Hello, greetings from Colorado Springs. My name is Lance Kohler. I'm the managing broker and owner of the Cornerstone Real Estate Team. Today, I'd like to provide you with legislative update number four, where we're reviewing a series of nine laws that were passed in 2024 that impact housing and may affect you as a rental property owner, landlord, or property management company.
Today, the three bills we're going to discuss may impact property management. The first is House Bill 24-1259, which is titled "Price Gouging in a Declared Disaster." This act prohibits price gouging following a declared disaster or emergency. The declaration must be made by the governor of Colorado or the President of the United States, and under this declaration, rent in the affected area of the disaster cannot be increased more than 10% for one year from the date of the declaration. The intent of the bill is to prohibit price gouging where there may be a limited supply of housing. In Colorado, we most often see this with fires, sometimes with flooding, but mostly with fires. In fact, while researching this bill for this video, I realized there’s a disaster declaration right now in Colorado. It wasn't impacting Colorado Springs, so I wasn’t aware of it. This is certainly something you want to be aware of. The only concern here is that this could be seen as a form of rent control, which has been proposed at the legislature multiple times over the last several years. So, it's something our legislators are looking at. This bill was signed and took effect on June 5, 2024, so it's now in effect.
The second bill I'd like to discuss today is House Bill 24-1318, which is "Modify Rental Premises for a Person with a Disability." Under current law, you can’t discriminate against a renter because the renter has a disability. That’s common sense—who would want to do that? Discrimination, as defined by previous law, included refusing to allow modification of the property to accommodate someone with a disability. Think, for example, if you have several steps into your rental property, you wouldn’t prevent a renter from putting in a ramp so they could have wheelchair access to the front of the property. The previous law, prior to 2024, required that the renter perform the modification and return the property to its original condition at the end of the lease, if required by the landlord. House Bill 1318 now removes the provision requiring the renter to pay for the modification expenses and also removes the provision allowing the landlord to require the renter to restore the property to its original condition. So, no longer does the renter have to pay for the modification, nor do they have to return the property to its original condition at the end of their lease. This bill was signed on May 28, 2024, and took effect on August 7, 2024.
The third and last bill I’m going to discuss in legislative update number four is House Bill 24-1152, regarding accessory dwelling units, or ADUs. The purpose of this bill is to increase the number of accessory dwelling units—also known as granny flats or mother-in-law suites—in Colorado. An ADU or accessory dwelling unit would be, for example, if you owned a house and built an apartment over your garage, that might be considered an ADU. Or, if you had a house with a large backyard, you could build a small apartment or house at the back of your property, which would also be considered an ADU. Now, with this new House Bill, ADUs are permitted in metropolitan areas. Metropolitan areas are defined as any area with more than 1,000 inhabitants, and the bill prohibits restrictive local laws. So, if there were local laws preventing you from building an ADU or having one before, those laws are no longer valid. Local governments cannot restrict or prohibit the construction of ADUs or having an accessory dwelling unit on your property. Additionally, the bill provides up to $8 million in state grants and loans to help finance ADU construction. This bill was signed and approved on May 13, 2024, but it will not take effect until June 30, 2025, so it is not yet in effect.
I hope this information was of value to you. We appreciate your time. Thanks for watching, and make it a great day!