Free Colorado Notice of Non-Renewal

Direct answer: in Colorado a landlord can no longer decline to renew a covered residential lease simply because the term is ending. C.R.S. § 38-12-1303(1) provides that a landlord shall not serve a notice to terminate tenancy or a demand for possession, or otherwise proceed with an action for unlawful detainer, unless there is cause for the eviction. Expiry of the term is not on the list of causes: HB24-1098 rewrote the holdover ground at C.R.S. § 13-40-104(1)(c) so that it now reaches only nonresidential property and the residential premises exempted by § 38-12-1302. A landlord of a covered tenancy who wants the unit back without alleging tenant fault must use one of the six no-fault grounds in § 38-12-1303(3), state its legal and factual basis in the notice, and allow the tenant at least 90 days to vacate — 45 days in the single case of an active-duty military landlord moving in under § 38-12-1303(3)(c)(II). The 21-day answer that forms sites and automated summaries still give for this query is the pre-2024 rule; it survives only for tenancies part 13 does not cover, and even there 21 days is just one of five tiers. The form below is built to the current statute: it refuses to generate without a cause, prints the cause and its citation on the face of the notice, computes the period the cause carries, and states expressly that the tenancy does not simply end at expiry.

Start with coverage, then cause — everything else follows from those two answers. If the tenancy is covered by part 13, the generator offers the causes C.R.S. § 38-12-1303 recognises and applies the period that cause carries. If the tenancy is one of the six exemptions in § 38-12-1302(1), it switches to the § 13-40-107(2) tier table and prints the exemption it is relying on, so the notice shows its own reasoning. It will not produce a file with no cause selected, because § 38-12-1303(1) forbids serving a notice to terminate tenancy without one. Describe the facts in your own words: § 38-12-1303(5)(b) requires a statement of the legal and factual basis, and § 13-40-106(1) requires a specific description of the no-fault eviction grounds.

Watch: the Colorado Notice of Non-Renewal after HB24-1098

▶ Watch overview

Direct answer: only with a cause the statute names. C.R.S. § 38-12-1303(1) reads that a landlord shall not serve a notice to terminate tenancy or a demand for possession or otherwise proceed with an action for unlawful detainer pursuant to article 40 of title 13 unless there is cause for the eviction. Subsection (2) then closes the list: cause exists only as described in the thirteen paragraphs it enumerates. A landlord who wants the unit back at the end of the term, with no allegation of tenant fault, has exactly one route — the no-fault grounds in subsection (3) — and that route costs at least ninety days.

The elegance of the drafting is worth understanding, because it explains why the old answer stopped working rather than merely becoming unfashionable. Before HB24-1098, a landlord ending a Colorado tenancy at expiry relied on two provisions working together: § 13-40-107 supplied the notice period, and § 13-40-104(1)(c) supplied the cause of action — unlawful detention by a tenant who holds over after the expiration of the term. HB24-1098 amended both. Section 13-40-104(1)(c) now reads, in the operative part, that a person has committed an unlawful detention when a lessee or tenant at will or at sufferance of any nonresidential real property or residential premises described in section 38-12-1302(1)(a), (1)(b), (1)(d), (1)(e), or (1)(f) holds over after the expiration of the term. Those cross-references are the exemption list. For a covered residential tenancy, holding over after expiry is simply no longer an unlawful detention.

Section 13-40-107(1) was narrowed the same way and in the same words. As amended it authorises “a landlord of nonresidential real property or a residential premises described in section 38-12-1302(1)(a), (1)(b), (1)(d), (1)(e), or (1)(f), or a tenant of any property or premises” to terminate a periodic tenancy or elect not to renew a fixed term tenancy. Read the sentence twice. A tenant of any property may still give notice and leave. A landlord may do so only for nonresidential property or an exempt residential premises. The landlord of a covered residential tenancy is not in the sentence at all.

So the two halves of the old non-renewal — the notice power and the cause of action — were removed together, deliberately, by cross-reference to the same five exemption paragraphs. That is why a 21-day non-renewal served on a covered Colorado tenancy is not merely short. It is an instrument with no statutory basis, terminating a tenancy the landlord has no power to terminate, in support of a claim the landlord cannot bring.

Direct answer: HB24-1098 added an entire new part to the landlord-tenant title and rewrote nine sections of the eviction statute around it. The act is titled “Concerning protections for residential tenants, and, in connection therewith, requiring cause for the eviction of a residential tenant.” It created part 13 of article 12 of title 38 — C.R.S. §§ 38-12-1301 through 38-12-1307 — and amended C.R.S. §§ 13-40-104, 13-40-106, 13-40-107, 13-40-107.5, 13-40-108, 13-40-110, 38-12-202, 38-12-204.3, 38-12-222, 38-12-508, 38-12-509, 38-12-701 and 38-33-112.

Section 1 of the act is a legislative declaration stating that it is reasonable and necessary for the important public purposes of preventing arbitrary displacement of individuals, protecting safety and promoting public health, and that it should be construed broadly to achieve these purposes. That instruction matters in practice: a court reading an ambiguous exemption or an ambiguous ground is directed to read part 13 broadly, which cuts against the landlord asserting an exemption.

Section 17 of the act is a safety clause — the general assembly’s declaration that the act is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety. A Colorado act with a safety clause takes effect on the governor’s approval rather than after the ordinary post-session waiting period, and it is not subject to the referendum petition window. HB24-1098 was approved by Governor Jared Polis in April 2024. The act carries no separate applicability clause limiting it to agreements signed after a given date, so it applies to tenancies that were already running when it took effect. Confirm the exact approval date on the General Assembly’s bill page before you put a specific day in a pleading.

What the act did not do

Three things are worth stating plainly, because the guidance circulating for this query has blurred all three.

• It did not repeal § 13-40-107. The tier table is intact and unchanged in substance: 91 days for a tenancy of one year or longer, 28 days for six months or longer but less than a year, 21 days for one month or longer but less than six months, 3 days for a week or longer but less than a month or a tenancy at will, and 1 day for a tenancy of less than a week. What changed is who may use it.
• It did not create a general 90-day notice for every Colorado termination. The ninety days attaches to the no-fault grounds in § 38-12-1303(3). An at-fault cause — nonpayment, a material violation, a nuisance — still runs on the § 13-40-104 periods, which for a residential agreement are ten days, or three days for a substantial violation under § 13-40-107.5.
• It did not make lease renewal compulsory. Several pages ranking for this query are headlined “lease renewals are required by law in Colorado.” That overstates it. Nothing obliges a landlord to sign a new fixed-term agreement. What the act does is remove the landlord’s power to obtain possession at expiry without a cause, so the practical effect for a covered tenancy is that the tenant stays on the existing terms unless a ground is made out. That is a different proposition, and it matters when the argument turns to what terms govern after the term ends.

Two more sections nobody is citing

The rankers for this query discuss § 38-12-1303 at length and stop. Part 13 has seven sections, and the last two are the ones that decide contested cases.

C.R.S. § 38-12-1306 — affirmative defence. If a landlord fails to comply with part 13, the tenant may assert that failure as an affirmative defence to an eviction proceeding. If the tenant does, and the landlord cannot demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that the landlord has complied with part 13, the court shall dismiss the eviction proceeding. Note the allocation: once the defence is raised, the landlord carries the burden of showing compliance, and dismissal is mandatory rather than discretionary. This is why the drafting of the notice is not a formality in Colorado.

C.R.S. § 38-12-1307 — retaliatory rent increase prohibited. A landlord shall not increase a tenant’s rent in a discriminatory, retaliatory or unconscionable manner to circumvent the requirements and prohibitions of part 13. The section exists because the obvious response to a for-cause regime is to price the tenant out instead, and the general assembly closed that door in the same act. HB24-1098 also amended § 38-12-701(2)(b) so that a landlord shall not terminate a tenancy with no written agreement by serving a notice with the primary purpose of increasing rent inconsistently with the rent-increase statute. Our Colorado rent increase rules guide covers the § 38-12-701 mechanics.

Direct answer: because the statute says so, in the definitions. C.R.S. § 38-12-1301(6) provides that “no-fault eviction” means an action brought by a landlord pursuant to article 40 of title 13 for the eviction of a tenant under conditions described in § 38-12-1303(3). Section 38-12-1303(3) is the list of end-of-term grounds. Declining to renew a covered tenancy is therefore, as a matter of statutory definition, the initiation of a no-fault eviction.

This inverts the usual advice. Across most of the country the honest correction to make on a non-renewal page is that a non-renewal is not an eviction — it is the expiry of a contract, and conflating the two misleads tenants into thinking they have a filing on their record. Colorado is now the state where that correction is itself the error. Here the conflation is written into the code: the notice is a step in an unlawful detainer action, the holding-over that follows a properly served no-fault notice is the unlawful detention at § 13-40-104(1)(e.8), and if the tenant stays the landlord files under article 40 like any other eviction.

Three practical consequences follow, and they are the ones a Colorado landlord tends to discover late.

• The notice is drafted to eviction standards, not letter standards. It must satisfy § 13-40-106 as amended, which now applies expressly to a demand or notice required by § 13-40-104 or § 38-12-1303. A friendly end-of-lease letter does not meet that standard, however clearly it communicates.
• Service is eviction service. C.R.S. § 38-12-1301(8) defines proper service by reference to § 13-40-108, the eviction service statute, which HB24-1098 also tightened. Emailing the notice does not start the clock.
• The tenant has eviction defences from day one. Retaliation under § 38-12-509, breach of the warranty of habitability where § 38-12-509(2) applies, the § 38-12-1306 compliance defence, and the mediation right at § 13-40-110 referenced in § 13-40-106(2) are all in play against a non-renewal in a way they never were against a simple expiry.

Direct answer: there are six, all in C.R.S. § 38-12-1302(1), and the count itself is contested on this search result. Some pages report five, some six, and at least one merges two. The section opens by declaring that part 13 applies to every residential premises in the state, and then lists paragraphs (a) through (f) as the only carve-outs. Six.

Two things about exemptions in Colorado are worth internalising. First, the burden runs the wrong way for the landlord: § 38-12-1306 puts the onus on the landlord to demonstrate compliance with part 13 once a tenant raises non-compliance, and asserting an exemption is part of demonstrating compliance. Second, the legislative declaration in section 1 of HB24-1098 directs that the act be construed broadly to achieve its purposes, which is an interpretive thumb on the scale against a stretched exemption. An owner-occupancy exemption claimed for a property the owner visits rather than lives in is the classic way this goes wrong.

Direct answer: subsection (2) is a closed list of thirteen paragraphs, and it says cause exists only as described in them. Most are procedural or apply to non-residential situations. Five of them are what a residential landlord will actually plead, and each takes its notice period from C.R.S. § 13-40-104 rather than from part 13.

The nuisance cause is new, and it is drafted narrowly

C.R.S. § 13-40-104(1)(j) did not exist before HB24-1098. It reaches a tenant who holds over after engaging in conduct that is disturbing others or causing a nuisance, where that conduct interferes with the quiet enjoyment of the landlord if the landlord lives in the same or an immediately adjacent property, or of others residing in an immediately adjacent property, or of other tenants or occupants of the same property — or a tenant who by reason of negligence damaged the housing accommodation. Ten days’ written notice is required for a residential agreement, and the notice must contain a description of the specific conduct and require in the alternative that the conduct cease.

Two guardrails sit inside the same paragraph. Subparagraph (1)(j)(II) provides that the lawful exercise by a tenant of any rights under any law or rule relating to occupancy of a property is not to be deemed interference with quiet enjoyment or a ground under (1)(j) — so complaining to a code officer cannot be repackaged as a nuisance. Subparagraph (1)(j)(III) provides that it is not a nuisance or disturbance where a victim of domestic violence is accused of causing one as a direct result of being a victim, and states expressly that the exception applies only to victims and not to perpetrators.

Where an at-fault cause meets the end of the term

An at-fault cause and a no-fault ground are not alternatives you pick for convenience. If the tenant is in material breach, the ten-day § 13-40-104(1)(e) route is available immediately and does not wait for the term to end. If the tenant is not in breach and you simply want the unit at expiry, the only route is subsection (3), and that costs ninety days. What a landlord cannot do is dress an end-of-term wish as a fault cause; § 38-12-1306 will put the landlord to proof, and a thin breach allegation asserted to avoid a ninety-day clock is exactly the case that gets dismissed. Our Colorado eviction notice rules guide sets out the at-fault notice mechanics in detail.

Direct answer: demolition or conversion, substantial repairs, landlord or family occupancy, withdrawal to sell, refusal to sign a reasonable new lease, and a history of nonpayment. Every one requires the tenant to be allowed at least ninety days after receiving the written notice, and every one carries conditions beyond the clock. Subsection (5)(a) adds that the landlord may file only if proper service of the written notice was given and the tenant failed to vacate on or before the deadline stated in it.

(3)(a) Demolition or conversion of the residential premises

Available where the landlord plans to demolish the premises, convert it to a nonresidential use, or convert it to a short-term rental property. The landlord must allow the tenant at least ninety days after receiving the written notice, during which the tenant may remain in possession on the same terms as the existing rental agreement. The notice must state the vacate date, which must be at least ninety days after the date the landlord provides the notice, and it must include a description and timeline of the demolition or conversion and a material demonstration of the proposed commencement date — the statute gives, as examples, a copy of a building permit, a permit application, or an application for a licence to operate a short-term rental property where applicable. This is the only no-fault ground that demands documentary proof of intention on the face of the notice.

(3)(b) Substantial repairs or renovations

“Substantial repairs or renovations” is a defined term at § 38-12-1301(13), and the definition does most of the work. The repairs must (a) be incapable of being reasonably accomplished in a safe or efficient manner with the tenant in place, (b) not be repairs necessary to remedy a breach of the warranty of habitability under § 38-12-503, and (c) require the tenant to vacate for at least thirty days. All three limbs must hold. A kitchen refresh the tenant could live through is not within the ground.

On top of the ninety days and the notice stating the vacate date, the landlord must give the tenant an expected completion date and a general description of the works, and must proceed without unreasonable delay to effect the works on recovering possession. Where the works are expected to last less than one hundred eighty days, the landlord must send the tenant a written notice of the expected completion date in the manner the landlord usually uses to communicate; if the tenant replies within ten days that they want to return, the landlord must offer the tenant the first right of refusal to sign a new rental agreement with reasonable terms, and on acceptance the tenant has thirty days to occupy unless the parties agree a longer timeline in writing.

Subparagraph (3)(b)(II) is the anti-abuse clause and it is absolute: the ground is unavailable where the works are required for the landlord to satisfy remedial action under § 38-12-503 for a breach of the warranty of habitability, or where they are initiated in retaliation against the tenant under § 38-12-509(1). A landlord who has been served with a habitability complaint and then discovers a need for substantial renovation has walked into both limbs at once. Our Colorado habitability rules guide explains what § 38-12-503 requires.

(3)(c) Landlord or family member of the landlord assumes occupancy

Available where the landlord plans to recover possession for the landlord’s own use and occupancy as a residence, or for use and occupancy as a residence by the landlord’s family member — a term borrowed from C.R.S. § 8-13.3-503(11). Four conditions attach:

• the landlord or the family member moves in within three months after the tenant vacates;
• the landlord gives proper service of written notice at least ninety days before the vacate date, with the tenant remaining in possession on existing terms in the meantime;
• no substantially equivalent unit is vacant and available to house the landlord or family member in the same building; and
• the landlord does not list the premises for a long-term or short-term rental for at least ninety days after the vacate date.

Two variations sit in the same paragraph. Subparagraph (3)(c)(II) is the forty-five-day rule: where the landlord is an individual on active military duty for the United States military forces, or a spouse of such an individual, the notice must be served at least forty-five days before the vacate date rather than ninety. Subparagraph (3)(c)(III) allows the three-month move-in window to be extended for a reasonable time where the landlord or the family member is a person with a disability, to allow changes to be made to accommodate them.

(3)(d) Withdrawal from the rental market for the purpose of selling

Available only for a defined set of property types: a single-family home, a townhome, a duplex, a triplex, or an individual condominium unit. A landlord selling an apartment building is not within the ground. The landlord must allow at least ninety days after receipt of the notice, must serve written notice of the intent to withdraw the premises from the rental market and sell it, stating the vacate date, and must not list the premises for a long-term or short-term rental for at least ninety days after the vacate date — unless the landlord produces evidence that the premises was listed for sale on a multiple-listing service after the tenant was required to vacate.

Subparagraph (3)(d)(II) then says something the other grounds leave implicit: nothing in the paragraph allows a landlord to initiate a no-fault eviction or otherwise terminate a rental agreement without cause before the end of the term. A sale does not shorten a fixed term.

(3)(e) Tenant refuses to sign a new rental agreement with reasonable terms

The shortest ground in the subsection, and the one most likely to be litigated, because the statute supplies no definition of “reasonable terms.” The landlord must allow the tenant at least ninety days after receiving the notice to vacate after the tenant has refused to sign, and must serve written notice of the intent to terminate the tenancy stating the vacate date.

Note the sequencing, because it is where landlords lose this ground. The ninety days runs from service of the notice following the refusal, not from the offer of the new agreement. A landlord who presents a renewal sixty days before expiry, receives a refusal, and then serves a notice, is serving a notice whose earliest lawful vacate date is ninety days later — a month after the term has ended. The tenant remains in possession on the existing terms throughout. Working backwards from the term end is the only way to make this ground land on expiry, and it means the renewal offer has to go out early. Our Colorado lease renewal agreement form is the document to send at that stage.

On the substance, a renewal that raises rent to a level designed to force refusal invites § 38-12-1307, which prohibits a discriminatory, retaliatory or unconscionable rent increase to circumvent part 13. The tenant’s answer in that scenario is that the terms were not reasonable and the increase was a circumvention, and both propositions are in the statute.

(3)(f) History of nonpayment of rent

Available where a tenant submits a rent payment late more than two times during the period of the rental agreement — so the third qualifying late payment is the trigger. The landlord must allow at least ninety days after receipt of the notice and must serve written notice of the intent to terminate the tenancy stating the vacate date. The eviction is initiated at the end of the term of the rental agreement.

The two qualifying rules are strict, and they are what most summaries omit:

• § 38-12-1303(3)(f)(II): a payment counts as late only if it is submitted more than ten calendar days after the day it is due under the rental agreement and the landlord provided the tenant with proper service of a written notice under § 13-40-104(1)(d). A late payment that never drew a demand does not count.
• § 38-12-1303(3)(f)(III): the ground does not apply if the rent payment is submitted within the cure period described in § 13-40-104(1)(d). A tenant who pays inside the statutory cure window has not, for this purpose, been late at all.

The practical consequence is that this ground has to be built during the tenancy, not reconstructed at the end of it. Three demands served, three payments outside the cure period, three dates recorded. A ledger showing late payments with no corresponding notices proves nothing under (3)(f)(II).

Direct answer: at least ninety days for every no-fault ground, measured to the vacate date, with a single forty-five-day variant for an active-duty military landlord taking occupancy under § 38-12-1303(3)(c)(II). There is no shorter no-fault route and no lease clause that can create one.

The statutory language repays close reading, because the ninety days is expressed two different ways across the six grounds and the difference matters when you set a date.

• Grounds (3)(a), (3)(b), (3)(d), (3)(e) and (3)(f) say the landlord must allow the tenant at least ninety days after receiving the written notice to vacate. The clock runs from the tenant’s receipt.
• Ground (3)(c) says the landlord must provide proper service of written notice at least ninety days before the vacate date. Same length, expressed from the other end.
• Grounds (3)(a) and (3)(b) add, in the notice-content requirement, that the vacate date stated in the notice must be at least ninety days after the date the landlord provides the notice.

None of these is a business-day count and none is tied to a rent day. They are calendar days. The safe practice, and what the calculator on this page does, is to measure ninety calendar days from the date of service and treat that as the earliest lawful vacate date, on the footing that a notice served by posting or substituted service may be received later than it is served rather than earlier.

Ninety days is a floor, and the end of the term is a second constraint

This is the point that the shorthand “90 days’ pre-expiry notice” obscures. Five of the six grounds say the landlord may initiate the no-fault eviction at the end of the term of the rental agreement. So there are two conditions, not one. The notice must give at least ninety days, and the tenancy is not being ended before the term expires. If ninety days from service lands before the end of the term, the tenant is not required to leave at the ninety-day mark; the term still has to run. If ninety days from service lands after the end of the term, the later date governs and the tenant stays past expiry on the existing terms.

Practically, a landlord who wants possession on the day a twelve-month term ends must serve the notice at least ninety days before that day. Serve it late and the tenant lawfully holds over. The generator asks for the last day of the current term for exactly this reason, and refuses a vacate date that is either inside the ninety days or before the end of the term.

Direct answer: for tenancies part 13 does not cover, and even then only for a tenancy of one month or longer but less than six months. Twenty-one days was never the Colorado non-renewal period; it was one line of a five-line table, and HB24-1098 restricted who may use the table at all.

Here is what the section now provides. Subsection (1) authorises a landlord of nonresidential real property, or of a residential premises described in § 38-12-1302(1)(a), (1)(b), (1)(d), (1)(e) or (1)(f), or a tenant of any property or premises, to terminate a periodic tenancy at the end of the tenancy period or elect not to renew a fixed term tenancy at the end of the fixed term, by serving written notice that expires at the end of the period or fixed term, based on the length of the tenancy described in subsection (2). Subsection (2) is the tier table: at least ninety-one days for a tenancy of one year or longer; at least twenty-eight days for six months or longer but less than a year; at least twenty-one days for one month or longer but less than six months; at least three days for one week or longer but less than one month or a tenancy at will; at least one day for less than a week. Subsection (3) requires the written notice to describe the property and the particular date when the tenancy will terminate, and to be signed by the landlord or tenant giving the notice or their agent or attorney. Subsection (4) provides that no written notice under subsection (1) is necessary from a tenant with a fixed-term tenancy that is, by agreement, to end at a time certain.

Three things about that section that pages ranking for this query get wrong

• The notice must expire at the end of the period or fixed term. Subsection (1) says so expressly. A twenty-one-day notice served mid-month on a month-to-month exempt tenancy does not end the tenancy twenty-one days later; it ends it at the close of the tenancy period that begins after the twenty-one days have run. Counting forward from service and stopping is the single most common arithmetic error in this area.
• Subsection (4) cuts one way only. HB24-1098 removed the words “or to” from the old text. A tenant with a fixed-term tenancy ending at a time certain owes no notice. A landlord of an exempt premises still does, if the landlord wants the tenancy to end rather than roll on.
• The tenant-at-will presumption is gone. The old § 13-40-107(3) provided that any person in possession of real property with the assent of the owner is presumed to be a tenant at will until the contrary is shown. HB24-1098 repealed it. Pages describing a three-day notice for “anyone in possession with permission” are quoting a repealed subsection.

If your tenancy is exempt and you need the plain periodic-tenancy instrument, our Colorado 21-day notice to terminate a month-to-month tenancy form is built for that tier, and our Colorado lease termination rules guide covers the wider picture. Set the coverage selector on this page to the matching exemption and the generator will produce a § 13-40-107 notice with the exemption stated on its face instead.

Direct answer: the legal basis, the factual basis, a description of the premises, the date possession must be delivered, a signature, a mediation-rights statement, and, where rent is demanded, a victim-survivor repayment statement. Two sections supply the list — § 38-12-1303(5)(b) for the part 13 layer and § 13-40-106 for the eviction layer — and HB24-1098 amended the second so that it now applies expressly to a notice required by § 38-12-1303.

C.R.S. § 38-12-1303(5)(b) requires a written notice given under subsection (3) to include a statement of the legal and factual basis for the landlord’s no-fault eviction of the tenant, and provides that the legal basis must be one set forth in subsection (3). Two components, not one. Naming the ground is the legal basis; describing what is actually happening at the property is the factual basis.

C.R.S. § 13-40-106(1), as amended, requires the demand or notice required by § 13-40-104 or § 38-12-1303 to be made in writing, specifying the grounds of the demandant’s right to possession of the premises including a specific description of the alleged violation or no-fault eviction grounds, describing the premises, indicating the date and time when the premises shall be delivered up, and to be signed by the person claiming possession or that person’s agent or attorney. The italicised phrase was inserted by HB24-1098; before 2024 the section asked only for “the grounds.”

C.R.S. § 13-40-106(2) requires the demand or notice to include a statement that a residential tenant who receives supplemental security income, social security disability insurance under Title II of the federal Social Security Act, or cash assistance through the Colorado Works program created in part 7 of article 2 of title 26 has a right to mediation before the landlord files an eviction complaint with the court under § 13-40-110. This applies to every notice, including a no-fault notice, and it is a content requirement rather than an option.

C.R.S. § 13-40-106(3) requires the demand or notice to be written in English, Spanish, or any other language that the landlord knows, or has reason to know, is the primary language of the tenant. Note the test: it is what the landlord knows or has reason to know, not what the tenant requests.

C.R.S. § 13-40-106(4) is the newest requirement and it is easily missed. Added by HB25-1168 with effect from 6 August 2025, it provides that where a demand or notice under § 13-40-104 or § 38-12-1303 includes a demand for unpaid rent, the notice must include a statement that a tenant who has experienced unlawful sexual behavior, stalking, domestic violence or domestic abuse that caused the tenant to miss a rent payment may provide the landlord with documentation of it and is entitled to a repayment plan allowing repayment over a period not exceeding nine months. If your no-fault notice also demands arrears, this statement belongs on it.

Direct answer: personal delivery to a known tenant, or delivery to a person over fifteen residing on or in charge of the premises, or posting after personal-service attempts on two separate days — and a separate route where the tenant has given notice of being a victim-survivor. C.R.S. § 38-12-1301(8) defines “proper service” for part 13 by reference to § 13-40-108, so getting service wrong is a part 13 failure that § 38-12-1306 reaches.

Section 13-40-108 has been amended twice in two years and both amendments matter here.

HB24-1098 added § 38-12-1303 to the list of notices the section governs, changed “notice to quit” to “notice to vacate,” and — the substantive change — replaced posting “in case no one is on the premises at the time service is attempted” with posting only after attempts at personal service at least once on two separate days. A single failed knock is no longer enough to justify posting.

HB25-1168, effective 6 August 2025, rewrote the section into two subsections. Subsection (1) now provides that, except as provided in subsection (2), a written notice to vacate or demand required by § 13-40-104, § 38-12-202, § 38-12-204 or § 38-12-1303 may be served by delivering a copy to a known tenant occupying the premises, or by leaving the copy with a person or a member of the family of the tenant who is older than fifteen years of age, residing on or in charge of the premises, or, where no one is on the premises after attempts at personal service at least once on two separate days, by posting the copy in a conspicuous place on the premises.

Subsection (2) is new and creates a stricter route in one circumstance. Where a tenant has provided the landlord with written or actual notice that the tenant is a victim-survivor of unlawful sexual behavior, stalking, domestic violence or domestic abuse, the landlord shall make all reasonable efforts to perfect service through personal service on that tenant. If personal service cannot be perfected after three attempts, the landlord must perfect service by posting a copy in a conspicuous place on the premises and by serving the notice by certified mail or through a commercial mail courier, provided the notice includes a receipt or other documentation demonstrating proof of delivery. Three attempts, and both posting and tracked mail — not either.

Documenting service

Colorado does not prescribe a form of return of service for a § 38-12-1303 notice, but § 13-40-110(3.5), added by HB25-1168, tells you the court expects a return of service to exist: where a tenant has given written or actual notice of being a victim-survivor and consents to the information being shared, the landlord must disclose it on the complaint or with the return of service filed with the court. Prepare an affidavit of service at the moment of service recording who served, the date and time, the method, the exact address and unit, and for posting the dates and times of each personal-service attempt and where the copy was affixed. A dated photograph of a posted notice showing the door number costs nothing and settles the question.

Direct answer: no Colorado municipality imposes its own just-cause rule or its own non-renewal notice period. Two cities add a document, not a delay. This is a correction to widely repeated guidance, including guidance that previously appeared on this page.

Denver has no anti-eviction ordinance. Several sites assert that Denver operates a local just-cause regime with grounds and notice periods of its own. It does not. Denver’s own legally-required tenant-rights notice attributes just cause and every notice period to state law, and recites the state range of one to ninety-one days. If you have read otherwise, check the source: the claim traces to automatically generated legal-content sites, not to the Denver Revised Municipal Code.

What Denver does have is a building-vacation notice at DRMC § 27-31, and it can bite on a no-fault ground. The owner of a building containing four or more units, or a hotel, motel or other structure containing four or more rooms rented separately for residential occupancy, who intends to vacate the building for remodeling, demolition, changing the use of the building or any other purpose, must at least thirty days before the intended vacation date give written notice of the intent to all tenants, post the notice on each entrance to the building, and file a copy with the city clerk. It does not apply where the building is ordered vacated by a federal, state or city agency, and it is expressed not to replace the ninety-day condominium-conversion notice in DRMC § 59-26(h).

Read the two together. A Denver landlord using ground (3)(a) demolition or conversion, or ground (3)(b) substantial repairs, in a building of four or more units owes the tenants a ninety-day § 38-12-1303 notice each and a thirty-day DRMC § 27-31 building notice posted at every entrance and filed with the city clerk. The municipal notice runs alongside the state notice rather than extending it; serving one does not discharge the other. Denver also prohibits source-of-income discrimination in its municipal code, which matters if the reason for a non-renewal is that the tenant holds a voucher.

Boulder adds a document, not a period. Boulder’s Landlord-Tenant Handbook recites only the state notice schedule and attributes just cause to C.R.S. §§ 38-12-1301 to 38-12-1307. Chapter 12-2 of the Boulder Revised Code covers security deposits, required disclosures and eviction legal representation; it contains no termination-notice section. What Boulder does require is a right-to-counsel notice rider: B.R.C. § 12-2-9(a)(2) provides that written notification of the right to legal representation and how to access it must be provided by the landlord to a tenant along with the notice to quit or demand for compliance or possession under C.R.S. § 13-40-101 et seq., C.R.S. § 38-12-202 et seq., or a notice of termination of Section 8 housing assistance, in the form the City prescribes. A Boulder no-fault notice therefore travels with the City’s right-to-counsel disclosure attached. It does not travel any slower.

Elsewhere in Colorado. Aurora, Fort Collins, Lakewood and Colorado Springs impose no local just-cause requirement and no local non-renewal notice period. Fort Collins regulates rental condition and occupancy; Boulder and Denver regulate licensing and disclosure. None of them lengthens the state clock. That said, municipal codes change, and home-rule cities in Colorado have real power in this area — check the current code of the city where the property sits before you serve, and treat any local requirement as additional to the state requirement rather than in place of it.

Direct answer: the expensive ones are structural, not typographical. Because § 38-12-1306 makes dismissal mandatory once a tenant raises non-compliance the landlord cannot disprove, a defect that would be an irritation elsewhere ends the case in Colorado and sends the landlord back to day one of a ninety-day clock.

Serving a notice with no cause at all

The headline failure. Section 38-12-1303(1) prohibits serving a notice to terminate tenancy without cause, so a letter saying only that the lease will not be renewed is defective on the day it is written and cannot be cured by the passage of time. The generator on this page refuses to produce a document until a cause is chosen for exactly this reason.

Using the 21-day period on a covered tenancy

The most common live error, and the one this search result is actively teaching. A twenty-one-day notice served on a covered tenancy fails twice over: the landlord has no power under § 13-40-107(1) to serve it, and the period is sixty-nine days short of what § 38-12-1303(3) requires. Neither defect can be fixed after service; the notice has to be reissued and the ninety days restarted.

Naming a subsection without describing the facts

A notice reading “possession is sought under C.R.S. § 38-12-1303(3)(c)” and nothing more satisfies neither § 38-12-1303(5)(b), which asks for legal and factual basis, nor § 13-40-106(1), which asks for a specific description of the no-fault eviction grounds. Say who is moving in, when, and why no equivalent unit is available.

Omitting the mediation statement

Section 13-40-106(2) requires every notice to carry the statement about the right to mediation for tenants receiving SSI, SSDI or Colorado Works assistance. It is a content requirement of the section that governs part 13 notices, it costs one sentence, and leaving it out hands the tenant a compliance argument for free.

Getting the ninety days right but the term end wrong

Five of the six no-fault grounds permit the eviction to be initiated at the end of the term. A notice that gives a full ninety days but names a vacate date inside the fixed term is asking the tenant to leave before the tenancy ends, which subsection (3)(d)(II) says expressly cannot be done without cause and which the structure of the other grounds implies. Both constraints have to be satisfied.

Counting the ninety days from the wrong event

The grounds measure from the tenant receiving the notice, or from service, not from the date the document was prepared, not from the date of the board decision to sell, and not from the date the renewal offer was emailed. Where the notice is posted, receipt is later than drafting by definition. Build in margin.

Posting without the statutory attempts

Posting is a fallback with a precondition: personal-service attempts at least once on two separate days under § 13-40-108(1), or three attempts and additional certified mail under the victim-survivor route in § 13-40-108(2). Posting on the first visit is not service, and the ninety days has not started.

Relying on a lease clause that shortens the period

Section 38-12-1305 makes void and unenforceable any provision of a rental agreement or other agreement purporting to authorize or effectuate a waiver or modification of any provision of part 13. A sixty-day non-renewal clause in a Colorado lease is unenforceable as to that clause. A clause requiring the landlord to give more than ninety days is enforceable, and where one exists the longer period governs.

Claiming an exemption the property does not fit

The owner-occupied limb of § 38-12-1302(1)(b) is where this happens. It requires the owner or master tenant to live in and maintain the premises as a primary residence, or to live in an adjacent property as a primary residence, and it caps the property at a single-family home with or without an accessory dwelling unit, a duplex or a triplex, excluding any multifamily property of four or more units. “Primary residence” is defined at § 38-12-1301(7) by reference to the address on a Colorado driver’s licence, identification card or voter registration, or used for state or federal tax purposes or public school registration, at the time the no-fault eviction is exercised. That is a documentary test, and the documents either exist or they do not.

Building the history-of-nonpayment ground after the fact

Ground (3)(f) counts only late payments that were more than ten calendar days late and drew proper service of a § 13-40-104(1)(d) notice, and it excludes any payment made inside that section’s cure period. A spreadsheet of late payments with no matching notices establishes nothing. This ground is made during the tenancy or not at all.

Renovating for habitability and calling it substantial renovation

Subparagraph (3)(b)(II)(A) removes the ground entirely where the works are required to satisfy remedial action under § 38-12-503 for a breach of the warranty of habitability, and (3)(b)(II)(B) removes it where the works are retaliatory under § 38-12-509(1). Section 38-12-1301(13) independently excludes habitability repairs from the definition. A landlord served with a habitability demand who then serves a renovation notice has created the strongest possible defence for the tenant.

Failing to name every tenant

Every adult on the rental agreement is a tenant, and a notice omitting one leaves that person with no notice at all. Where the household includes an occupant not on the agreement, that person may fall within the § 38-12-1302(1)(f) unknown-tenant exemption, which is a different analysis again. Name everyone on the agreement, and serve in a way that reaches the household.

Raising the rent instead

Section 38-12-1307 prohibits increasing rent in a discriminatory, retaliatory or unconscionable manner to circumvent part 13, and HB24-1098 amended § 38-12-701(2)(b) to bar terminating a tenancy with no written agreement with the primary purpose of increasing rent inconsistently with that section. A large increase timed to expiry, followed by a refusal to sign and a (3)(e) notice, is a sequence a court is invited by statute to look through.

Direct answer: a mandatory-dismissal affirmative defence under § 38-12-1306, unlawful-removal relief under § 38-12-1304 and § 38-12-510, retaliation under § 38-12-509, the void-waiver rule in § 38-12-1305, mediation under § 13-40-110, and fair-housing claims that run in parallel. Colorado gives the tenant more here than most states, and the remedies stack.

The § 38-12-1306 compliance defence

If a landlord fails to comply with part 13, the tenant may assert that failure as an affirmative defence to an eviction proceeding. If the tenant asserts it and the landlord cannot demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that the landlord has complied with part 13, the court shall dismiss the eviction proceeding. Three features are worth naming. The trigger is any failure to comply with part 13, not only a failure of cause. The burden shifts to the landlord once the defence is raised. And dismissal is mandatory language, not a discretion. A tenant raising this defence is not asking the court for indulgence.

Unlawful removal under § 38-12-1304 and § 38-12-510

Where a landlord proceeds with an eviction in violation of part 13 and the tenant loses possession of the dwelling unit without a court order, § 38-12-1304 directs the tenant to the relief in § 38-12-510, Colorado’s unlawful-removal provision. This is the self-help scenario: locks changed, utilities cut, belongings moved out after a defective non-renewal. Part 13 routes it into an existing remedial section rather than inventing a new one.

Retaliation under § 38-12-509

A no-fault ground does not immunise a retaliatory motive. Section 38-12-509(1.5) allows a tenant to assert retaliation as a defence to an action for possession, including one based on a nonmonetary violation or on a notice to terminate tenancy or vacate — wording HB24-1098 updated in the same act. Ground (3)(b) carries its own retaliation bar in (3)(b)(II)(B). Where the notice follows a habitability complaint, a repair request, a code report or participation in a tenant organisation, the timeline is the tenant’s case.

The void-waiver rule

Section 38-12-1305 makes void and unenforceable any agreement provision purporting to waive or modify part 13. A tenant confronted with a lease clause allowing a thirty-day non-renewal, or a signed acknowledgement that the tenancy ends at expiry, can point at the section and treat the clause as absent.

Mediation before filing

Section 13-40-106(2) requires the notice itself to tell the tenant that a residential tenant receiving SSI, SSDI or Colorado Works cash assistance has a right to mediation before the landlord files an eviction complaint under § 13-40-110. A qualifying tenant who receives a no-fault notice can invoke that right on the day the notice arrives, and a landlord who filed without it has a further compliance problem.

Fair housing, in parallel

The federal Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3601 et seq., and the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act operate independently of part 13. A non-renewal motivated by race, colour, religion, sex, familial status, national origin or disability is unlawful whether or not the notice recites a valid ground, and since HB25-1240 a refusal motivated by the tenant’s use of a housing subsidy carries a statutory minimum damages exposure under the state act. Nothing in part 13 displaces either.

Habitability and quiet enjoyment

Where the notice arrives on top of unaddressed conditions, the tenant has the warranty of habitability claims in §§ 38-12-503 and 38-12-505 and, where the conduct drives the tenant out, constructive eviction. Note that § 38-12-508(4), as amended by HB24-1098, limits when habitability may be used as a defence to a possession action based on a notice to terminate tenancy or vacate, except as provided in § 38-12-509(2) — so the habitability point is often better run as a claim than as a defence. Our Colorado habitability rules guide covers the underlying duties.

Direct answer: the deepest guide on this search result never once gives a statutory citation, and the forms pages are still teaching the pre-2024 rule. Both failures send Colorado landlords into a mandatory dismissal.

Direct answer: it is the first pleading-grade step of a no-fault eviction, and it is what converts a lawful tenancy into a holdover the landlord can sue on. That is a narrower and more serious function than the document had before 2024.

Mechanically, a compliant notice does five things. It identifies the tenancy and the premises. It states a cause the statute recognises and the facts behind it. It fixes a date by which possession must be delivered up, computed on the period the cause carries. It carries the statements § 13-40-106 requires. And it is served in a way § 13-40-108 authorises, creating a record of when the clock started.

Legally, its effect is conditional. During the notice period nothing changes: every no-fault ground provides in terms that the tenant may remain in possession under the same terms as the existing rental agreement. Rent stays due, repairs stay the landlord’s obligation, and the lease governs. If the tenant vacates on or before the stated date, the tenancy ends and the notice has done its work. If the tenant stays, the notice becomes the foundation of the claim: § 13-40-104(1)(e.8) makes it an unlawful detention to hold over and maintain possession after the landlord has properly initiated a no-fault eviction by satisfying the notice and other requirements described in § 38-12-1303(3), and § 38-12-1303(5)(a) permits the filing only where proper service was given and the tenant failed to vacate by the deadline in the notice.

What the notice does not do is end the tenancy by itself, put the landlord in possession, or authorise any self-help. Locks, utilities and belongings are untouchable without a court order; § 38-12-1304 routes a tenant who loses possession without one straight to § 38-12-510.

The arc below assumes a covered twelve-month tenancy and a ninety-day no-fault ground. Substitute the forty-five days if you are an active-duty landlord using ground (3)(c), or the § 13-40-107(2) tier if the tenancy is exempt.

Direct answer: a no-fault eviction does not change the security-deposit rules, but it does change what your file has to prove. The Colorado deposit statute runs on its own timetable and the ground you relied on has obligations that continue after possession.

Colorado’s security-deposit provisions require the deposit or a written itemised statement of deductions to be returned within the period the lease specifies, subject to the statutory maximum, and attach a wilful-retention penalty where a landlord retains a deposit without the required statement. Our Colorado security deposit rules guide sets out the periods and the penalty, and our Colorado security deposit return letter produces the itemisation. Nothing about a no-fault ground shortens or lengthens that clock, and a deposit may not be withheld because the tenant contested the notice.

Two records matter more than usual after a no-fault eviction. The first is condition: a dated move-out walkthrough with photographs, ideally against a move-in record, because a tenant who left under a ninety-day notice they disputed is more likely to challenge deductions. Our Colorado move-in and move-out checklist is built for that. The second is the ground itself: keep the permit, the contractor schedule, the listing history or the move-in evidence for at least as long as the statutory restriction runs. If a tenant later alleges the ground was pretextual, that file is the answer.

• House Bill 24-1098, “Concerning protections for residential tenants, and, in connection therewith, requiring cause for the eviction of a residential tenant” — enrolled act read in full from the Colorado General Assembly, including the legislative declaration at section 1, the severability clause at section 16 and the safety clause at section 17
• C.R.S. § 38-12-1301 (definitions), § 38-12-1302 (applicability), § 38-12-1303 (cause for eviction required — no-fault evictions), § 38-12-1304 (violations — remedies), § 38-12-1305 (no waiver of requirements by agreement), § 38-12-1306 (affirmative defence) and § 38-12-1307 (retaliatory rent increase prohibited)
• C.R.S. § 13-40-104 (unlawful detention defined), in particular (1)(c), (1)(d), (1)(d.5), (1)(e), (1)(e.5), (1)(e.8) and (1)(j), and the definitions at (5)
• C.R.S. § 13-40-106 (written demand), subsections (1) to (4)
• C.R.S. § 13-40-107 (notice to terminate tenancy), subsections (1) to (4)
• C.R.S. § 13-40-107.5 (termination of tenancy for substantial violation)
• C.R.S. § 13-40-108 (service of notice to vacate or demand), subsections (1) and (2)
• C.R.S. § 13-40-110 (action — how commenced)
• C.R.S. §§ 38-12-503, 38-12-508, 38-12-509, 38-12-510 and 38-12-701
• C.R.S. §§ 38-12-202, 38-12-203, 38-12-204.3 and 38-12-222 (Mobile Home Park Act, as amended by HB24-1098)
• House Bill 25-1168, “Housing Protections for Victim-Survivors of Gender-Based Violence” — sections amending C.R.S. §§ 13-40-104, 13-40-106, 13-40-107.5, 13-40-108, 13-40-110 and 38-12-1302(1)(d)
• House Bill 25-1240, “Protections for Tenants Who Use Housing Subsidies”
• Denver Revised Municipal Code § 27-31 (notice of vacating buildings), and the City and County of Denver Tenant Rights and Resource Guide
• Boulder Revised Code § 12-2-9 and the City of Boulder Landlord-Tenant Handbook
• Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3601 et seq.; Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, 50 U.S.C. § 3901 et seq.

A ground built on documents you already hold — a permit, a contractor schedule, three served nonpayment demands — is usually a matter of drafting carefully and counting correctly. Take advice before serving where the exemption analysis is close, particularly the owner-occupied limb of § 38-12-1302(1)(b) or the twelve-month threshold in (1)(e); where the property is held through an entity and the ground is personal occupancy under (3)(c), since that ground speaks of the landlord and the landlord’s family member as people who will live there; where the tenant has complained about conditions, requested repairs, contacted a code officer or organised with other tenants in the preceding months; where the tenant has disclosed being a victim-survivor, which changes both service and the substantial-violation analysis; where the tenant holds a housing subsidy, which brings federal notice requirements and HB25-1240 into play; and wherever a ninety-day clock has already been missed and the term end is approaching, because the answer there is usually to reset rather than to serve short.

Colorado Legal Services and the county self-help resources published by the Colorado Judicial Branch are the corresponding resources on the tenant’s side. Given that § 38-12-1306 puts the burden of proving compliance on the landlord, a tenant who receives a notice and simply records what it does and does not say has already done the useful work.

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