, 2025), Overview and Veto Record ↩
11. Supreme Court of Nevada, Deutsche Bank Nat'l Tr. Co. v. Collegium Fund LLC Series 16, 142 Nev. Adv. Op. 1 (Jan. 8, 2026) ↩