This story was updated at 1:15 p.m. on Friday, April 19, 2024, to reflect that Gov. Jared Polis has signed House Bill 1098 into law.
Colorado landlords will no longer have free rein to refuse to renew their tenants’ leases under a measure passed last month by the state legislature and signed by the governor.
Supporters of House Bill 1098, known as the for-cause eviction measure, say it will help ease the state’s housing crisis and prevent people from being displaced. Opponents say it will make it harder for landlords to operate in Colorado and drive up costs.
The Colorado Sun dug into the measure to explain what it will — and won’t — do:
It’s a done deal
House Bill 1098 was approved by the House in February and then by the Senate at the end of March. Gov. Jared Polis signed the measure April 19 after initially refusing to say whether he would do so.
“They’ve changed it a lot since last year,” the governor said after he signed the bill, nodding to how he didn’t support a similar piece of legislation debated in the legislature in 2023. “I think it’s a way that we can make sure to balance the interests of renters with landlords”
We know Polis believes strongly in private property rights and that may be why he wouldn’t initially commit to making the measure law.
The governor faced a lot of pressure from Democrats in the legislature to sign the bill.
One of lead sponsors of House Bill 1098 is House Majority Leader Monica Duran, a Wheat Ridge Democrat and one of the most powerful lawmakers at the Capitol.
And the legislation had solid support in the General Assembly, passing the House by a 41-17 vote and the Senate by a 19-15 vote.
What can a landlord evict someone for?
House Bill 1098 will maintain the circumstances under which a landlord can evict a tenant in the middle of a lease, including when:
- A tenant fails to pay rent
- A tenant commits a substantial, material or repeated lease violation
- A tenant engages “in conduct that creates a nuisance or disturbance that interferes with the quiet enjoyment of the landlord or other tenants at the property or where the tenant is negligent damaging the property.” There’s an exception for victims of domestic violence.
“All the traditional reasons for eviction are still there,” said Zach Neumann, who leads the Community Economic Defense Project, a nonprofit that led the push for the bill.
When can a landlord not renew a lease?
The big changes House Bill 1098 make are around when a landlord-tenant lease expires.
Currently, a landlord can opt not to renew a tenant’s lease for any reason. House Bill 1098 will set narrow guidelines for when that nonrenewal can happen.
A landlord can decline to renew a lease with a tenant if they:
- Decide to demolish their residential property, convert it to a nonresidential use or convert it to a short-term rental property. They will have to provide their tenant written notice 90 days in advance, however, and that notice will have to include a description of the timeline of the demolition or property-use change.
- Decide to make substantial repairs or renovations. They will have to provide written notice 90 days in advance and include a description of the work to be completed and when it is expected to be done. If the work is expected to last less than 180 days, the tenant will have 10 days to notify their landlord that they want to return to the property and will get a first right of refusal to sign a new lease for the home.
- Want to move themselves or a family member into the residential property. Again, 90 days’ written notice will be required to the tenant, and the landlord or their family member will have to move into the property within three months after the tenant vacates the home. Landlords will still have to renew the tenant’s lease if a substantially equivalent unit that they can move themself or their family member into was available nearby. If the landlord changes course, they will be barred from listing the property for rent for at least 90 days after their tenant is required to leave the home.
- Opt to remove the property from the rental market and put it up for sale. They once more will have to provide their tenant with 90 days written notice. Landlords will be prevented in this situation from relisting the property for rent for 90 days after their tenants have to move out, unless the landlord can provide evidence that the home was listed for sale after the move-out date.
Landlords can also block their tenants from renewing a lease if they refuse to agree with new, ”reasonable” terms after receiving 90 days written notice of the changes.
They will also be allowed to deny a renewal if their tenant submits a rent payment that is more than 10 calendar days late three or more times in a lease period. But, once more, a 90-day notice will be required.
Landlords will not be prohibited under House Bill 1098 from raising renwt from one lease period to the next, as long as it’s not “retaliatory” in a manner meant to subvert the measure.
Tenants will be able to take their landlord to court if the renewal rules are violated, though the protections offered under House Bill 1098 won’t kick in until a tenant has lived in their rental for at least 12 months.
When does the bill go into effect?
The measure went into effect as soon as it was signed.
How does this compare to last year’s bill?
A similar measure was debated in the legislature last year, but it failed in the Colorado Senate when the chamber didn’t take up the bill before the 120-day lawmaking term ended. The legislation was shelved because it wasn’t clear if it had enough support to pass.
The 2023 measure, House Bill 1171, differs from House Bill 1098 in two fundamental ways:
- Landlords would have been required under last year’s bill to only increase rents by a “reasonable” amount from lease period to lease period.
- Last year’s bill would have required that landlords provide relocation assistance to certain tenants — like people younger than 18, older than 60 or who have a disability — when they refused to renew their lease.
Opponents of the 2023 measure felt it was a form of back-door rent control, which is prohibited under state law. Without those provisions, this year’s bill has won over much broader support and faced less resistance.
The Colorado measure is similar to laws in New Jersey, California, New Hampshire and Washington.
What proponents and opponents are saying
Landlords and the groups that represent them fundamentally disagree with the premise of House Bill 1098 that deciding not to renew a lease constitutes an eviction. And they feel the measure will lock landlords into perpetual contracts.
Opponents also argue that the bill will force landlords who will otherwise wait for a lease to end to part ways with a tenant to initiate more evictions for things like unpaid rent and contractual violations. It also may make landlords more discerning in who they agree to rent to on the front end.
“This extreme bill threatens to strip property rights from landlords, jeopardize tenant inventory (and) remove reasonable landlords from our housing market,” the Investment Community of the Rockies, an association of real estate investors, said in a written statement. “Colorado already has strong tenant protections in place.”
Other groups that opposed the bill include the Rocky Mountain Home Association, Colorado Concern and the Colorado Landlord Legislative Coalition.
Supporters of the measure say it will cut down on discriminatory decisions not to renew residential leases. Proponents also see it as a way to reduce housing costs for tenants, who have to pay rental application fees and security deposits when they are forced to move.
“We see a ton of unnecessary displacement,” said Melissa Mejía, director of state and local policy at the Community Economic Defense Project. “We see with the amount of direct service work that we do at CDP how frequently our clients are facing eviction — so unnecessarily. Yes, a lot of it is because a lot of it is because they end up behind on rent. But often there’s all of these other things going on.”
Other supporters of the bill include the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, Colorado Fiscal Institute, Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, Denver Public Schools and Women’s Foundation of Colorado.
Colorado Sun staff writer Sandra Fish contributed to this report.