Nevada Miya's Law 2025: Background Checks and Key Control

This bill is named for Miya Marcano, a 19-year-old college student killed in 2021 by an apartment maintenance worker who had unauthorized access to a master key. Her family and the Miya Marcano Foundation testified in support of this legislation during the 2025 session.

[Cite: Verified Credentials, "From Tragedy to Action: How Miya's Law Affects Hiring and Screening in Nevada Property Management"]

Nevada is the third state to enact a version of this law, following Florida in 2022 and Virginia in 2023.

[Cite: Choice Screening, "Miya's Law: Nevada Senate Bill 114"]

The final version of this law applies to a landlord of a single parcel with 50 or more dwelling units in a county with a population of 100,000 or more, which in practice means Clark and Washoe counties, or 30 or more dwelling units on a single parcel in any Nevada county with a population under 100,000.

[Cite: Clark County Bar Association, "Nevada Legislation Impacting Housing"; Verified Credentials, "From Tragedy to Action: How Miya's Law Affects Hiring and Screening in Nevada Property Management"]

That's a meaningfully lower bar outside the state's two urban counties. A 35-unit complex in a rural or smaller county is covered under this law; a complex that size in Clark or Washoe County isn't.

The bill as introduced set a flat 100-unit threshold statewide, and the sponsor, Senator Julie Pazina, noted during committee testimony that she'd already lowered it from a 200-unit figure used in comparable laws in other states.

[Cite: Citizen Portal, "'Mia's Law' hearing: Nevada bill would require background checks and key logs for large apartment owners"]

Committee members specifically questioned whether that flat threshold made sense given how differently apartment stock is distributed across Nevada's urban and rural counties. The final enacted version replaced the single statewide number with the county-population-based split described above, which is a real amendment, not a discrepancy between different summaries of the same fixed rule.

Some early reporting on this bill, published while it was still moving through committee, still references the original 100-unit threshold rather than the final enacted 50-or-30 county-based split.

[Cite: Citizen Portal, "'Mia's Law' hearing: Nevada bill would require background checks and key logs for large apartment owners"]

A landlord relying on an article written during the bill's hearing stage, rather than one reflecting the version actually signed into law, is working from an outdated number, particularly if that property sits in a smaller county.

A covered landlord has to require a criminal background check for any applicant for a job position that involves access to a dwelling unit key, as a condition of employment.

[Cite: Verified Credentials, "From Tragedy to Action: How Miya's Law Affects Hiring and Screening in Nevada Property Management"]

That's tied specifically to key access, not to every maintenance or leasing position generally. A position that never involves handling a dwelling unit key doesn't trigger this particular background-check requirement, even at a covered property.

This law defines dwelling unit key broadly enough to include electronic access mechanisms, such as codes and access devices, alongside traditional physical keys.

[Cite: Verified Credentials, "From Tragedy to Action: How Miya's Law Affects Hiring and Screening in Nevada Property Management"]

A covered property that's moved to keyless or smart-lock entry systems doesn't get to treat that as outside this law's reach; a maintenance employee with a unit-specific access code is in the same position as one holding a physical master key.

A covered landlord has to adopt a written policy addressing the storage, issuance, return, and security of dwelling unit keys.

[Cite: Verified Credentials, "From Tragedy to Action: How Miya's Law Affects Hiring and Screening in Nevada Property Management"]

That's four distinct elements a policy document needs to address specifically, not a general statement that keys are handled responsibly. A property without a written policy covering all four points doesn't satisfy this requirement even if its actual practices are reasonable.

Committee discussion of this bill specifically raised electronic deactivation options as part of what a compliant key security policy might include, alongside traditional storage and issuance procedures.

[Cite: Citizen Portal, "Senate committee hears 'Mia's Law' to require background checks and master-key controls in large apartment complexes"]

For a property using electronic access systems, building in a deactivation step when an employee's access should end is a practical extension of the same security policy requirement that applies to physical key storage.

A covered landlord has to maintain a log accounting for every issuance and return of each dwelling unit key.

[Cite: Verified Credentials, "From Tragedy to Action: How Miya's Law Affects Hiring and Screening in Nevada Property Management"]

That's a per-key, per-transaction record, not a general roster of which employees theoretically have key access. A log showing who currently holds a key, without a documented trail of issuance and return events, doesn't fully satisfy what this requirement describes.

A covered landlord has to be able to demonstrate compliance with these requirements when the Real Estate Division or law enforcement asks.

[Cite: Verified Credentials, "From Tragedy to Action: How Miya's Law Affects Hiring and Screening in Nevada Property Management"]

That's a practical reason to keep the written policy and the key log in an organized, retrievable form, rather than scattered across individual property managers' personal records or informal spreadsheets that would be difficult to produce on request.

The official legislative summary for this bill states that it authorizes civil action filing under specified conditions, but the sources reviewed for this article don't detail what those conditions are or what damages might be available.

[Cite: LegiScan, NV SB114 (2025) bill summary]

That's a genuine gap worth stating directly rather than guessing at a penalty structure. Committee testimony during the bill's hearing stage noted the version as introduced had no stated remedies, and counsel indicated enforcement provisions would need to be added by amendment; whether the final civil-action language reflects that request, and what it specifically provides, isn't confirmed by available reporting.

The Nevada Multifamily Alliance and industry developers testified in support of this bill, with industry representatives noting that many large property owners already follow background-check and key-control practices similar to what this law requires.

[Cite: Citizen Portal, "'Mia's Law' hearing: Nevada bill would require background checks and key logs for large apartment owners"]

That's useful context for a covered landlord evaluating how far outside normal industry practice these requirements actually sit; a portfolio that already screens for key-access positions and tracks key issuance has much of this covered already, with the main compliance task being formalizing that practice into the specific written policy and log this statute describes.

This requirement excludes financial institutions and real estate brokers or salespersons specifically, not landlords generally.

[Cite: Verified Credentials, "From Tragedy to Action: How Miya's Law Affects Hiring and Screening in Nevada Property Management"]

A landlord operating a covered complex doesn't get an exemption just because a property management company, rather than the landlord directly, handles day-to-day key issuance; the exclusions named in this law are specific categories, not a general opt-out for delegated management structures.

The practical starting point is confirming, county by county, whether each property in a portfolio meets its applicable threshold, 50 units in Clark or Washoe County, or 30 units elsewhere, since a property near either line is easy to misjudge using outdated or generalized summaries of this law.

For any covered property, formalizing an existing informal key-handling practice into the specific written policy and per-key issuance log this statute describes, and confirming background-check procedures specifically flag any position involving dwelling unit key access, whether physical or electronic, closes the practical gap between "we already do something like this" and actual compliance.