Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022 | 8:21 p.m.
RENO — Alexis Hill was shocked when reading through the legal documents to buy a house in Reno to find they said the property couldn’t be sold to — or even occupied by — anyone who wasn’t white.
“We thought there’s no way we can agree to these racist covenants,” the Washoe County commissioner told the Reno Gazette Journal. “We asked our Realtor if we could not sign that part, and she said no, it wasn’t allowed.”
That was 10 years ago. At the time, there was no way to indicate disagreement with this illegal language in the official property records.
Thousands of homes in the Reno-Sparks area built from the 1920s into the early 1960s still have such a clause, according to Washoe County Recorder Kalie Work.
In 2019, then-state Sen. Julia Ratti worked to pass legislation in Nevada that now allows owners to update their property records to “disavow” racist covenants, which are common in cities throughout the United States.
A little more than a dozen people have taken advantage of this opportunity so far in Washoe County, Work said.
The recorder’s office has spent the past two years on a major project to digitize all Washoe County property records. A final software update to allow pubic access was completed Thursday.
The online portal makes it easier for residents to research whether their own homes have racist covenants. For example, some Reno property records contain the clause: “That no person of African, Japanese, Chinese, or any Mongolian descent shall be allowed to purchase or lease any real property in Newlands Terrace.”
A cost of $43 is required by law for making changes to property records. After constituents began contacting Hill to complain about this mandatory fee, Hill put up $1,000 of her commissioner discretionary funds to cover the cost for residents wanting to disavow the language in their property records — that works out to 23 updates.
Commissioner Kitty Jung learned that many homes in her district near the university also have these racist covenants, so, this week, she is authorizing $1,000 of her discretionary funds to also be set aside for this use.
Reno historian Alicia Barber said the covenant language is illegal and unenforceable because of the 1968 Fair Housing Act so it’s a symbolic gesture to disavow the language. “But it’s important symbolism,” she said.
Some might wonder why the racist language and documents aren’t just erased instead of merely disavowed.
“We need to retain the original records for archival purposes because we need to remember and see these original documents that expressed such discrimination in order to acknowledge the long legacy of racism,” Barber said. “We can’t make that go away by destroying the records. They have a power that helps us learn about past wrongs in our community so we can better assert the commitment not to repeat them.”
One ongoing issue is that when you sell your home now, even if you’ve disavowed the racist language, those original covenants are still passed along as part of the sale’s official documents.
Hill said that she and Work plan to go before the 2023 Nevada Legislature to present additional processes that have been implemented successfully in other states so the covenants are archived but no longer play a future role.
“We need to maintain historical records,” Work said, “but we also need to create a path forward for addressing these injustices.”
Property owners now can click on the Washoe County Recorder's Office portal to find a “ Declaration of Removal of Discriminatory Restriction ” form that needs to be filled out and notarized.
The recorder’s office will notarize this form only for free.
People also can research property records in person in the Washoe County Recorder’s library, where staff can help with the process and has printed copies of the disavowal form.
