State laws and regulations are bound to influence the way that you run a business, and being a landlord in Colorado is no exception. The real estate business is regulated by property management laws on both the federal and state levels, and one of your most important responsibilities as a landlord is to ensure that your business complies with these laws.
This article is designed to help with that by outlining some of the most significant Colorado landlord tenant laws that you should know.
Rent and Fees
Rent control is banned in Colorado. This means that there can be no legal limit placed on the amount that landlords can charge their tenants for rent, which is great news for you. State law regulates the amount of notice required for rent increases in residential properties, however, requiring that landlords provide at least 60 days’ notice.
Though there is no limit placed on rent, there are regulations as to how much a landlord can charge for late fees. If a tenant has not submitted a rent payment, you can only charge them up to either $50 or 5% of the rent amount, whichever value is greater. The median monthly rent cost in Colorado is $2,250, meaning that a late fee of 5%–around $112.50—is higher than $50.
You should be aware that you can only start charging your tenants late fees after the mandatory seven-day grace period has passed. For at least seven days after the rent collection date, you are required to accept late rent payments from your tenants without issuing any penalty.
Fair Housing Protections
All fifty states, including Colorado, follow the guidelines of the federal Fair Housing Act. First passed in 1968, the act illegalizes any form of housing discrimination by landlords or real estate agents based on race, color, religion, gender, national origin, familial status, and disability. This is especially important to consider during the tenant screening process.
The Colorado fair housing act upholds all these protections and further prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, veteran or military status, and ancestry.
Colorado landlords are allowed to run criminal background checks on prospective tenants and consider their findings as they make their decision. It is best practice to follow the guidelines of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and avoid making any blanket policies that deny applicants outright due to the existence of a criminal record. Instead, you should consider each applicant individually and only deny applicants based on serious threats to safety or potential inability to uphold the terms of your lease agreement.
Evictions
If late or missing rent payments from a tenant become a problem, Colorado laws on evictionrequire that you issue a rent demand notice. This notice must give the tenant a minimum of ten days to pay the rent that they owe. If they pay during this time, you cannot file for eviction on those grounds.
This ten-day period is different from the seven-day grace period that must elapse before you can charge late fees. In fact, the two must not overlap, and the ten-day period must not begin until after the grace period has ended, meaning that a tenant should have at least seventeen days after the rent collection period has passed to pay before eviction can be filed against them.
If there is a different lease violation eviction cannot be filed until after a ten-day period, during which the tenant may “cure” or resolve the issue. If the issue is resolved, it cannot be used as grounds to file for eviction.
An unconditional notice to quit can be issued in case of violent or drug-related crimes that occur on the property. In such cases, you must give the tenant a minimum of three days to vacate the property, but you do not need to give them an opportunity to cure the violation.
Conclusion
In many ways, much of the sustainability and success of your rental business depends on you making responsible and educated decisions that keep you out of any legal trouble. Even though staying on top of the rental laws in your state can be difficult work, it is some of the most important work that you can do.
