Short answer: In Nevada, your real estate agent has to tell you every material fact they know (or reasonably should know) about the property, who is paying them and how much, and whether they represent anyone else in the deal. Separately, the seller has to hand you a completed Seller's Real Property Disclosure form at least 10 days before closing. Those are two different obligations, and a good agent makes sure you get both plus everything the law does not technically require.
This question comes up in almost every buyer consultation I do, usually phrased a little more bluntly. "How do I know they're not hiding something?" It is a fair thing to ask. You are about to spend somewhere north of $450,000 in this valley, and most of what you know about the house comes from people who benefit when it sells. So let's go through exactly what has to be disclosed to you in Nevada, what does not, and where buyers most often get burned in Las Vegas specifically.
What does Nevada law require a seller to disclose?
Nevada handles this with a specific document. Under NRS 113.130, the seller of residential property has to complete a disclosure form and get it to the buyer at least 10 days before the property is conveyed. The seller fills it out. Their agent is not allowed to fill it out for them, which is the law's way of making sure the answers come from the person who actually lived in the house.
The form is called the Seller's Real Property Disclosure Statement, or SRPD, and everybody in the business just calls it the seller's disclosure. It is a multi-page checklist covering the systems and conditions of the home. The seller marks yes, no, or not applicable, and any "yes" is supposed to come with an explanation.
Here is what it asks about, in plain terms:
- Structural and roof issues. Foundation movement, settling, cracks, past roof leaks or repairs.
- Systems. HVAC, plumbing, electrical, water heater, pool and spa equipment, any known defects or repairs.
- Water problems. Leaks, past flooding, drainage, moisture intrusion, mold.
- Soil and land conditions. Expansive soil, fill, slope stability, erosion. This one matters more here than people expect.
- Environmental hazards. Asbestos, radon, lead-based paint (pre-1978 homes), previous methamphetamine manufacturing.
- Legal and title issues. Easements, encroachments, boundary disputes, unpermitted work, pending litigation, code violations.
- HOA and common-interest items. Whether the property sits in an association, and any known assessments or violations.
- Insurance and claims history. Past claims filed on the property.
Read the explanations, not just the checkmarks. A "yes" with a two-line note that says "roof leak in 2019, repaired by licensed contractor, no issues since" is genuinely helpful. A "yes" with no explanation is a question you need answered in writing before your inspection period runs out.
What does your agent have to disclose, separate from the seller?
This is where a lot of buyers get confused. The seller's disclosure is about the house. Your agent's disclosure duties are about the transaction and about the agent.
Under NRS 645.252, a Nevada licensee acting as an agent has to disclose to each party, as soon as is practicable, any material and relevant facts, data, or information about the property that the licensee knows or, using reasonable care and diligence, should have known. That last clause carries weight. An agent cannot avoid a disclosure obligation by deliberately not asking questions.
The same statute requires an agent to disclose three things about themselves:
- Every source of compensation they will receive as a result of the transaction. Not just the commission. If there is a bonus, a referral fee, or a builder incentive attached to their side of the deal, you are entitled to know.
- Whether they are a principal in the transaction or have an interest in one. If the agent is buying the house themselves, or their brother-in-law owns the LLC that owns it, that comes out up front.
- Whether they are acting for more than one party. If the same agent or brokerage represents both buyer and seller, that has to be disclosed and consented to in writing on a Consent to Act form.
You should also receive a form called Duties Owed by a Nevada Real Estate Licensee (Form 525) before you sign anything substantive. It is a one-page summary of what your agent owes you. If nobody has handed you that form and you are already writing offers, something has been skipped. While you are at it, it takes about two minutes to verify your agent's license through the Nevada Real Estate Division.
What are sellers and agents NOT required to disclose in Nevada?
Nevada draws some clear lines, and they surprise people.
NRS 40.770 says that certain facts are not material to a real estate transaction, which means neither the seller nor either agent has a duty to volunteer them. Those include that the property was the site of a homicide, a suicide, or a death by any other cause (unless the death resulted from a condition of the property itself), the site of a felony crime (methamphetamine manufacturing is carved out and does have to be disclosed), or occupied by someone with HIV, AIDS, or another illness not transmitted through occupancy of a home.
So if a death in the home matters to you personally or for religious or cultural reasons, do not assume it will come up on its own. Ask directly and in writing. Most sellers and listing agents will answer a direct question honestly even when they had no obligation to raise it.
The other Nevada quirk worth knowing: Nevada is a non-disclosure state. Sale prices are not published in public records the way they are in most states. You cannot look up what the neighbors actually paid the way a buyer in Texas can, and the estimates you see on the big search portals are working with thinner data here than they are elsewhere. That is one of the practical reasons MLS access matters so much in this market, and it is a big part of why online home value estimates run wide in Las Vegas.
Why do HOA documents matter so much in Las Vegas?
A large share of homes in Summerlin, Henderson, Inspirada, Skye Canyon, Cadence, and most newer North Las Vegas and southwest valley neighborhoods sit inside a common-interest community. That means the seller's disclosure is only part of the picture. You also need the HOA resale package.
Under NRS 116.4109, the seller has to furnish a resale package that includes the CC&Rs, the bylaws, the rules and regulations, the required information statement, a statement of the current monthly assessment and any unpaid assessments, the current operating budget, and a year-to-date financial statement.
Once you receive that package, you have a five-day right of rescission. Five days to read it and cancel if something in there is a dealbreaker. Buyers routinely let that window pass without opening the file, and then find out later about the special assessment, the RV parking ban, the rental cap that kills their investment plan, or the reserve fund that is nowhere near where it should be.
What I tell clients to look for first: reserve funding levels, any pending or threatened litigation, planned or recent special assessments, rental restrictions, architectural rules if you have plans for the yard, and whether the master association and the sub-association both charge dues. In parts of Summerlin and Henderson, you can be paying two associations plus a SID or LID bond attached to the parcel. That is real money every month and it belongs in your budget conversation, not in a surprise letter after closing.
Do disclosure rules work differently on new construction?
Yes, and this trips up more buyers than anything else in our market.
When you buy a brand new home from a builder, there is no prior owner to fill out a seller's disclosure, so the SRPD process largely does not apply the way it does on a resale. What you get instead is the builder's own purchase agreement, their warranty documents, and whatever site or subdivision disclosures they provide. Those documents are written by the builder's attorneys, and the sales agent sitting in that model home works for the builder, not for you.
That agent's duty of disclosure runs to their principal. They are not obligated to tell you that the same floor plan two phases back is selling for less, or that the lot behind yours is zoned for a future commercial pad, or that the incentive package gets better at the end of the quarter. A buyer's agent can ask those questions on your behalf, and in nearly every case in this valley the builder pays that agent out of the price you were going to pay anyway. Register your agent on your first visit, because most builders will not let you add representation after the fact. There is more detail on how this works in our Las Vegas New Construction Guide for 2026.
What happens if a defect shows up after you get the disclosure?
The obligation does not stop when the form is signed. If, after serving the disclosure but before the property is conveyed, the seller or the seller's agent discovers a new defect that was not on the form, or discovers that a listed defect has gotten worse than the form indicated, they have to tell you in writing as soon as practicable and no later than the closing.
At that point you have real options. If the seller will not agree to repair or replace the defect, you can rescind the purchase agreement, or you can close and accept the property as disclosed without further recourse. Those are meaningfully different outcomes, and which one is right depends on the size of the problem, your timeline, and what the rest of the market looks like for you. This is exactly the moment where having a full-time agent who has done this hundreds of times pays for itself.
What about defects nobody disclosed because nobody knew?
A disclosure form captures what the seller knows. It does not capture what the seller never noticed, and it is not a substitute for your own due diligence. The seller who has been in the house for eleven years genuinely may not know the water heater is on borrowed time or that a previous owner enclosed a patio without a permit.
That is what your inspection period is for. In our market I would not skip:
- A full general home inspection by a licensed inspector, and go to it if you possibly can.
- A sewer scope on anything with mature landscaping or a build date before roughly 1990. Root intrusion in older parts of the valley is common and expensive.
- A roof inspection if the general inspector flags anything. Our sun destroys tile underlayment and shingles faster than most buyers relocating from cooler climates expect.
- An HVAC evaluation including age and refrigerant type. A unit running R-22 is a replacement conversation, not a repair conversation.
- A pool inspection as a separate line item if the home has one. Plaster, equipment, and plumbing are three different budgets.
- A permit check with Clark County or the City of Henderson or Las Vegas for any addition, casita, enclosed patio, or major electrical work.
How do I know if I'm actually getting full disclosure?
Most agents in this valley are honest people doing careful work. But there are patterns worth watching for, and they usually show up as friction rather than as an outright lie.
Be alert if an agent answers a direct question verbally but will not put the same answer in writing, if disclosure documents show up late and stacked together right as your contingency period is closing, if a "yes" on the seller's disclosure has no written explanation and nobody seems eager to chase it, if you are pushed to waive an inspection to strengthen an offer, or if you are told a repair was done but no invoice or permit exists. Any one of those on its own might be a scheduling problem. Two or three together is a pattern. We covered more of these signals in our post on red flags when choosing a real estate agent, and you can find the rest of that series on our Choosing an Agent page.
I walk through some of the property types where disclosure gaps cause the most damage in this video on homes I tell buyers to avoid in Nevada, if you would rather watch than read.
A short script for asking
You do not need legal language. When you are under contract, send your agent a short written message asking them to relay these to the listing side and get answers in writing:
- Are there any known defects, repairs, or insurance claims in the last five years that are not on the disclosure?
- Was any work on this property done without a permit?
- Are there any pending or planned HOA special assessments?
- Is there any current or threatened litigation involving the property or the association?
- Has anyone died in the home? (Ask if it matters to you. They have no duty to volunteer it.)
- What compensation are you receiving in this transaction, and from what sources?
A confident agent on either side of the table will answer all six without flinching. Writing it down is what makes it useful later.
The bottom line
Disclosure in Nevada comes from two directions. The seller owes you a completed disclosure form at least 10 days before conveyance covering what they know about the house. Your agent owes you every material fact they know or should know, full transparency about who is paying them, and written notice if they represent anyone else in the deal. Anything beyond that (the death question, the neighbor situation, what the block actually feels like at 6 PM) comes from asking directly and working with someone who will tell you the truth even when it costs them the sale.
That last part is the whole job, and it is why we built The Roland Team the way we did, with dedicated buyer specialists and dedicated seller specialists instead of one person trying to do everything. We have closed more than 1,000 homes across the Las Vegas Valley, earned 800+ five-star reviews, and Mike ranks #6 in Nevada by units sold (RealTrends Verified). You can read more about how we work on our Why The Roland Team page.
If you are looking at a house right now and something on the disclosure does not sit right with you, send it over. We will read it with you and tell you straight whether it is a normal Las Vegas item or a real problem. No pressure, no obligation, and no sales pitch attached.