LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Short-term rental owners plead for a path to a license to legally list their short-term rental as Clark County continues its process of reviewing applications.
In March 2023, Clark County held a lottery for homeowners to determine the order for their application to be reviewed and license to be processed. A year later, no licenses have been issued.
Some homeowners appeared before the March 19 Board of Commissioners to plead for county officials to expedite the process, as visitors from 2024′s Spring Break and March Madness come to Las Vegas in droves once again.
“We had to stop our whole operations,” said homeowner Ramiro Cerda. “But that’s just us staying afloat. Unfortunately, it’s causing a lot of hardships and financial hardships,” he said to FOX5.
In June 2022, Clark County passed regulations for short-term rentals, prompted by a 2021 legislative mandate for cities and counties to come up with regulations for short-term rentals.
“We put our application in probably a year ago, and we still have no clear-cut timeframe on when it’s going to be approved or declined,” said homeowner Steven Khalilzadegan. “What I’ve done multiple times is reach out, by phone or email, and ask them for an update on why it’s taking so long, and when can we expect it? They give me different timeframes,” Khalilzadegan said.
“Private property owners who are trying to do short-term renting to supplement their income are not able to do so. The county is two years behind in giving licenses to these people.
Instead of expediting the process, the county continues to go after these homeowners to give them fines,” said Jackie Flores of the Greater Las Vegas Short-Term Rental Association. “We have a lot of property owners that are hurting. A lot of people are suffering through inflation with expensive grocery bills. A lot of people are also suffering with high energy bills, and so everybody’s trying to make a living,” Flores said.
Clark County gave FOX5 this statement:
At this time, we are in the process of reviewing the over 800 applications for completeness and eligibility to ensure applications are evaluated in a consistent and fair manner. Applications that are incomplete or ineligible will be issued denials. After this portion of the application review process is completed, Clark County Business License will identify applicants that may move on to safety inspections based on the order of priority established by the Random Number Generator selection process.
FOX5 has reported on efforts by code enforcement and LVMPD to crack down on nuisance properties and illegal parties. One home accumulated a fine of $240,000 over three years of illegal operations.
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