This story by Sara Wilson appeared on Colorado Newsline on May 12, 2025.
The Colorado Legislature had a smaller emphasis on housing policy this year following the passage of splashy land use laws in 2024, but lawmakers still advanced quite a few bills related to housing, particularly for renters and first-time homebuyers.
Democrats enjoyed wide majorities in both the House of Representatives and Senate, and many of the bills passed this year had Democratic sponsorship and passed along party lines, though a few were bipartisan.
The 2025 regular legislative session ended on May 7, and Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, has until June 6 to take action on bills.
Receivership for shoddy apartments
Senate Bill 25-20 would allow third-party takeover of rundown apartment buildings that violate state laws around maintenance and habitability. The attorney general and municipal governments could petition the district court for a building to be put into receivership — during which a third party would manage and operate the property for a period of time — if the landlord demonstrates a “pattern of neglect,” including if the property lacks working ventilation, heating, lighting, or door locks, or has other health and safety hazards.
The receiver would be in charge of fixing the property’s issues and the landlord could seek to end the receivership after 90 days.
“We know there is a relationship between landlords and tenants. The landlord provides a property and the tenant pays for it,” bill sponsor Rep. Mandy Lindsay, an Aurora Democrat, said on the House floor during debate on the bill. “But in that agreement is that the property needs to be habitable.”
The bill was partially a response to a dilapidated building in Aurora owned by CBZ Management, which had longstanding safety problems and was closed by the city last year. The building also became a flashpoint in the debate over the Trump administration’s effort to conduct mass deportations.
“This bill gives tools to the attorney general and to cities and counties to be able to take care of situations where there is severe neglect,” Lindsay said.
The bill was sent to the Governor on May 2.
Crack-down on rent price fixing
House Bill 25-1004 would ban the use, sale and distribution of software that uses an algorithm to set rents. That would include companies like RealPage, which is the subject of a lawsuit from Colorado and other states. Those companies use internal aggregate data from landlords around the area and then suggest rent prices based on the market. A study from the Biden administration last year found that units priced with RealPage software are about $136 more per month.
The bill passed both chambers on party-line votes, and progressive lawmakers and renters’ rights groups are urging Polis to sign it.
Reduced liability for condo construction
Lawmakers finally passed a bill related to construction defect lawsuits after multiple years of failed attempts. House Bill 25-1272 would give construction companies the choice to opt in to a program that would limit construction defect claims, which drive up project insurance costs and are said to be the reason condominium construction has plummeted in the state.
To participate in the program, builders would need to agree to inspections during the building process and provide a defect warranty to owners. The idea is that issues would be identified and addressed during construction and any errors discovered after someone moves in could be fixed quickly.
The bill was heavily amended to assuage some concerns from trial lawyers, home builders and homeowners.
Sponsors hope the bill will encourage builders to construct more condominiums, which are often more affordable options for first-time buyers priced out of the detached single-family home market.
“This is a problem that I believe we have a moral obligation to fix,” bill sponsor Rep. Shannon Bird, a Westminster Democrat, said during the bill’s debate in the House. “When you have the financial security that comes from owning your own home, you’re no longer at the whims of changing lease terms or increasing rents. We need to do better. Our state’s best answer cannot be more taxpayer-subsidized affordable housing. The market needs to work.”
The bill passed both chambers with widespread bipartisan support. It was sent to Polis on May 6 and it is almost certain he will sign it.
Boost for modular housing
The first bill Polis signed after the legislative session was Senate Bill 25-2, which concerns factory built, or modular, housing. Those structures are built in a factory to near completion and then transported to a building site. It is a faster method of construction with lower costs.
The state will set regional building codes for factory-built structures, eliminating some of the stickiest red tape for these types of builds.
“We thought one of the key housing bills that we passed provides streamlining and uniformity to make sure that this kind of housing can be built at lower cost and quicker across the state, so that we don’t have 600 different versions of modular housing. The big benefit is an economy of scale,” Polis said ahead of the bill signing Thursday.
Junk fees ban
Polis has also signed House Bill 25-1090, which requires disclosure of something’s final cost up front. That extends to rent costs, so starting in 2026 it will prohibit a landlord from not communicating to a prospective tenant extra costs on top of base rent for items like trash service, pest control and community amenity fees.
The total price would need to be advertised as one complete, accurate number, so a consumer knows what to expect to pay. Sometimes, those extra fees are revealed after a person pays an application fee or signs a lease.
These so-called “junk fees” will be deemed a deceptive practice and a person could bring legal action against a landlord who violates the law.
Earlier this year, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and federal regulators sued one of the state’s largest landlords, Greystar, over its use of junk fees.
“Hidden ‘junk fees’ often add up to hundreds of dollars in monthly expenses for Coloradans, and this new law cracks down on these surprise costs to save people money,” bill sponsor Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat, said in a statement after the bill signing. “Whatever the ‘junk fee’ is disguised as, the goal is to hike up prices and drain money out of the pockets of hardworking Coloradans to increase corporate profits.”
Other housing bills passed this year include policies to allow some multifamily buildings to have just one staircase, ensure the return of security deposits to tenants in more circumstances and require building codes to follow accessibility standards.
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