Document One: The Declaration
The recorded document that created your community and defined what a unit is. It draws the line between what the association must maintain, repair and insure and what falls to you.
Everything else follows from that line. Under NRS 116.31135 the association must promptly repair or replace damaged portions for which insurance is required, subject to three narrow exceptions. Whether your burned structure is such a portion is a question the declaration answers and common sense does not.
How to get it: in writing, from the association or its managing agent. Ask for every governing document binding the parcel, including any master documents above your immediate community. The statutory background is on our page covering who decides the rebuild.
What If There Is No Association?
Document Two: The Master Policy
The association's insurance. It tells you what is actually covered, at what limits, with what deductible.
That deductible is not a detail. NRS 116.31135 makes the cost of repair or replacement in excess of insurance proceeds, deductibles and reserves a common expense, so the gap between what the policy pays and what the work costs has somewhere to go, and it may be spread across the community.
How to get it: from the same source as the declaration. A certificate of insurance is not the policy; ask for the policy or at least the declarations page with limits and deductibles.
Document Three: The Parcel Record
The Clark County Assessor's record for your address. It names the jurisdiction, the tax district and the build year.
The jurisdiction is the item most often wrong in a Las Vegas file. A mailing address reading Las Vegas is entirely compatible with being in unincorporated Clark County, in Henderson or in North Las Vegas, and each permits its own work.
How to get it: the Assessor publishes it. Free, and it takes about a minute.
Do I Need All Three Before Doing Anything?
What We Add to Those
The structure. Whether the framing came through, which on this valley's stock depends heavily on era. Engineered trusses and floor systems come out whole once heat reaches the connections; older framing of larger dimension chars and can often be retained.
The stucco and the slab. Stucco is a skin over framing and carries nothing, so a standing elevation is not a shell. Heat damage to a slab is invisible and is the largest single unknown on most files here.
The records. The county recorder for the deed and any lien, and the permit history for the parcel.
What Comes Back
A written figure with each line visible: what a finished property is worth, the cost of getting there, carrying cost across a timeline that accounts for any architectural approval, and margin. Transfer tax in Clark County runs at $2.55 per $500 of value, and both parties are jointly and severally liable for it.
What If the Numbers Favour Keeping It?
What Never Happens
No fee at any stage. No request that you clear the site, board it beyond making it safe, commission a report or repair anything first. No requirement that your claim be settled. No assignment of the contract to a third party. And we do not correspond with your association on your behalf, because that relationship is yours and it outlives any sale that does not complete.
Common Questions About the Process
How Long Does It Take?
Address to written figure is usually a few days, though waiting on association documents can extend it. Closing depends on title and on any resale package the community requires.
Do I Need to Be in Nevada?
No. Out-of-state owners are very common here and remote closing is routine.
My Association Is Slow to Respond.
Put the request in writing and keep the date. It is a common frustration and a written record of when you asked is worth having later.