Free tool · Las Vegas
What does a squatter cost you in Nevada?
Change the numbers to match your property. The rent is Nevada's own, from HUD; how long it drags on is your call; everything else is yours to overwrite.
Nevada estimate
$37,198
Your numbers.
These are national starting points, not claims about your property. The one figure that drives the total — how long it drags on — is yours to set. Nobody can source it, so we do not pretend to.
How long before you get it back?
6 months
Your assumption, not ours — courts do not publish how long this takes. A contested removal runs in months, not weeks, almost everywhere; how it goes in Nevada is in the guide.
How many bedrooms?
Sets the rent from HUD’s published Fair Market Rent for Las Vegas — $2,413/mo.
Mortgage / loan payment — per month
$
Only you know this one. The placeholder is roughly a $300k loan at current rates.
Lost rent or delayed sale — per month
$
HUD's Fair Market Rent for this metro, at the bedroom count you picked. It is the 40th percentile of recent-mover rents, so on a renovated or market-rate property it is a floor, not a valuation.
Attorney fees — one-off
$
No public data exists. Our estimate — nothing published backs it. No state bar and no court in any of these markets publishes fee data for an ejectment. Get a written quote and put it here.
Property taxes — per month
$
Your bill, divided by twelve. The placeholder is roughly a $250k property at Philadelphia's 1.3998% — Newark runs 1.845%, Los Angeles 1.187%.
Insurance — per month
$
No public data exists. Our estimate. Vacant cover genuinely does cost more, but the published figures for how much more disagree by a factor of five — anywhere from +25% to 5x. Use your own premium.
Utilities — per month
$
A national placeholder, unless your state overrides it below — Philadelphia's is the Water Department's own published bill. Whoever is inside, you are the ratepayer of record.
Damage and clean-out — one-off
$
No public data exists. Our estimate, and we want to be blunt: NO government body in the United States publishes squatter-damage data. Every figure you have seen quoted traces to one news story or to a lobby survey that counted houses, not dollars. We are not going to launder a number we cannot stand behind — put yours here.
If it happens in Nevada
$37,198
at 6 months— and every extra month adds $4,783.
Against a $0–$120k range, so the bar means something as you drag.
Carrying it, empty ($4,783/mo × 6 mo)
$28,698
One-off costs (attorney, damage)
$8,500
What ruins you is the carry — the months. On top of this you will pay to file, for the sheriff to serve and remove, and for a lawyer. Those are set locally and we do not print a number we cannot cite — but next to the months, they are a sliver.
Can you get any of it back? NO — Nevada's squatter-removal statute awards you no attorney's fees or costs. This is a claim about the ABSENCE of a provision, independently confirmed: NRS 40.412–40.416 contain no clause awarding the owner attorney's fees or costs against the occupant. Because it is an absence, no verbatim quote supports it — confirm against the official code. Separately, NRS 40.240 does allow TREBLE DAMAGES for a forcible detainer ("judgment may be entered for three times the amount at which the actual damages are assessed") — but that is damages for the intrusion, not recovery of your legal fees, and a money judgment against a squatter is rarely collectible.
Why Nevada costs what it does
Nevada is one of the few states with a fast summary court process built specifically for squatters, separate from the tenant-eviction track. The owner serves a written notice giving four judicial days to leave, then files a sworn affidavit of complaint in justice or district court. If the occupant files nothing, the court orders the sheriff to remove them within 24 hours. But if the occupant files an affidavit raising a defense — which is exactly what a forged lease is for — the court holds a hearing, and if it finds a real defense it refuses to decide it fast and sends the case into an ordinary possession proceeding that runs months. A judge signs either way; no one is removed on the owner's word alone.
How you must remove them
summary
“the court must issue an order directing the sheriff or constable of the county to remove the unlawful or unauthorized occupant within 24 hours after the sheriff's or constable's receipt of the order from the court.”
Nevada gives squatters a dedicated summary court track (NRS 40.412–40.416), separate from tenant eviction. But the fast lane is only automatic when uncontested — a counter-affidavit raising a defense (what a forged lease manufactures) forces a hearing and can drop the case into an ordinary possession proceeding.
The statute
NRS 40.412–40.416 (summary removal of an unlawful or unauthorized occupant); criminal hooks NRS 205.0813 (housebreaking) and 205.0817 (unlawful occupancy)
The removal scheme (NRS 40.412–40.416) was created by A.B. 386 (78th Session, 2015). Not attorney-reviewed. Housebreaking and unlawful occupancy are gross misdemeanors, and NRS 171.124(1)(b)–(c) permits a warrantless arrest for a gross misdemeanor not committed in the officer's presence.
Rent, by bedroom
1 bed $1,478 · 2 bed $1,735 · 3 bed $2,413 · 4 bed $2,764
FY2026, effective 2025-10-01
HUD's FY2026 Fair Market Rent for the Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV MSA, which is Clark County. An FMR is the 40th-percentile recent-mover rent — a floor for a renovated flip, not a market estimate.
Do you get your legal fees back?
NO — Nevada's squatter-removal statute awards you no attorney's fees or costs
This is a claim about the ABSENCE of a provision, independently confirmed: NRS 40.412–40.416 contain no clause awarding the owner attorney's fees or costs against the occupant. Because it is an absence, no verbatim quote supports it — confirm against the official code. Separately, NRS 40.240 does allow TREBLE DAMAGES for a forcible detainer ("judgment may be entered for three times the amount at which the actual damages are assessed") — but that is damages for the intrusion, not recovery of your legal fees, and a money judgment against a squatter is rarely collectible.
Is there a fast sheriff route?
No sheriff-on-affidavit route — your sworn affidavit of complaint goes to a COURT, and the sheriff acts only on the court's order. Nevada has not passed the affidavit-to-sheriff law fourteen other states have.
“the court may issue a summary order for removal of the unlawful or unauthorized occupant or an order providing for the nonadmittance of the unlawful or unauthorized occupant, directing the sheriff or constable of the county to remove the unlawful or unauthorized occupant within 24 hours after the sheriff's or constable's receipt of the order from the court.”
The one place an owner acts without a court order — the NRS 40.412 lock change — is gated on the police having arrested every adult occupant first, and a court can restore the occupant within 10 judicial days. So there is no free sheriff-on-affidavit commoditization risk here; the owner still must satisfy a court, and nothing in the statute asks anyone to verify that the affiant owns the building.
This is the bill for finding out too late.
Nothing on this page will get an occupant out, and be wary of anyone who says otherwise. What DeedProof does is earlier and duller: it verifies you own the property, structures the statement you swear before a notary, and files it — so that if someone does break in, the officer at the door has something to work from instead of a lease they cannot check.
The decision still belongs to the officer. Our job is to make it an easy one.
This page is the money. The law behind it is on Nevada’s guide — whether police can arrest, whether a sheriff can act on your affidavit alone, and how long occupation takes to become a claim. Every answer quoted from the statute.