Hello greetings from Colorado Springs my name is Lance Kohler, I'm the managing broker of the Cornerstone real estate team. Today I'd like to provide you with my second legislative update from the 2024 legislative session and in this update we're going to talk about Senate Bill 094 and the title of that bill is safe housing for residential tenants.
Senate Bill 094 is signed by the governor it went into effect on the 3rd of May 2024 and it essentially expands upon the warranty of habitability bills that were published in 2019 and 2023 some things that this bill adds it lists more habitability circumstances or defines those that are changes to previous laws and it also provides new or different timelines on responses or timelines for landlords to respond to habitability issues, and in this case for this bill there are certain circumstances that require a 24-hour response in a resolution within 7 days, and there are other circumstances that require a 72-hour response and resolution within 14 days, and I'm going to give some examples and talk about some of those later on.
It also talks or defines habitability issues as life, health or safety issues and those that are in that category of life, health or safety are the 24-hour response no later than 7 Days resolution category that this bill further defines air conditioning and cooling devices as appliances, we haven't seen that before and I'll talk about that at the tail end of this briefing I'll talk about what that means and how you should look at that for air conditioning and cooling devices, the landlord with this bill the landlord may be required if they're unable to resolve a habitability issue to provide a comparable dwelling for the tenant up to 60 days and then you should or must maintain all your records relevant to a claim landlord's remedial actions all correspondents Etc.
In the life, health and safety items that require a 24-hour response and resolution or a fix within 7 Days some of those examples are lack of waterproofing and weather protection, thinking about roof, walls, windows, exterior doors where weather can come into the property, any hazardous condition of gas piping or gas appliances. It’s very common in Colorado Springs that you have a natural gas fired hot water heater natural gas furnace so if there's problems with or a gas fireplace for that matter if there's problems with the gas piping that is a life, health or safety issue, and must be taking action right away, inadequate running water or inadequate hot water lack of functioning heat facilities lack of heat in the winter time has always been a habitability requirement in Colorado and this provides again further definition a 24-hour response, when I talk about landlords have to respond in 24 hours it's acknowledging to tenant that you've received their notice of a habitability issue and then you're providing them your next steps what actions you are taking to resolve that issue so that's what you're doing within that 24-hour time frame, if there's any hazardous electrical wiring, or electrical appliances, lack of electricity, or disruption of electricity that is caused by the landlord's failure to maintain if Colorado Springs Utilities has power go out and there's 8,000 homes impacted that is not on the landlord that Colorado Springs is working to fix that but if there's a lack of electricity in the property because a failure to maintain the breaker box for example something like that then that is a habitability issue that the landlord must respond to.
Lack of working locks, or security devices on exterior doors, and windows exterior windows, and lack of working plumbing, or sewage disposal, or leaking of the plumbing or sewage disposal into the property, there are some others and they're all defined in the bill, inoperable elevator, lack of running water, we kind of discussed that all already, mold of course is a life, health or safety issue requiring a 24-hour response and a 7-Day resolution as is an infestation of rodents, vermin, pests insects. That's an addition to this bill inaccessible fire exits or regress in accordance with code is also a habitability life, health or safety habitability issue and those are the conditions that are specifically defined in the law there could be more because there may be circumstances that aren't necessarily life, health or safety but there extenuating circumstances or other conditions that make them a life, health or safety issue.
I said I would talk about air conditioning because this is the first habitability bill that we've seen that has discussed air conditioning, so air conditioning or a cooling device is now defined as an appliance it is you as a landlord are not required to install air conditioning in units that don't have it but you cannot restrict a tenant from installing in air conditioning in the property if they request it, some conditions may apply like they can't you know make huge structural changes to the property Etc.
If you have questions on that I recommend you read the bill but you can't restrict the tenant from installing air conditioning but it's not required for the landlord to install it in a property that doesn't have it. Now with the definition as an appliance essentially it means if you provide it you the landlord provide the appliance you maintain it and so air conditioning as an appliance is now a habit habitability condition and that requires a 72-hour response and resolution within 14 days, generally it would only be a life, health or safety issue requiring that 24-hour response 7-Day resolution if it's linked to one of the other conditions it's a hazardous condition of a gas or electric appliance lack of electricity due to landlord failure of some kind or if it causes a hazardous condition or the landlord did something to cause an issue by failing to address known issues so air conditioning is listed in the new habitability bill Senate Bill 094 and just it's defined as an appliance now.
I hope that was helpful for you if you have any questions you're feel free to contact us you can reach us on our website or at call cornerstone.com and that was legislative update number two of recent bills in the 2024 legislative session that are impacting Property Management thank you for your time make it a great day