Free Colorado 5-Day Notice to Pay Rent or Quit

It depends on the agreement, and getting it wrong is the most common way these cases fail. C.R.S. § 13-40-104(1)(d) sets the default at ten days’ notice in writing requiring in the alternative the payment of the rent or the possession of the premises. It then carves out two shorter periods: three days for a nonresidential agreement or an employer-provided housing agreement, and five days for an exempt residential agreement. So five days is not the general Colorado rule. It is a narrow exception, and you have to qualify for it before you serve it.

The definition is in C.R.S. § 13-40-104(5)(d) and it has three parts, all of which must be true. The agreement must lease a single family home. The landlord must own five or fewer single family rental homes. And the agreement itself must provide notice that the ten-day notice period required under that section does not apply to the tenancy. Miss any one of the three and the tenancy is not exempt, so the ten-day demand applies. Note that the pinpoint moved: this definition sat at subsection (5)(b) before the 2025 amendments renumbered subsection (5), so older forms cite the wrong letter.

No. C.R.S. § 13-40-104(5)(d) draws the line at a landlord who owns five or fewer single family rental homes. At six you are outside the definition, every one of your residential agreements reverts to the ten-day demand under § 13-40-104(1)(d), and a five-day notice is short. The count is about single family rental homes, so a portfolio that also holds a duplex or an apartment building raises a question you should put to a Colorado attorney rather than guess at. Count your portfolio as at the date you serve, not the date you signed the lease.

Only in the one situation the statute allows. C.R.S. § 13-40-104(1)(d) ends with a flat prohibition: no such agreement shall contain a waiver by the tenant of the notice requirement of that subsection. What the exempt residential route needs under § 13-40-104(5)(d) is not a waiver but a disclosure, a statement in the agreement that the ten-day period does not apply, and it only works where the single family home and five-or-fewer conditions are also met. A clause in an apartment lease shortening the demand to five or three days is void and will not save a short notice.

No. C.R.S. § 13-40-104(1)(d) says plainly that it is not necessary, in order to work a forfeiture of the agreement for nonpayment of rent, to make a demand for the rent on the day on which it becomes due, but that a failure to pay upon demand, when made, works a forfeiture. In other words the written pay-or-quit demand is the operative step, not a same-day request on the due date. What the statute does require is that the tenant holds over without the landlord’s permission after a default in payment, and that the correct notice period has been duly served.

Treat late fees as separate from the rent demand. C.R.S. § 38-12-105(7) says a late fee is distinct from rent and a rental agreement may not classify a late fee as rent for the purposes of § 13-40-104(1)(d). Section 38-12-105(1)(d) and (1)(e) also bar a landlord from removing or excluding a tenant, initiating a court process for removal, or terminating a tenancy because the tenant fails to pay one or more late fees. Inflating the cure figure with fees the tenant cannot be evicted over is a standard defence, and it can cost you the notice.

Then a repayment plan duty is triggered. Under C.R.S. § 13-40-104(4)(e)(I)(A), where the tenant has provided documentation under § 13-40-104(4)(a) that they are a victim-survivor, the landlord shall offer a repayment plan no later than three business days after serving a demand for unpaid rent or after receiving the documentation, whichever is later. The plan must be structured at the tenant’s discretion, require full repayment of lawfully owed rent in monthly payments of at least twenty-five dollars, and run no more than nine months. Under § 13-40-104(4)(e)(I)(C) you cannot charge fees, interest or penalties on the plan, and failing to offer one is an affirmative defence.

This is where the statute stops and practice begins. C.R.S. § 13-40-104(1)(d) frames the demand as requiring in the alternative the payment of the rent or the possession of the premises, so a partial payment is not, on its face, the alternative the notice offered. But whether accepting it waives the demand, cures the default, or simply reduces the balance is fact-driven and Colorado courts look at what the parties did. Before you bank a partial payment on a running notice, decide in writing what you are applying it to and whether you intend the demand to continue, and take advice on a contested file.