It’s a Wednesday afternoon in Las Vegas Justice Court.
“Would you agree you are significantly behind on rent?” asks Judge Daniel Westmeyer.
The tenant agrees.
“Is there some reason why I shouldn’t grant the landlord’s request?”
The tenant explains to the judge that he moved to Las Vegas in December and is working with Clark County’s CARES Housing Assistance Program (CHAP) to help with rent. He says his phone was lost and he lost his job and access to credit in the last few months.
“I’m trying my best,” he says.
The landlord’s attorney has said the tenant owes more than $5,000 in rent.
Westmeyer orders a summary eviction. He tells the tenant the earliest lockout would be Tuesday, less than a week away, and advises him to contact the landlord to see if they can’t work out a payment plan.
The judge calls up the next defendant and plaintiff. The landlord or their attorney tells the judge the defendant owes $5,700 and has defaulted since December. They cycle through the routine questions.
“Would you agree that you are significantly behind on rent?” Westmeyer asks the tenant. She explains to the judge that she works for the school district and recently had her hours cut. She promises she can have a payment by tomorrow afternoon.
The landlord tells the judge he’s afraid the tenant will keep falling behind on rent. She responds that she will be able to pay rent moving forward, because her job has recently given her more hours.
In a final decision, the judge tells the parties that if the tenant can pay her outstanding balance in full by 5 p.m. Thursday, then the requested eviction would be dismissed.
“If 5:01 rolls around and you haven’t paid it, the landlord can again request a summary eviction,” Westmeyer explains to the parties.
Westmeyer runs through the cases with efficiency. In less than 30 minutes, he gets through six of them.
According to Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada’s analysis of the annual report of the Nevada Judiciary, for every day the courts were open in 2023, there were about 296 evictions filed. Clark County had 76,910 summary eviction cases filed or reopened in 2023.
That’s in a metropolitan area of about 370,200 renters, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, which conducts research and creates data about evictions nationwide.
As of February 1, evictions have increased 155% since before the pandemic. And North Las Vegas, Sunrise Manor, Paradise, Las Vegas and Henderson all made Eviction Lab’s top 100 list of “evicting large cities in the U.S.”
Rising rents and inflation, which have taken off since the pandemic, haven’t helped. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a person making minimum wage ($11.25) would have to work 82 hours per week to afford fair market rate rent in Nevada ($1,196 per month).
Considering that the median apartment rent in Las Vegas is $1,963 (according to Zillow), many people are having trouble finding housing that is affordable, or a job that can help them cover all their housing costs.
That’s why advocates are working to reform Nevada’s summary eviction process.
“None of this is a surprise,” says Assemblywoman Shondra Summers-Armstrong, who attempted to pass a bill in the 2023 legislative session to reform summary evictions.
After it passed both houses of the Legislature, Gov. Joe Lombardo vetoed the bill saying in a veto message that it would make the eviction process “more time-consuming” and would give judges too much discretion.
“We’ve known since before 2021 that we have some of the highest rates of eviction in the nation. … That was the whole purpose of the eviction bills—not to stop evictions as a whole, but to make it more equitable for regular people to be able to have representation and have an equitable voice in the process,” Summers-Armstrong says. “In no other civil practice does the defendant have to file their pleading first.”
What is summary eviction? When a person receives an eviction notice in Nevada, they must file a response in court to prevent the eviction from going through. If a person isn’t aware of that legal obligation, that eviction notice can quickly lead to a lockout.
This process is unlike most other states, where landlords must file eviction notices with the court in order for the notice to be valid.
Summers-Armstrong’s bill would have required the landlord to make the first filing in court. But the assemblywoman says that moving forward, she will not be leading the effort to reform summary evictions in the Legislature because she will not be returning to the Legislature in 2025. She is running for Las Vegas City Council Ward 5.
“Of course, I’m disappointed it was vetoed. But that’s always the risk you take when you bring legislation that’s making change,” Summers-Armstrong says. “I will not be bringing [the bill] back next time because I will not be returning to the Assembly. … But I have to believe that there has to be a change from the legislative perspective.”
Organizations like Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN) carry the mantle. The group performs court observing to collect data about evictions and to connect with community members who are experiencing eviction.
David Lopez-Wade was there at Las Vegas Justice Court that Wednesday with a group of volunteers doing court observation. The data manager for PLAN, a nonprofit that focuses on social justice efforts, says the status quo in eviction court doesn’t seem just.
“For me, I think it’s really important to monitor,” Lopez-Wade says. “This is supposed to be a justice system, and I want to make sure our justice system is actually serving out justice and not just supporting the status quo, because the status quo here in Nevada already caters to landlords more than it does to tenants.”
The Weekly reached out to the Nevada State Apartment Association for comment on evictions from landlords’ perspectives. The association provided the following statement:
“The Nevada State Apartment Association has always prioritized housing Nevadans through safe and affordable options. Keeping individuals and families housed on a long-term basis is a focus of our organization as well as our responsibility to the community.
“However, situations arise that make that unattainable. When eviction is discussed, it is never something the property owner wants to do and is the final resort in a strenuous situation. Leading up to an eviction, there are typically several attempts at communication from the property owner to the tenant, including providing lists of resources for the tenant to seek assistance.
“As the voice of the multifamily housing industry in Nevada, representing over 900 members, we will continue to work closely with community leaders and organizations as well as our elected officials to create and implement practices that keep Nevadans housed.”
Las Vegas and Nevada rank last in the nation in terms of affordable housing. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Nevada needs about 84,000 more units to meet affordable housing demand.
In the Las Vegas metropolitan area there are only 14 homes available for every 100 extremely low-income households (making $26,500 or less for a family of four) that need them.
What happens in a lockout? There are several legal causes for eviction including nonpayment of rent, no-cause, nuisance, or lease violation.
“I deal solely with eviction,” says Nick Haley, an attorney from Legal Aid Center of Southern Nevada’s Consumer Rights Project. “I do get other cases besides nonpayment, but the nonpayments are still the biggest chunk of what we’re seeing.”
In Clark County, if a tenant does not pay rent on time, a landlord can request the constable to post a seven-day pay rent or quit notice, which the constable serves the following business day. When the tenant receives the notice, they have seven business days to answer the notice.
If the tenant does not file a motion to stay the eviction in that seven-day timeframe, then the landlord can file a complaint for summary eviction in Justice Court. After judicial review, the eviction order can be granted and trigger a lockout by the constable’s office within two business days.
“After the lockout, you would need the permission of the landlord to enter and you would have to arrange a time with the landlord to retrieve your items,” Haley explains.
State law says a landlord must give the tenant five days following an eviction or lockout for the tenant to get back essential personal items like medication, baby formula, basic clothes and personal care items. For all other personal property, a landlord must safely store the property for 30 days.
“The landlord has the right to charge for the inventory, storage and moving of your property if they need to do so, for example, if they’re moving your property out of the unit so that they can clean it and re-rent it,” Haley says. “They have a duty to safe keep your property for up to 30 calendar days.”
Directing Attorney for Nevada Legal Services in Las Vegas Kristopher Pre adds that a landlord cannot charge for the storage of essential personal items, legally known as “essential personal effects.”
“It gets complicated. ... I’ve ended up in court arguing what’s just personal property and what’s an essential personal effect,” he says. “In one of my cases, we were arguing over whether a person’s mother’s ashes is an essential personal effect. … Also, things like a laptop computer. … I argued it was essential because it was for work, for them to continue working a remote job.”
Pre says it’s important for tenants to know they have a five-day timeframe after an eviction or lockout to retrieve essential personal effects. Tenants can file a motion to retrieve their property if the landlord isn’t compliant.
“It goes so quick. ... Their window of opportunity to do this is within five days after they’ve vacated or been removed,” Pre says.
“But I know there’s a lot of stress about trying to be rehoused or getting to a shelter or finding a friend or family member that can take them in. I think it’s important that people understand, especially tenants, that they have this right.”
Those seeking legal information and resources can find help at Legal Aid Center’s Civil Law Self-Help Center located at the Regional Justice Center or at civillawselfhelpcenter.org
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