Four building departments in one valley
Four authorities issue building permits in the Las Vegas valley: the City of Las Vegas, the City of Henderson, the City of North Las Vegas and Clark County, which covers the parts of the valley outside those three cities. Boulder City, beyond Henderson, runs its own department as well.
Each one reviews plans and sends its own inspectors, and each adopts the building codes it enforces with its own amendments. A set of drawings one department accepts may need changes before another will.
Your mailing address will not tell you
The Postal Service and the cities use different maps. A large share of the valley has a Las Vegas mailing address and sits in unincorporated Clark County instead: Paradise, which includes the Strip, Spring Valley, Enterprise, Winchester, Sunrise Manor, Whitney and Summerlin South are all unincorporated towns. Clark County Building and Fire Prevention issues the permits there.
Summerlin is split. Much of it lies inside the City of Las Vegas, while Summerlin South is unincorporated county land, so two homes a short drive apart can answer to different departments.
How to check your parcel
Find the property on Clark County’s OpenWeb parcel map, which also gives you its parcel number. Then call the building department you think covers it and give them the address or parcel number; they can tell you whether it falls under them.
If you are buying, ask before you close, since that department will review anything you plan to build there.
Settle it before design starts
The department sets which code amendments your drawings have to meet and sends the inspector who checks the work. If your home is in a homeowners association or a master-planned community, its design review is a second approval you need on top of the permit.
NeXGen confirms the authority for each address before design starts, so you know from the first drawing which department will review it.