Nevada Adopted the Uniform Easement Relocation Act: What AB 192 Changed for Property Owners and Lenders

Until October 1, 2025, a Nevada landowner who wanted to move an easement running across the property generally had one realistic option: persuade the easement holder to agree. If the holder said no, the easement stayed where it was, even when it blocked a development that would not have harmed the holder at all.

Assembly Bill 192 of the 83rd (2025) Session, sponsored by Assemblymember Backus, changed that. It enacted two uniform acts at once. Sections 2 through 32 adopt the Uniform Easement Relocation Act, promulgated by the Uniform Law Commission in 2020, as a new chapter in Title 10 of NRS. Sections 34 through 50 adopt the Uniform Mortgage Modification Act, promulgated in 2024, as a new chapter in Title 9 of NRS.

One creates a court procedure that did not exist in Nevada before. The other quietly settles a lien-priority question that has made lenders nervous about workouts for years. Both took effect October 1, 2025. If you are buying, developing or refinancing Nevada property, this belongs in your real estate due diligence.

The Core Change: Relocation by Court Order

The Uniform Easement Relocation Act lets the owner of the burdened parcel, called the servient estate owner, ask a court to approve moving an easement, even over the holder's objection. The holder's consent is no longer the only path.

The right is not soft. Section 30 provides that the servient estate owner's right to relocate under the chapter may not be waived, excluded or restricted by agreement, even if the instrument creating the easement prohibits relocation, contains an express waiver of the chapter, requires the holder's consent to amend, or fixes the easement's location by instrument, other agreement, previous conduct, acquiescence, estoppel or implication.

That is a deliberate policy choice. A boilerplate no-relocation clause drafted in 1988 does not by itself defeat the statute. What protects the easement holder is not contract language but the substantive conditions the court must find, discussed below.

Section 22 also makes clear the chapter does not apply to relocation by consent. If the parties agree, they proceed the old way, and Section 29 confirms the Act does not displace any other method of relocating an easement permitted under existing law.

Which Easements Qualify, and Which Are Off Limits

Section 22 casts the eligibility net wide as to origin. The chapter applies to an easement established by express grant or reservation, or by prescription, implication, necessity, estoppel or other method. How the easement came into existence does not matter.

What it cannot be used to move is specific:

• A public-utility easement, a public-entity easement, a conservation easement, a negative easement, or an easement associated with a public road;
• Any easement where the proposed new location would encroach on land burdened by a conservation easement, or would interfere with the use or enjoyment of a public-utility easement, a public-entity easement, an easement appurtenant to a conservation easement, or a public road easement; and
• An easement created by a declaration under Chapter 116 of NRS, which governs common-interest communities. Homeowners association declarations are outside the chapter.

A conservation easement takes its meaning from the term "easement for conservation" in NRS 111.410, and "public road" takes its meaning from NRS 405.191.

The Seven Findings a Court Must Make

Section 23 is the heart of the statute. A servient estate owner may relocate an easement only if the relocation does not materially:

1. Lessen the utility of the easement;
2. Increase the burden on the easement holder in its reasonable use and enjoyment of the easement after relocation;
3. Impair an affirmative, easement-related purpose for which the easement was created;
4. Impair the safety of the easement holder or another entitled to use and enjoy the easement, during or after relocation;
5. Disrupt the holder's use and enjoyment during relocation, unless the owner substantially mitigates the duration and nature of the disruption;
6. Impair the physical condition, use or value of the dominant estate or its improvements; or
7. Impair the value of the collateral of a security-interest holder of record in either estate, impair a real-property interest of a lessee of record in the dominant estate, or impair a recorded real-property interest of any other person in either estate.

Section 25 makes those findings mandatory: a court may not approve relocation unless the owner establishes eligibility under Section 22 and satisfies every condition in Section 23. The burden sits entirely on the party seeking to move the easement.

The Procedure, the Cost, and the Recording Steps

Section 24 requires the servient estate owner to commence a civil action. A summons and complaint must be served on the easement holder, on security-interest holders of record in either estate, on lessees of record in the dominant estate, and on any other owner of a recorded real-property interest if the relocation would encroach on the area burdened by that interest. Owners of recorded oil, gas or mineral interests need not be served unless the interest includes an easement to facilitate development.

The complaint must state the intent to relocate; the nature, extent and anticipated commencement and completion dates; the current and proposed locations and any improvements to be included; why the easement is eligible under Section 22; why the proposed relocation satisfies Section 23; and that the owner made a reasonable attempt to notify holders of any public-utility, public-entity, conservation or negative easement on either estate.

Cost allocation is one-sided by design. Under Section 26 the servient estate owner bears reasonable relocation expenses, including constructing improvements, removing and demolishing existing improvements on the dominant estate, any liability or damages the easement holder incurs arising out of the relocation, including environmental investigation, remediation, restoration or reclamation and reasonable attorney's fees associated with that liability, and any cleanup or remediation required by a public entity. Section 27 requires all parties to act in good faith to facilitate the relocation.

Recording closes the loop. Section 25 requires a certified copy of the approving order to be recorded in the land records of each jurisdiction where the property sits, together with a certificate of amendment to any recorded map that established the easement. Under Section 28 the easement is deemed relocated on recording. If the relocation requires construction, the holder may keep using the old location until the owner records an affidavit certifying completion and sends a copy by certified mail to the holder and all parties.

The Mortgage Modification Safe Harbor

The second half of AB 192 addresses a different worry. Lenders and borrowers restructuring a loan have long faced a nagging question: does modifying the note quietly subordinate the mortgage to a junior lien recorded after the original mortgage?

Section 48 answers it for a defined list. For a covered modification, the mortgage continues to secure the obligation as modified, the priority of the mortgage is not affected, priority is retained regardless of whether the modification is recorded, and the modification is not a novation.

The covered list includes extending the maturity date; decreasing the interest rate; certain index and fixed-to-floating changes that do not increase the rate as calculated on the effective date; capitalizing unpaid interest or other monetary obligations; forgiving, forbearing or otherwise reducing principal, accrued interest or other monetary obligations; modifying escrow or reserve account requirements; modifying insurance requirements; modifying an existing condition to advance funds; modifying a financial covenant; and modifying the payment amount or schedule as a result of one of those changes.

The limits matter as much as the list. Section 47 excludes a release of or addition to encumbered property, a release, addition or other change in an obligor, and an assignment or other transfer of a mortgage or obligation. The chapter also does not affect law governing required mortgage content, statutes of limitation, recording statutes, priority of tax or other governmental liens, the statute of frauds or Chapter 719 of NRS, or, with one exception, the priority of future advances. Anything outside the safe harbor is governed by other law, exactly as before.

Effective Dates, Retroactive Reach, and What to Do

Section 51 sets the reach precisely, and the two halves differ.

• The easement provisions, Sections 1 to 32, apply to an easement created before, on, or after October 1, 2025. Age is irrelevant. A 1962 driveway easement is as eligible as one recorded last month.
• The mortgage provisions, Sections 33 to 50, apply to a mortgage modification made on or after October 1, 2025, regardless of when the mortgage or the obligation was created. The trigger is the date of the modification, not the date of the loan.

Sections 31 and 49 direct courts to consider the promotion of uniformity among states that enact these acts, which means decisions from other adopting jurisdictions may carry persuasive weight in Nevada courts.

Practical takeaways: title review on Nevada acquisitions should now flag whether an inconvenient easement is a candidate for relocation rather than treating it as fixed; developers should price a relocation action, including the cost-shifting exposure under Section 26, before assuming a parcel is unbuildable; easement holders served with a complaint should evaluate the seven Section 23 conditions rather than relying on a no-relocation clause; and lenders documenting a workout should check the modification against the Section 48 list.

Our real estate transactions and litigation practices handle both sides of these questions. This page describes Nevada law in general terms as of its publication and is not legal advice about any particular property or loan. To discuss a specific parcel or modification, call 702-382-2500 or visit 325 South Maryland Parkway in Las Vegas.

Terms you may hear

Servient estate

The parcel burdened by an easement. Under AB 192 the servient estate owner is the party who may commence a civil action to relocate the easement and who bears the reasonable expenses of doing so.

Dominant estate

The estate or interest in real property benefitted by an appurtenant easement, meaning an easement tied to or dependent on ownership or occupancy of that property.

Negative easement

An interest that imposes a duty not to engage in a specified use of land rather than a right to enter or cross it. AB 192 expressly excludes negative easements from relocation.

Novation

The substitution of a new obligation for an existing one, which can extinguish the original debt and unsettle the security for it. Section 48 states that a covered mortgage modification is not a novation.