The three tracks, and what each is worth

Understanding the bid requires understanding what is being staffed:

• Mediation is the default. As the Division states: “As of October 1, 2013, NRS 38 mandates that mediation is the default method of resolution, should both parties not agree to participate in the referee program.” Non-binding, and it resolves nothing unless both sides agree.
• The referee program produces a decision. “The referee is authorized to make monetary awards of up to $7,500. The referee may not award attorneys' fees.” It requires both parties' consent to use.
• Arbitration is the third track.

The consent requirement on the referee track is the structural complaint homeowner advocates make, and it is worth stating neutrally: the party that benefits from delay can decline the track that produces a written decision, leaving the default track that does not.

Everything about this program is in motion at once

Four separate processes are touching Nevada's HOA dispute resolution simultaneously, and they are not coordinated with one another:

The panels are being re-procured. These two bids, open since October 2025.

The subsidy is being raised. Section 8 of the pending regulation R091-25 would lift the mediation subsidy ceiling from $500 to $600, and from $250 to $300 per eligible party. The Commission adopted the regulation on September 9, 2026; it has not been filed.³

The default track is under review. The state's common-interest communities task force spent its February 25, 2026 meeting on a Division proposal to move the default away from mediation and toward arbitration, replacing or downgrading the referee program. It took no action, and its April 14, 2026 agenda carried a further item on recommendations for changes to NRS 38.

The mandatory character of the program was narrowed by the courts. In June 2025 the Nevada Supreme Court held that NRS 38.310's pre-suit requirement is a procedural claim-processing rule rather than a jurisdictional bar — so it must be raised in time or it is forfeited.

A homeowner filing a Nevada ADR claim today is entering a program whose panel is being rebuilt, whose funding is about to change, whose default track is under active reconsideration, and whose mandatory force was clarified fifteen months ago.

The paperwork will be behind the rules

One practical warning for anyone filing. The Division's mediation subsidy application, Form 668, was last revised in 2020 and still carries the pre-R091-25 figures — limiting subsidised mediator fees to $250 per side and $500 per mediation, and excluding the filing fee and attorney's fees. If the regulation is filed, the form and the rule will disagree until the form is updated.⁴

Similarly, Form 530 — the intervention affidavit under NRS 116.760 — was revised in April 2025, before section 3 of the same regulation would require an affidavit to specify the statute, regulation or order the board member is believed to have violated.

Follow the rule, not the form, and keep a copy of what you filed.

What does not change

The eligibility rules for a subsidised mediation are unaffected by the bids and by the regulation: a claim must be filed within one year after the date of discovery of the alleged violation; a unit's owner may have one subsidised mediation per fiscal year per unit owned; and an association may have one per fiscal year against the same owner, per unit, and must be registered and in good standing with the Ombudsman's office and, where required, the Secretary of State.

The one-year discovery deadline is the one that catches people. It runs from discovery, not from when the dispute becomes intolerable.