Nevada HOA laws: management company interview questions

A Nevada HOA board should not hire a management company because the presentation sounds polished or the proposal says the firm is "compliant." The board should ask the company to show how Nevada requirements become written procedures, assigned responsibilities, reliable records, financial controls, owner service, and a clean transition file.

Nevada has detailed statutes and regulations for common-interest communities and the people who manage them. The operating framework includes NRS Chapter 116, NRS Chapter 116A, and related administrative regulations. The Nevada Real Estate Division's Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels program provides statutes and regulations, forms, licensing information, and Ombudsman resources.

This guide is general board education, not legal, accounting, reserve, tax, insurance, cybersecurity, collection, or management advice. Nevada association counsel and qualified professionals should confirm the rules, governing documents, and facts that apply to a particular community.

1. Verify the company and the people who will serve the association

NRS 116A.400 generally prohibits a person from acting as a community manager without the required certificate, subject to statutory exceptions. A board should verify the firm, the assigned manager, and the supervisory structure instead of relying on a logo or professional designation.

Ask each finalist:

1. Who will be the association's day-to-day community manager, and what Nevada certificate does that person hold? Request the exact name and credential information the board can verify.
2. Who supervises that manager? Ask for the supervising community manager's name, role, current certification, workload, and escalation responsibility.
3. What happens if the assigned manager leaves, is unavailable, or has a certification issue? Require a written backup and transition procedure.
4. Which duties are performed by certificated managers, support staff, affiliates, or outside vendors? The answer should distinguish management judgment from clerical processing and professional services.
5. How does the company monitor renewals, education, regulatory changes, and disciplinary matters? Ask for the control, not private personnel records.

The Nevada Real Estate Division publishes community-manager information and forms. The board should perform its own verification and preserve the result in the selection file.

2. Read the management agreement as an operating document

NRS 116A.620 sets requirements for management agreements. The current statute addresses subjects such as written execution, the term, consideration, the fee schedule, scope of work, spending limits, insurance, dispute resolution, termination, ownership and location of the association's records, and transfer of records to a successor manager. The board should compare the proposal and sales presentation with the actual contract.

Ask:

1. Show us where every promised service appears in the contract. Build a crosswalk from proposal line item to contract section, responsible role, frequency, deliverable, and fee.
2. What is included in the base fee, and what triggers an additional charge? Test meetings, mailings, records requests, resale work, collections, projects, after-hours calls, bank changes, tax and audit support, document storage, and transition work.
3. What are the manager's spending limits and emergency authority? The contract should be consistent with the board's policies, governing documents, bank controls, and insurance requirements.
4. What is the initial term, renewal process, termination notice, and termination cost? Identify auto-renewal, early termination, cause provisions, data export, records delivery, final accounting, and credential transfer.
5. How are contract changes approved and documented? Avoid operational terms that can change through an informal email from one director.
6. Which subcontractors and affiliates may perform work? Require disclosure of markups, referral fees, incentives, ownership, data access, and the board's right to reject or independently bid services.

A strong company welcomes a clause-by-clause review. A board should be wary when important service promises live only in a proposal, email, or salesperson's verbal explanation.

3. Test financial custody and approval controls

The management company may process significant operating and reserve funds. The board remains responsible for governance and oversight even when staff perform the daily work.

Ask:

1. In whose legal name are bank and investment accounts maintained? The association should understand ownership, authorized signers, online administrators, statement delivery, and access after termination.
2. Who can add a vendor, change banking instructions, enter a bill, approve it, release payment, initiate a transfer, post a journal entry, or reconcile the account? Request a role matrix that separates incompatible duties.
3. How are vendor bank changes authenticated? Require a callback to a trusted number, independent review, and a retained audit trail.
4. Who receives bank statements directly from the financial institution? At least one authorized board reviewer should have independent visibility that does not depend on the manager's portal.
5. How are reserve withdrawals authorized and documented? Ask the candidate to connect board approval, reserve component or project, contract, invoice, payment approval, bank activity, and monthly reporting.
6. What happens when an owner payment does not match the bank deposit or owner ledger? The manager should have exception queues for processor batches, lockbox items, returned payments, unidentified receipts, and corrections.
7. What fraud controls apply to the management company's employees and systems? Ask about individual credentials, multifactor authentication, least privilege, approval thresholds, logs, access reviews, employee changes, insurance, and incident response.

Do not accept "the software handles it" as an answer. Software can enforce configured permissions and preserve evidence, but people decide who has access, review exceptions, and respond when the evidence does not agree.

4. Require a monthly financial package the board can govern from

A useful financial package should help directors answer four questions: What happened? Why did it happen? What changes the forecast? What decision is needed?

Ask:

1. What is delivered every month, and by what date? Request a redacted sample containing the balance sheet, income and expense statement, budget comparison, cash and investments, bank reconciliations, accounts receivable, accounts payable, reserve activity, projects, and written variance commentary.
2. How are bank reconciliations prepared and reviewed? Ask who investigates old outstanding checks, unusual transfers, deposits in transit, unreconciled differences, and voids.
3. How are operating and reserve activity separated? The board should be able to see restricted or designated balances, transfers, project commitments, and any interfund amounts.
4. How are owner balances controlled? Require a tie between the owner subledger, control accounts, cash receipts, collection status, payment plans, legal balances, credits, and write-offs.
5. How does the company support the association's tax preparer, auditor, reserve professional, lender, and insurer? Define the evidence package, due dates, secure exchange, questions log, adjustments, and final storage.
6. What close checklist is completed before reports are issued? Look for bank, receivable, payable, payroll, prepaid, accrual, reserve, investment, debt, fixed-asset, project, and interfund review.

Ask the finalist to trace one number from the board package to the general ledger, invoice, approval, payment record, and bank statement. That exercise tests system access and staff fluency better than screenshots.

5. Ask how the company supports budgets and reserves

Nevada's statutory framework contains detailed budget, reserve, and reserve-study provisions. The manager should know the association's calendar and coordinate qualified professionals without pretending to replace them.

Ask:

1. What is the annual budget calendar? It should start early enough to update contracts, utilities, insurance, payroll, bad debt, routine maintenance, reserve contributions, projects, professional fees, and owner communications.
2. How are budget assumptions documented? Require rate, volume, timing, contract, staffing, delinquency, insurance, and project assumptions rather than unexplained percentage increases.
3. How do you coordinate the reserve study and resulting board decisions? Ask how component data, site access, planned projects, inflation, funding recommendations, and owner explanations move among the board, reserve specialist, manager, engineer, vendors, and accountant.
4. How are reserve projects tracked against the study? The board should see planned amount, approved scope, contract, changes, actual spending, funding source, completion, warranty, and future-study update.
5. How are reserve transfers or temporary uses escalated? Require statutory and governing-document review, board authority, notices where applicable, accounting treatment, repayment plan, and continuing reporting.

The board should receive a forward-looking schedule, not merely an annual budget file and a reserve-study PDF stored in separate folders.

6. Evaluate records, owner access, and privacy together

NRS 116.31175 addresses association books, records, availability, retention, and electronic delivery requirements. Other provisions may apply to meeting records, member lists, ballots, violations, resale information, and privileged or sensitive material.

Ask:

1. Where is the association's system of record? The association should have appropriate administrative access and a practical export path.
2. How are records classified, named, retained, searched, reviewed, redacted, and produced? Request the taxonomy, retention schedule, request log, delivery evidence, and counsel-escalation path.
3. How do you meet electronic-copy deadlines and document the response? Ask for the intake timestamp, scope confirmation, custodian search, review, cost handling, secure delivery, and closure record.
4. How are privileged, personnel, security, health, financial, owner, collection, and vendor data protected? The answer should address both access and disclosure.
5. How does the association obtain a complete export at any time? Define file formats, folder index, email, portal content, owner ledger history, accounting data, approvals, audit logs, credentials, and encryption keys.
6. What records remain with the manager after termination, and why? The contract should address lawful retention without using records as leverage in a fee dispute.

Ask the company to demonstrate how it would find a prior board decision and all connected notices, contracts, invoices, correspondence, and completion evidence.

7. Examine owner service, collections, and enforcement

Collections and enforcement require accurate facts, consistent procedures, board authority, owner notice, and timely escalation. A high message volume does not excuse unreliable ledgers or incomplete case files.

Ask:

1. How is a balance validated before a delinquency notice or attorney referral? Require review of assessments, special assessments, payments, credits, returns, late charges, interest, fines, legal costs, payment plans, disputes, and recent transactions.
2. Which decisions require board approval or counsel? The policy should identify referral, payment plans, settlements, liens, litigation, foreclosure, accommodations, bankruptcy, probate, military protections, and disputed debt.
3. How is an enforcement case documented from report through closure? Look for date, evidence, governing basis, prior cases, notice, delivery, owner response, hearing, board decision, correction, fine, and closure.
4. How are fair-housing and disability-related requests routed? Sensitive requests need restricted access and trained escalation, not a general violation queue.
5. What service levels apply to owners and directors? Define acknowledgment, substantive response, escalation, emergency routing, and monthly performance reporting.

The board should review a redacted delinquency file and violation file. It should look for complete evidence and consistent decision points, not simply attractive templates.

8. Review technology, cybersecurity, and data portability

Ask:

1. Which platform is the authoritative source for accounting, owner records, work orders, documents, violations, communications, and approvals? Identify integrations and manual handoffs where errors can occur.
2. Does the association control its domain, bank access, payment accounts, vendor portals, document repository, and software administrator credentials? Shared control reduces transition risk.
3. How is access granted, reviewed, changed, and removed? Ask for multifactor authentication, role-based permissions, device and password standards, vendor access, logs, and an employee-offboarding checklist.
4. What is the incident response plan? Require notification criteria, containment, evidence preservation, insurer and counsel coordination, owner communication, recovery, and lessons learned.
5. How is data backed up, exported, and tested? A promise that information is "in the cloud" is not a recovery or portability plan.
6. May association data be used to train artificial-intelligence systems or for unrelated business purposes? Require clear contractual restrictions, vendor disclosures, and approved use cases.

Ask for a demonstration using realistic work: finding a board resolution, tracing an owner payment, producing a records request, and exporting the association's data.

9. Control vendors, projects, and conflicts

Ask:

1. How are vendors qualified and conflicts disclosed? Request procedures for insurance, licensing where applicable, tax documentation, safety, references, ownership, incentives, and related parties.
2. How are scopes and proposals made comparable? The manager should normalize exclusions, allowances, warranties, schedule, bonds, payment terms, and change-order assumptions.
3. Who approves contracts, changes, and payments? Match authority to the agreement, board policy, budget, governing documents, and bank controls.
4. How are emergency purchases handled? Define authority, contemporaneous documentation, notice, later board review, insurance coordination, and procurement follow-up.
5. What does project closeout include? Require final inspection, punch list, lien releases where appropriate, warranties, manuals, permits, photographs, reserve-study update, and future maintenance.

The board should ask whether the manager or any affiliate receives referral fees, commissions, rebates, volume incentives, markups, or other benefits. Disclosure should be written and specific.

10. Make transition performance part of the selection

Ask each finalist for a 30-, 60-, and 90-day transition plan. It should cover:

• contract and vendor inventory;
• governing documents, policies, resolutions, and minutes;
• bank accounts, investments, signers, statements, and payment credentials;
• accounting data, open periods, reconciliations, owner balances, payables, deposits, tax and audit files;
• reserve study, project commitments, warranties, claims, insurance, and legal matters;
• owner and tenant data, portals, autopay, lockbox, mail, email, phone, website, and emergency contacts;
• records repository, credentials, integrations, exports, backups, privacy, and cybersecurity;
• collections, violations, hearings, accommodations, disputes, and pending deadlines;
• board training, owner communication, risk log, and acceptance testing.

Then ask:

1. Who owns every transition task? Require names, deadlines, dependencies, evidence, and escalation.
2. How will opening balances be validated? The new manager should not silently inherit unreconciled cash or disputed owner ledgers.
3. What can delay owner payments or access? Identify portal invitations, payment instructions, autopay changes, lockbox, returned mail, and support staffing.
4. What does transition acceptance mean? The board should approve a checklist of received records, reconciled balances, tested credentials, open exceptions, and remaining work.

A practical finalist scorecard

Score each company on the same evidence:

• Nevada certification and supervision — 10%. Require verifiable credentials, a backup structure, and a training control.
• Contract clarity and total cost — 15%. Require the proposal-to-contract crosswalk, complete fee schedule, and termination terms.
• Financial controls and reporting — 20%. Require the role matrix, redacted financial package, and reconciliation and payment evidence.
• Records, owner access, and privacy — 15%. Require the taxonomy, request log, retention and redaction procedures, and an export demonstration.
• Reserves, budgets, and projects — 10%. Require the calendar, reserve workflow, project file, and variance reporting.
• Owner service, collections, and enforcement — 10%. Require service levels, redacted case files, and an escalation matrix.
• Technology and cybersecurity — 10%. Require the access model, incident plan, and a backup and export test.
• Transition capacity and references — 10%. Require a named transition plan, validation steps, and comparable references.

Use a scoring scale with written anchors. A top score should mean the company produced relevant evidence and explained the control owner, frequency, exception handling, and association access. It should not mean the interviewer merely liked the presentation.

Official Nevada sources to keep in the selection file

• Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 116
• Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 116A
• Nevada Administrative Code Chapter 116
• Nevada Administrative Code Chapter 116A
• Nevada Real Estate Division CIC statutes and regulations
• Nevada Real Estate Division CIC forms
• Nevada CIC Ombudsman's Office

Check the official sources again before signing a contract. Statutes, regulations, forms, and agency procedures can change.

Bottom line

The best Nevada HOA management company is not the one that gives the broadest promise. It is the one that can show a verifiable manager structure, a precise contract, controlled association funds, accessible records, reliable board reporting, fair owner workflows, portable data, and a transition plan the board can test.

Use the law to frame the questions. Use documents, demonstrations, references, and contract language to evaluate the answers.