Category Archive : Evictions

LAS VEGAS, NV – According to a new study, Las Vegas currently has one of the highest eviction rates in the nation, owing in part to the Nevada state judicial system leaning in favor of the rights of landlords, particularly when it comes to nonpayment of rent by tenants.

As per Princeton’s Eviction Lab, Las Vegas currently ranks seventh out of the 34 major metro areas throughout the United States that they track in terms of eviction filing rates.

There were 190,133 eviction filings in Clark County between March 2020 and August 2024, which represents a 21 percent increase over the levels experienced prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. In August 2024 alone, there were 4,041 eviction filings, a jump of 25 percent when compared to an average pre-pandemic month.

Clark County has one of the fastest and cheapest eviction processes in the country; landlords are only required to provide seven days’ notice for an eviction and the cost to file the proper documentation with the court system is just $71.

In addition, landlords in Clark County face an easier path to eviction in the courtroom as well, as – unlike most other legal proceedings involving corporations – they are not required to hire a lawyer to represent them. Instead, a landlord can simply have an agent appear to make the case for the eviction, again making the process faster and cheaper.

Evictions in Las Vegas hit their highest point ever in December 2022 – up 82 percent when compared to before the pandemic – following the end of eviction moratoriums at the end of May 2021 that were put into place to protect individuals who claimed they were financially impacted COVID-19.

While the percentage of local evictions has lowered significantly since then, the real estate market in Southern Nevada – like much of the country – is in a state of constant flux as housing options remain scarce and highly-priced.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – According to a new study released by the Eviction Lab at Princeton University, Clark County, Nevada is among the municipalities with the highest rates of tenant eviction in the nation.

However, Princeton’s study should not be considered 100 percent definitive, said Eviction Lab research specialist Grace Hartley, as its parameters are narrower than more comprehensive efforts would be, with researchers having only tracked 34 major metro areas throughout the country.

But regardless, Clark County ranked among the highest in the areas tracked, although that ranking is not per capita, Hartley noted.

The population of (Clark County) has the seventh-highest rate in terms of pure filing counts,” she said. “And that’s more than a lot of the states we track.”

There have been 190,133 eviction filings in Clark County since March 2020, which represents a 21 percent jump from the amount seen prior to the COVID-19 pandemic; in 2024 alone, there have been 51,782 filings so far – an increase of 42 percent from pre-pandemic levels – and 4,041 filings in August, a 25 percent increase.

Currently, according to the Eviction Lab, there are approximately 370,204 households being rented in Clark County, with the average monthly rent coming in at about $1,325.

Among the circumstances that attribute to those higher degree of eviction numbers, according to Princeton, is the fact that the process of filing for evictions in Clark County tend to be cheaper and faster than it is in any of the other cities tracked in their study; tenants are only required to be given seven days’ notice by their landlord, and the filing fee with the court is only $71.

In addition, in June 2023, a bill that would have stopped evictions for up to 60 days for renters with pending applications for rental insistence – Senate Bill 335 – was vetoed by Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo, which has also served to increase eviction levels in the state, Princeton says.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Following the end of pandemic-era housing protections, the number of evictions soared nationally and many tenants who failed to pay their rent during COVID-19 – either because of financial issues brought about by the virus, or because they were simply taking advantage of the law for their own gain – found themselves out on the street.

In fact, in 2023, evictions in some U.S. cities increased to over 50 percent higher than they were prior to the pandemic, according to a recent study by the University of Michigan.

While this was a blessing for many cash-strapped landlords who suffered throughout the pandemic, it has led to a new series of issues that many are being forced to face: a growing number of states that are allowing tenants to seal their eviction records in some – and, at times, all – cases, making it difficult for the next individual they rent from to tell if they will be a reliable occupant or not.

The increasing number of states that are passing legislation in favor of allowing tenants to conceal their previous eviction status argue that – regardless of the reason – having an eviction on your record can have a negative impact on acquiring new housing and can contribute to homelessness.

However, many landlords – especially small mom-and-pop property owners with limited means – argue that it is unfair to conceal eviction records from them, given the fact that many were already forced to provide free shelter for an extended time during the pandemic, much to their financial detriment. Not knowing if a new tenant is reliable or not could potentially put them in additional jeopardy, they say.

That being said, can tenants have their eviction records sealed in the state of Nevada? To answer that question, we turn to Nevada Legal Services (NLS), which lays out the details.

Normally, evictions are considered public records, and in the case of Nevada, that is no different. However, there are instances where – due to the passage of Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) 40.2545 in 2022 – courts are allowed to seal a summary eviction case in certain circumstances; sometimes automatically, sometimes when petitioned by a tenant or landlord.

According to NLS, an eviction in the state of Nevada is sealed automatically:

• If the eviction is dismissed.
• 10 judicial days after eviction denied – tenant prevails at court hearing.
• The landlord seeks to rescind the eviction.
• 31 days after Tenant files the Tenant’s Affidavit if Landlord does not file.

In other instances, a tenant must take action to have an eviction sealed; a Stipulation to Seal can be filed if a landlord agrees to seal the eviction, and both parties must sign the form. But if the landlord does not agree to seal the eviction, the tenant must file a motion on their own, which may or may not be granted, depending on the circumstances of the eviction; essentially, they must prove to the court “the interest of justice in sealing the eviction is not outweighed by the public’s interest in access to court records.”

So, in closing, Nevada currently does not have a blanket seal on eviction records; they can be automatically sealed in certain instances, but otherwise tenants are required to petition the court to do so, and they must provide proof to back that petition up or it will not be granted.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Following the expiration of a specific COVID-19 expiration this past June, landlords in Las Vegas are now allowed to proceed with evicting tenants who have not been paying their rent, even if said tenant has applied for and is awaiting approval for participation in rental assistance programs.  

As a result of the expiration of these tenant protections – in addition to Nevada state Governor Joe Lombardo recently vetoing two similarly-themed bills – courtrooms across the Las Vegas Valley have encountered a surge of eviction cases recently, and are bracing for yet still more in the coming weeks. 

To compensate for the increased number of cases on the docket, the courts have been forced to add additional days and hours for hearing eviction cases in order to keep up with the huge workload. 

According to the Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada, the increase in eviction cases they are handling has jumped from 300 or so on what would normally be termed a “busy day” to now over 400 to 500 a day. 

In addition to the expiration of COVID-19 protections, the main contributing factor for the rise in eviction rates in recent weeks comes from two bills that Governor Lombardo vetoed after they passed in the Nevada Legislature. The first one, AB340, would have changed the procedures governing evictions in order to give tenants an extended period of time to respond to an eviction notice; the second bill, SB355, would have placed a moratorium on evicting disabled and senior tenants who had applied for aid in paying their rent. 

Both of these bills were summarily vetoed by Lombardo, who said that AB340 would have made the eviction process unnecessarily longer than needed and would prove harmful to landlords statewide. 

AB340 would restructure Nevada’s summary eviction process in a manner that would impose additional and unnecessary delays and costs on those seeking to remove individuals who unlawfully remain on their property after the termination of their lease,” he said. “This bill would make our summary eviction process more time-consuming than our peer states and would create ambiguous threshold standards which could be ruled upon by a judge without any formal hearing, providing insufficient protections for Nevada property owners.” 

And while Lombardo agreed that SB78 would add transparency to the rental process, he objected to the bill’s “wide-ranging changes to accounting practices, traditional fee collection, certain disclosures and various notice requirements for landlords,” adding that it would have made the current shortage of rentals in Nevada even worse. 

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – The Nevada Legislature last week introduced Assembly Bill 340, which, if passed, will change how landlords in Nevada can evict tenants from their properties by forcing them to first file an affidavit in court before they are allowed to start the eviction process. 

AB 340 was presented to the Nevada Legislature Assembly Judiciary Committee last Wednesday, with the sponsors of the legislation saying that its intent is to protect tenants in the state who are struggling to keep up with increases in their rent.

A local organization backing the bill, Battle Born Progress, said that it would give tenants more time to respond to an eviction request by mandating landlords to file a court order before they can serve an eviction notice.

“If a landlord needs to evict a tenant that can still happen,” said Battle Born Progress representative Will Pregman. “But there needs to be an ability for the tenant to reasonably respond to it.”

But while some groups are supporting the bill, many others are criticizing it; Derek Moellinger of Vice Realty Group, which manages apartment complexes, issued a statement condemning AB 340 while also referencing a previous piece of pandemic-era legislation – AB 486, set to expire in June – which stays an eviction proceeding if a tenant has an application for rental assistance pending.

“Landlords have been destroyed in the state because of AB 486. Now the state seeks to further damage landlords with this new bill. I am an investor and I manage almost 1000 properties and I will not put one dollar of my own money into Nevada,” he said. “I counsel every one of my investors to move out of this state and move to a state that actually has fair eviction laws. Right now, in Nevada a tenant can claim to have applied for rental assistance and with that claim, whether true or not, the eviction process will take a minimum of six months and can go as long as a year. During that entire time, the landlord receives no money; and when the tenant finally moves out, the landlord has no recourse to regain any of that lost money. The tenant can then break back into the unit and it is not considered a crime. It’s a civil matter, and the landlord must go back to court and try to remove this person again.”

“These are the kinds of laws that landlords have to deal with in Nevada right now and it’s insane to me that the state wants to further punitively damage landlords when housing is the scarcest resource Nevada has,” Moellinger continued. “You have Investors like me and my friends who have millions of dollars at their disposal and refuse to spend a dollar of it in Nevada anymore. We used to be the reasons blocks were repaired and we were the reason tenants were placed. We were the reason things improved for low-income people. Now it’s a disaster in this state and it’s only going to get worse because the state is chasing away the only people who are willing to actually make a difference, which are owners.”

AB 340 would have to be approved by the state assembly and senate before it could be signed into law by Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Since the end of the eviction moratorium in Las Vegas on May 31, 2021 – which was originally set in-place during the COVID-19 pandemic – Las Vegas has since seen a significant spike in evictions for a number of different reasons, but primarily for nonpayment of rent for an extended period of time.

While some of these evictions are due to genuine financial hardship brought about by the pandemic, reports indicate that many of these were due to tenants “gaming the system” by claiming hardship when none actually existed.

In September 2020, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department reported 800 eviction notices were served, along with 395 lockouts; these took place while the eviction moratorium was still in-place. It should be noted that while the moratorium forbade evictions due to financial issues encountered due to the pandemic, other reasons for an eviction – such as destruction of property or being judged to be a threat or nuisance to your neighbors – remained valid.

In September 2021 – after the eviction moratorium had ceased – police reported that the number of evictions on record effectively quadrupled, with 1,168 for eviction notices served and 1,482 lockouts having been carried out.

Some of these tenants, however, are able to remain in their residences due to Nevada Assembly Bill 486, which states that someone cannot be evicted if they have a pending application for rental assistance through programs such as the CARES Housing Assistance Program (CHAP). However, if an application is not pending, Bill 486 does not apply and the eviction can go forth.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused untold hardship not just for renters in Las Vegas – as well as nationwide – but also for landlords, many of whom were forced due to eviction moratoriums on both a federal and local level to allow tenants who were not paying any rent to nonetheless live for months in their properties, essentially for free.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

Last week, the United States Supreme Court struck down the Biden Administration’s nationwide eviction moratorium; however, is unlikely to have any impact whatsoever upon tenants facing eviction for nonpayment of rent due to a recently-passed piece of legislation in the state of Nevada which offers ironclad protections for those who have applied for federal rent relief funding.

Kaila Leavitt, president of Leavitt Evictions, noted that Assembly Bill 486, which prohibits eviction if a tenant has applied for federal rent relief funds, potentially offers more protections than the recently-overturned eviction ban put forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“Here in the state of Nevada, we have [Assembly Bill 486] which arguably protects tenants more than the federal moratorium does,” she said.

A previous eviction moratorium issued by Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak ended on May 31; the moratorium enacted by the CDC, which targeted counties with high COVID-19 transmission rates, would have expired on October 3 if it had not been struck down last week by the Supreme Court.

Leavitt noted that AB 486 offers protections for 90 days for renters that have applied for federal relief funds and are awaiting the outcome of their case, allowing them to remain in their homes whether or not they are currently paying any rent to their landlords.

However, according to Leavitt, that may not be the case in terms of constitutional legality, and despite the fact that a renter may have applied for federal funds, it may still be possible to evict them for nonpayment of rent.

“I think many landlords were under the impression that the federal moratorium got extended again, they couldn’t evict. And that was just not the case,” she said. “When the tenant gets the notice, they don’t communicate with their landlord. They don’t respond. They just think they can’t be evicted and they just write it off. That’s just really not the case.”

AB 486 is due to expire on June 5, 2023, or when the $360 million in rental relief funds allotted to Nevada is spent.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – The United States Supreme Court on Thursday issued a ruling that struck down the latest eviction moratorium enacted by the Biden Administration – stating that it can only be extended via Congressional legislation – clearing the way for potentially millions of evictions across the country to begin.

The newly-invalidated eviction moratorium was initially issued on August 3 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); this was done after a previous ban was allowed to lapse on July 31 after the Supreme Court had ruled that it could only continue through an act of Congress, which failed to materialize due to lack of support.

Nonetheless, the Biden Administration issued a more targeted eviction moratorium, aimed at areas with high infection rates; President Job Biden himself told reporters that he doubted it would pass Constitutional muster, but hoped that time eaten up by legal challenges would give states more time to distribute $46.5 billion in federal rental assistance funds. The moratorium had originally been scheduled to expire October 3.

The new moratorium – much like the original – was aimed at preventing homelessness by not allowing evictions due to financial hardship experienced from the COVID-19 pandemic; however, the Supreme Court declared Thursday that it was beyond the CDC’s authority.

“If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it,” the Supreme Court’s ruling stated, effectively ending the eviction ban immediately.

Liberal Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Breyer, dissented from Thursday’s ruling.

The eviction moratoriums have been an especially strong hardship for smaller mom-and-pop landlords; currently, according to reports, as many as 15 million households in the United States owe a combined total of approximately $20 billion in back rent, with about 58 percent of tenants currently behind on rent.

Meanwhile, landlords have been forced to not only allow their tenants to live for free in their properties, but they have also been required to maintain the properties out of their own pockets, driving many to financial ruin.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – According to a recent study, the eviction moratoriums enacted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help reduce homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic have had the incredibly negative side-effect of proving extremely costly to both Nevada landlords and the state’s overall economy.

The positive benefit to Nevada’s economy that is generated by the state’s residential rental industry is estimated to have decreased by a full 9 percent – or a whopping $511 million – in 2020 when compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, according to the report released last Thursday.

In addition, lost wages and their subsequent lack of contribution to the state’s economy due to the eviction bans have cost Nevada approximately $12.6 million in lost sales and use tax revenue in 2020 as well.

The report also found that small mom-and-pop landlords – who make up the majority of the rental marketplace in Nevada – have suffered the most financially from the eviction bans, with an average loss of approximately $1,870 per unit. In addition, landlords with over 30 units have been deprived of about $350 per unit, with an average of $422 per unit lost between March 2020 and February 2021.

Nevada Realtors and Nevada State Apartment Association President Brad Spires noted that the report helps put this damage caused by the CDC eviction moratoriums into perspective from an economic point of view.

“It reinforces what we’ve been saying throughout this pandemic about the disproportionate harm these policies have had on individual property owners who depend on rental income to survive,” he said.

The report arrived at these findings by surveying 140 landlords and property management firms, who own a combined 21,000 units among them.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – The U.S. Court of Appeals issued a ruling on Friday that upheld the eviction moratorium enacted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on August 3, after the previous eviction ban was allowed to lapse by Congress. The next stop for the case, filed by a group of Alabama and Georgia landlords, is the Supreme Court, which is slated to hear the case this week.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled against the plaintiffs who were seeking to block the new moratorium, but the landlord groups quickly pivoted and filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Court. In turn, Chief Justice John Roberts has ordered the administration of President Joe Biden to respond to the lawsuit by 12pm on Monday.

“As five Members of this Court indicated less than two months ago, Congress never gave the CDC the staggering amount of power it claims,” the motion filed by the landlords read.

This quote in the motion refers to the previous decision rendered by the Supreme Court in June that allowed the CDC’s first eviction moratorium to remain in-place until its original expiration date of July 31. However, Brett Kavanaugh – who voted with the 5-4 majority in that ruling – noted that he would not support any further extensions of the eviction ban without the approval of Congress, which failed to materialize.

After the ban was allowed to expire, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky announced the new eviction ban, citing the rapid spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19. The new ban applies to counties where at least 50 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 people have been reported over the past seven days, which currently covers nearly 95 percent of all U.S. counties.

The new ban is set to expire October 3, but can be lengthened or shortened based on changes in the spread of the virus.

President Biden himself has admitted to reporters that the new CDC eviction ban many not be constitutional, but noted that any legal challenges would grant extra time for states to distribute federal rent relief funds.

LAS VEGAS, NV – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is expected to issue a ruling this week as to whether or not the recent eviction moratorium set in place by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be allowed to continue.

The new, limited moratorium was imposed by the CDC on August 3, 2021, covering areas with substantial and high transmission of COVID-19 – currently covering about 90 percent of the U.S. population – in response after a previous moratorium, originally set in place on September 4, 2020, had expired on July 31, 2021.

The Court of Appeals set an expedited schedule in response to a lower court’s ruling on Friday, when U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich declared the CDC’s eviction moratorium to be illegal, but nonetheless said that she was forced to allow it to stand for the time being, stating that her “hands are tied” by a previous decision handed down by an appellate court earlier in the year.

The Justice Department has been given by the Court of Appeals until 9 a.m. Tuesday to respond; the plaintiffs, made up of Alabama and Georgia realtors, have until Wednesday morning. Both parties have requested that the court issue its ruling on the matter by Thursday, with the realtors stating that “This Court should do what the district court thought it could not.”

If the Court of Appeals does not end the CDC’s eviction moratorium, the plaintiffs are expected to take the matter to the Supreme Court, who had previously ruled against the previous moratorium being ended before its July expiration date. However, Justice Brett Kavanaugh – who had voted not to end the eviction ban early – also noted that he would also reject any additional extensions without Congressional legislative action, which failed to take place.

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.

LAS VEGAS, NV – Since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued their initial eviction moratorium in September of 2020, landlords have been unfortunately caught in a tug-of-war between the federal government and their tenants that reside in their rental properties, all due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a national malady that seems to refuse to go away.

Many landlords are understanding of the financial issues that their tenants may have encountered as a result of the pandemic, but at this point the CDC’s eviction moratorium has been ongoing in one form or another for nearly a year. The latest ban on evicting tenants for failure to pay rent for reasons related to COVID-19 is slated to expire on October 3, but who’s to say it won’t be extended yet again?

In the meantime, a recent article has laid bare what landlords are going through in Las Vegas – many of them small mom-and-pop operations who rely on rent money for their livelihoods or retirement – and the feelings that they are expressing can be summed up in one word- “enough.”

In the article – a commentary by Susy Vasquez, executive director of the Nevada State Apartment Association – it is pointed out that the burden of the economic issues being faced by so many in this country today are unfairly – and solely – being placed on the backs of landlords.

“No other industry has been asked to give away its goods and services for free during this global pandemic,” she said. “No other industry has had a cap placed on its ability to charge a fair market price for its products or services. And no other industry facing this situation provides one of the basic human necessities: housing.”

“Rental housing providers in Nevada and nationwide have been forced by our federal government to house everyone for free, if needed, only to learn months later that not all renters would qualify for government-provided rent assistance,” she continued.

Vasquez points out that landlords had been previously assured that eviction bans would not be extended again… only to discover that was not true, as evidenced by the CDC’s new moratorium, issued on August 3. The author also notes that it is highly likely that the CDC’s current eviction ban is illegal and is already being challenged in the courts, but the trust between landlords and the federal government is already tarnished.

Vasquez states that the CDC eviction ban was more about buying time to distribute federal rental assistance funds than anything else – a process that has been slow to roll out at the state level – and points out that the longer this process goes on, the worse it will be for all parties involved.

“The CDC’s eviction order leaves renters facing insurmountable debt and jeopardizes the ability of rental housing providers to provide safe, sustainable and affordable housing,” she said. “The distribution of critical rental assistance has been painfully slow. Renters and rental housing providers desperately need these funds to catch up on their bills.”

If landlords are forced to shoulder this burden much longer, Vasquez says, many will soon be in the same situation that many of their tenants face… or worse.

“The bottom line is that eviction is always our last resort. The housing industry is in the business of housing people and trying to find another tenant means additional lost rent and more hassle for housing providers,” she said. “Enough is enough. Rent assistance needs to be made a top priority and be distributed to those in need at a much faster pace, making landlords and tenants whole.”

Shelter Realty is a Real Estate and Property Management Company specializing in the areas of Henderson, Las Vegas and North Las Vegas, NV. Feel free to give us a call at 702.376.7379 so we can answer any questions you may have.