Nevada’s Supreme Court to Decide if HOAs Can Silence Their Critics

Author’s Disclosure: Because I am the plaintiff and appellant in the case discussed below, readers should be aware that I write from direct involvement as well as public advocacy. I am also the founder of NVHOAReform Coalition. I have chosen to address this case publicly because I believe it raises broader questions affecting Nevada homeowners well beyond my own dispute. The filings are public and available through the Nevada Supreme Court docket, and readers should review them for themselves.

Nevada’s Supreme Court will soon decide whether homeowners in common-interest communities still have the right to speak freely about how they are governed.

The question before the court is simple but consequential: Can a homeowners’ association use an ambiguous state law to punish a homeowner for speaking out, running for office, or asking a court for clarity? The fact this issue requires a Nevada Supreme Court ruling should in itself, scare Nevada HOA owners.

Ousted Then Sued By The Declarant's Board

That is exactly what occurred in Southern Highlands (SHCA), a community of more than 8,000 homes in southern Clark County, Nevada. After years of advocating for transparency and reform, I was elected by my neighbors to advance their right of self-governace. Mid-term I would be removed by actions of the majority declarant Board absent, in my opinion, authority and due process. I was then barred from seeking re-election and finally sued by my HOA for alleged “statutory breaches” for simply applying to serve my community as a volunteer.

Clark County District Court Building

Adding to the extraordinary nature of this case, SHCA has been under declarant control for more than 27 years and its community manager is wholly owned by the declarant. Further, owners have not been allowed to gather together to address thier board in person since before COVID.

The declarant’s appointed board used homeowners’ assessments—without a vote of the membership—to fund its action. That action does not allege defamation or fraud. Instead, it invoked NRS 116.4117, asserting that by running for the board and by filing a lawsuit to clarify the community’s legal obligations, I had “failed to comply” with the very statute that guarantees homeowners the right to participate in governance and to seek judicial clarification of their community’s legal obligations.

In effect, SHCA reimagined a homeowner-protection law as an enforcement weapon against dissent—and the district court allowed it. You can find more the website dedicated to my community here.

Absurd? Maybe.

I believed SHCA’s actions went too far and violated Nevada law. Yet the district court upheld them.

My anti-SLAPP appeal of that order, now before the Nevada Supreme Court, asks whether a homeowners’ association may weaponize state law against political participation and public advocacy.

All filings are public and available on the Nevada Supreme Court website under docket no. 89439.

The Core Issue: When Statutes Become Speech Codes

SHCA’s counterclaims relied on NRS 116.4117—the provision allowing an HOA to bring a “cause of action for failure to comply with any provision [of NRS 116]".

Noteably, Nevada’s Court of Appeals has held that such a claim requires the existence of actual damages. See Divina Piazza v. Spring Mountain Ranch Master Association (Nev. No. 88493-COA, July 31, 2025).

SHCA alleged none.

The Association further argued that my 2024 Candidate Statement and campaign—speech directed to homeowners during an election—violated subsections of NRS 116.31034 governing board candidacy and disclosure. On that theory, SHCA sought punitive damages, claiming that my decision to run for office while at the same time questioning the legitimacy of developer control, constituted actionable “statutory breaches.” Find here my board candidacy statement and disclosure.

That approach transforms what should be a framework for owner protection into an instrument of suppression. The right to criticize, to campaign, and to petition courts for clarity are at the heart of both the First Amendment and Nevada’s anti-SLAPP statute (NRS 41.635), which protects citizens from lawsuits intended to chill public participation.

The lower court, however, saw it differently.

The Broader Question: Do Homeowners Lose Their Rights at the Gate?

If an HOA board, appointed as mine is or otherwise, can expel an elected director, bar re-election, and sue a homeowner for statutory “violations” when he challenges these actions, based solely on campaign speech or court filings, then the First Amendment stops at the subdivision gate.

Do HOA owners lose their Consitutional rights at purchase?

Across Nevada, HOA boards increasingly act like regulatory agencies—but without the constitutional constraints that bind real ones. Homeowners are told their voices “disrupt the association,” while legal counsel and management firms—funded by the very owners they silence—decide who may participate in governance.

This case forces a reckoning:

Are homeowners citizens with rights, or mere subjects of private governments?

Why the Case Matters

The Nevada Supreme Court’s ruling will determine whether Nevada’s anti-SLAPP law truly protects homeowners who speak on public matters within their communities.

If the Court affirms the lower-court ruling, HOA boards across the state will gain a dangerous precedent: the power to label dissent a “statutory violation,” sue critics under NRS 116, and disqualify candidates at will.

If the Court reverses, it will reaffirm the principle that speech about community governance—especially during elections—is protected activity, not punishable conduct.

The Court has upheld that principle before. In Kosor v. Olympia Co it recognized that homeowner speech about governance and developer control is protected activity under Nevada’s anti-SLAPP framework. This ruling came in 2020, albeit decades after HOAs were common place in Nevada. The current case tests whether that same protection still applies when an HOA—not a developer—seeks to silence one of its own.

The fact this is even an unresolved issue in this country is mind boggling.

A Larger Pattern

The Southern Highlands dispute mirrors a broader structural defect in Nevada’s HOA system. Homeowners across Las Vegas—and throughout the state—have been declared “ineligible” to serve on their boards not because they violated clear law, but because the statutes are vague enough to be bent by those in power.

Nevada law (NRS 116.31036) grants only the membership the power to remove directors. Yet boards continue to act as judge and jury, often at their attorneys’ urging, with no due process or independent review.

The danger is compounded by Nevada’s fee-shifting rules, which allow prevailing-party attorney fees even in statutory enforcement actions. Homeowners soon learn—often too late—that whether a dispute is framed as contract or statute, simply raising it can trigger catastrophic fee liability. Read more:  Nevada Knows Fee-Shifting Is Dangerous — But Uses It In HOAs explains why.

What policymakers label as “apathy” is, in reality, a rational survival strategy by homeowners in the face of weaponized legal risk. This NVHOAReform post, Civic apathy isn’t just a national problem

Even more troubling, the Nevada Real Estate Division (NRED) knows these actions and, by all indications, has remained absent. Volunteer boards and their attorneys operate within a self-policing framework devoid of public oversight. NRED rarely intervenes; courts defer under the Business Judgment Rule; and the owners funding these institutions bear all financial risk.

When association attorneys can recast political speech as “statutory misconduct,” they transform NRS 116 from a homeowner-protection law into a private enforcement code—one that punishes the very people it was meant to empower.

A Test of Principle

This case is about more than one election or one community. It is about whether Nevada recognizes that the right to speak, to campaign, and to seek judicial interpretation remains protected even inside a common-interest community.

The First Amendment should not become meaningless simply because governance is exercised through a common-interest community rather than a traditional public body.

The Nevada Supreme Court now faces a defining question: Will it affirm that homeowners retain their fundamental rights—or confirm that HOAs may silence them in the name of “compliance”?

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Kosor v. Southern Highlands Community Association is now pending before the Nevada Supreme Court. Updates will be posted at NVHOAReform.com. Readers are encouraged to follow the case (89439) and share their own experiences with HOA retaliation and political suppression.