A tenant in a Denver apartment reaches the end of a 12-month lease. The rent is current, the tenant has lived there for two years, and the property manager simply wants the unit back to re-rent at a higher rate. Under the old rules, the manager could decline to renew and recover possession at the end of the term for almost any lawful reason, or for no stated reason at all.

That option no longer exists in Colorado.

Since HB24-1098 took effect, a landlord of a covered residential premises cannot end a tenancy, decline to renew a lease, or file for eviction unless one of a defined set of legal reasons applies. The law, formally titled "Cause Required for Eviction of Residential Tenant," reframes non-renewal itself as a form of eviction that requires cause. For property managers running multifamily portfolios across Denver, Colorado Springs, Aurora, and Fort Collins, this is one of the most consequential changes to Colorado landlord-tenant law in years, and getting it wrong means dismissal of the eviction.

This guide covers what Colorado's for-cause eviction law requires, the six no-fault grounds and their notice rules, who is exempt, and the discipline needed to stay compliant.

Quick Reference : Colorado For-Cause Eviction at a Glance

What HB 24-1098 Changed

Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed HB24-1098 into law on 19 April 2024, and because it carried a safety clause, it took effect immediately. The act adds a new Part 13 to article 12 of title 38 of the Colorado Revised Statutes (CRS 38-12-1301 through 38-12-1307) and amends the eviction statutes in article 40 of title 13.

The legislature stated its purpose plainly : to prevent arbitrary displacement, protect safety, and promote public health. It also instructed courts to construe the act broadly, signalling how judges are likely to read its narrow exceptions. With this bill, Colorado joined a growing number of states that have adopted forms of for-cause eviction protections.

The practical shift: before HB24-1098, a landlord could decline to renew a fixed-term lease, or terminate a periodic tenancy, for any lawful reason with proper notice. Now, for any covered tenant, the landlord must have cause; without a qualifying ground, the landlord cannot lawfully pursue possession through Colorado's eviction process.

The Core Rule: Cause Is Required

The heart of the law sits in CRS 38-12-1303(1): a landlord shall not serve a notice to terminate tenancy or a demand for possession, or otherwise proceed with an action for unlawful detainer under article 40 of title 13, unless there is cause for the eviction.

The restriction applies not just to filing an eviction but to the first step of serving a notice or demand, so a non-renewal notice sent without a qualifying reason is itself outside the statute. Property managers can no longer treat lease expiry as an automatic off-ramp from a tenancy.

What Counts as "Cause"

Under CRS 38-12-1303(2), cause exists only in the circumstances the statute lists. These fall into two categories.

The first is the set of traditional for-cause grounds the bill preserved: nonpayment of rent, a substantial violation such as violent or drug-related criminal conduct, a material violation of the lease, a repeat violation after proper notice, a holdover after a properly terminated exempt tenancy, and conduct that creates a nuisance interfering with quiet enjoyment or negligently damages the property. For nuisance and lease-violation grounds, the notice and cure procedures in CRS 13-40-104 still apply, generally a 10-day window for curable violations. One protective detail: a domestic violence victim accused of a disturbance as a direct result of being a victim is not treated as committing a nuisance.

The second category, the no-fault grounds, is the genuinely new framework and the part most likely to trip up a careful operator.

The Six No-Fault Eviction Grounds

A "no-fault eviction" is an action a landlord may bring even though the tenant has done nothing wrong, but only on one of six specific grounds set out in CRS 38-12-1303(3). Every no-fault ground requires the landlord to give the tenant at least 90 days' written notice, and that written notice must state the legal and factual basis for the eviction. Each ground then layers on its own additional conditions.

1. Demolition or conversion of the premises.
A landlord may pursue a no-fault eviction at the end of the term when planning to demolish the premises, convert it to non-residential use, or convert it to a short-term rental. The 90-day notice must include the vacate date and a description and timeline of the project, supported by material evidence such as a building permit or application.

2. Substantial repairs or renovations.
Under CRS 38-12-1301(13), "substantial repairs or renovations" means work that cannot reasonably be accomplished safely or efficiently with the tenant in place, that is not necessary to remedy a breach of the warranty of habitability, and that requires the tenant to vacate for at least 30 days. The landlord must give 90 days' notice with the vacate date, provide an expected completion date and a general description of the work, and proceed without unreasonable delay once possession is recovered. If the work is expected to last less than 180 days, the landlord must give the expected completion date, and if the tenant responds within 10 days wanting to return, must offer a right of first refusal on reasonable terms. A landlord cannot use this ground if the work is required to fix a habitability breach, or if the renovation is retaliatory.

3. Landlord or family member assumes occupancy.
A landlord may recover the unit for use as a residence by the landlord or a family member, provided that person moves in within three months after the tenant vacates. The landlord must give at least 90 days' written notice, confirm that no substantially equivalent unit is vacant and available in the same building, and refrain from listing the unit for long-term or short-term rental for at least 90 days after the vacate date. A shorter 45-day notice applies where the landlord is on active military duty or the spouse of such a person, and the three-month window may be extended where the landlord or family member has a disability requiring unit modification.

4. Withdrawal from the rental market to sell.
This ground applies only to a single-family home, townhome, duplex, triplex, or individual condominium unit. The landlord must give 90 days' notice of the intent to withdraw and sell, including the vacate date, and must not list the property for rental for at least 90 days after that date unless it was listed for sale on a multiple-listing service after the tenant vacated. It cannot end a tenancy before the term expires.

5. Tenant refuses to sign a new lease with reasonable terms.
If a tenant declines to sign a renewal on reasonable terms, the landlord may initiate a no-fault eviction, again with at least 90 days' written notice after the refusal, stating the intent to terminate and the vacate date. What qualifies as "reasonable" is not exhaustively defined, an area where disputes are likely.

6. History of nonpayment of rent.
A landlord may decline to renew at the end of the term where the tenant has submitted a rent payment late more than two times during the rental agreement period. A payment counts as late only if it was submitted more than 10 calendar days after its due date and the landlord served proper written notice under CRS 13-40-104(1)(d); a payment made within the statutory cure period does not count. In practice this means three or more qualifying late payments, each properly noticed, with 90 days' notice before the vacate date.

Two distinctions matter. The history-of-nonpayment ground is separate from a standard nonpayment eviction during the term; it governs whether a landlord can decline to renew based on a payment pattern. And every ground is conditioned on strict notice content, so accurate record-keeping is what makes any of them usable. A platform that centralises contracts and renewals, payment records, and notice documentation gives a manager the evidence these grounds depend on.

Who Is Exempt from HB 24-1098

The for-cause requirements apply to every residential premises in Colorado with a defined list of exceptions in CRS 38-12-1302. A tenancy is exempt where it involves:

• A short-term rental property, meaning a premises leased for fewer than 30 consecutive days for temporary, recreational, business, or transient purposes, or a sale-leaseback arrangement of less than six months;

• An owner-occupied or owner-adjacent dwelling, where the owner or master tenant lives in and maintains the premises as a primary residence, or the owner lives in an adjacent property as a primary residence, and the property is a single-family home (with or without an accessory dwelling unit), a duplex, or a triplex, and is not a multifamily property of four or more units;

• A mobile home space leased to a home owner, or under a lease-to-own or purchase-option agreement;

• A premises leased under an employer-provided housing agreement;

• A tenant who has not been a tenant of a residential premises for at least 12 months; and

• A person who is not known to the landlord to be a tenant.

The 12-month exemption is the one most relevant to conventional multifamily operators: newer tenancies may fall outside the for-cause requirements until the statutory threshold is met, which makes each tenancy's start date and renewal history a compliance question, not just a leasing detail. The owner-occupied exemption, by contrast, is unavailable to the typical institutional portfolio, since it is limited to small 1-to-3-unit properties.

Notice and Demand Mechanics

HB 24-1098 also tightened the form of the notice itself. Under CRS 13-40-106, the written demand or notice must specify the grounds for possession, including a specific description of the alleged violation or the no-fault ground, describe the premises, and state the date the premises must be delivered up. It must also inform tenants who receive Supplemental Security Income, Social Security Disability Insurance, or Colorado Works cash assistance of their right to mediation before the landlord files an eviction complaint. Critically, the notice must be written in English, Spanish, or any other language the landlord knows, or has reason to know, is the tenant's primary language.

Service must comply with CRS 13-40-108. The notice may be delivered personally to a known tenant or occupant, or left with a household member over 15 who resides on or is in charge of the premises. Posting is permitted only after personal-service attempts on at least two separate days. Sloppy service is a recurring source of dismissed cases; the Colorado Judicial Branch publishes the required notice and eviction forms.

Non-Renewal Notice Periods for Exempt Premises

For tenancies outside the for-cause rules, and for tenants ending their own tenancy, the notice-to-terminate periods in CRS 13-40-107 still govern, by length of tenancy: 91 days for a year or longer, 28 days for six months to under a year, 21 days for one month to under six months, 3 days for a week to under a month or a tenancy at will, and 1 day for under a week. For covered tenants, these periods do not unlock a no-reason non-renewal; the 90-day no-fault process and a valid ground are required instead.

What Happens If a Landlord Gets It Wrong

Under CRS 38-12-1306, if a landlord fails to comply with Part 13, the tenant may raise that failure as an affirmative defence. If the landlord then cannot demonstrate compliance by a preponderance of the evidence, the court shall dismiss the eviction. The word "shall" leaves the court no discretion.

Separately, under CRS 38-12-1304, a landlord who proceeds in violation of Part 13 and causes the tenant to lose possession without a court order is exposed to the unlawful-removal remedies under CRS 38-12-510, which can include recovering possession and damages. The statute also closes two workarounds: CRS 38-12-1305 makes any lease clause that waives or modifies Part 13 void and unenforceable, and CRS 38-12-1307 prohibits raising rent in a discriminatory, retaliatory, or unconscionable manner to circumvent the law.

For operators, the cost of a procedural defect is no longer just delay. It is dismissal, a restart of the clock, and potential exposure to a damages claim.

Common Mistakes Property Managers Make Under HB 24-1098

• Treating lease expiry as automatic possession.
  For covered tenants, the end of the term no longer ends the right to occupy.

• Serving a non-renewal notice with no stated ground.
  A notice without a qualifying cause or no-fault basis is defective on its face.

• Using fewer than 90 days' notice for a no-fault eviction.
  Every ground requires at least 90 days, and the notice content rules are not optional.

• Misclassifying renovations.
  Routine or habitability work is not a "substantial renovation" unless it requires the tenant to vacate for 30 days.

• Losing track of the 12-month threshold.
  Applying the wrong standard to a sub-12-month or long-term tenancy is a defect a tenant can raise.

• Failing to document the nonpayment history.
  Without proper written notice on each qualifying late payment, the ground collapses.

• Inconsistent or undated records.
  Because the landlord bears the burden of proving compliance, gaps become the tenant's defence.

What Property Managers Should Do Now

Compliance is less about a single policy change than about tightening the operational habits that produce a defensible record. These steps translate the law into practice.

• Rebuild renewal workflows.
  Treat every covered tenancy as continuing by default unless a qualifying ground exists, and build a renewal-offer step well ahead of each lease end date so the decision to renew, decline for cause, or proceed on a no-fault ground is made deliberately and on time. Disciplined lease management keeps these decisions defensible.

• Update notice templates.
  Revise every termination and non-renewal template to state the legal and factual basis, the vacate date, and the 90-day timeline. Confirm each carries the mediation-rights statement for tenants receiving SSI, SSDI, or Colorado Works assistance, and a process to issue notice in the tenant's primary language where required.

• Track 12-month eligibility dates.
  Because the rules attach once a tenant has been a tenant of a residential premises for at least 12 months, each tenancy's start date and cumulative duration across renewals should be a tracked, retrievable field.

• Document late payments consistently.
  The history-of-nonpayment ground only holds if each qualifying late payment was over 10 days past due with proper written notice. Serve and retain notice on every late payment so the pattern is provable later.

• Standardise renovation documentation.
  For renovation or demolition grounds, keep permits, scope descriptions, and timelines with the notice, and record why the work cannot be done with the tenant in place. A documented maintenance and repair history helps distinguish a substantial renovation from a habitability fix.

• Centralise lease and payment records.
  Because the landlord carries the burden of proving compliance, the practical defence is a single, dated record any team member can produce on demand. A unified tenant record connecting payments, communications, and notice history is exactly what a court will look for.

Conclusion

HB 24-1098 did not make Colorado evictions impossible. Nonpayment, lease violations, criminal conduct, and nuisance remain valid grounds, and the no-fault grounds give landlords a defined path to recover units for renovation, sale, or family occupancy. What the law removed is the ability to end a tenancy quietly, by letting a lease lapse, without a reason that fits the statute.

Compliance failures rarely come from misreading the law; they come from disconnected operations and missing records. In Colorado now, a clean, dated record is the difference between recovering possession and a dismissed case.

Property management operations that handle Colorado for-cause compliance at scale need systems that reduce the margin for human error. RIOO supports the lease tracking, renewal management, payment records, and notice documentation workflows that keep eviction and non-renewal decisions grounded in accurate, dated evidence, so that when a case reaches court, the record holds.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. What is Colorado HB 24-1098?

HB24-1098, "Cause Required for Eviction of Residential Tenant," is a Colorado law signed and effective on 19 April 2024. It bars a landlord of a covered premises from serving a termination notice, a demand for possession, or filing an eviction unless there is cause, and it treats non-renewal as a form of eviction that requires a qualifying reason. It is codified at CRS 38-12-1301 through 38-12-1307.

Q2. Does HB 24-1098 mean a landlord can no longer decline to renew a lease?

For a covered tenant, a landlord can decline to renew only for cause: a traditional for-cause ground or one of the six no-fault grounds with at least 90 days' notice. A no-reason non-renewal is no longer permitted.

Q3. What are the no-fault eviction grounds under HB 24-1098?

Six: demolition or conversion; substantial repairs or renovations; landlord or family-member occupancy; withdrawal to sell; the tenant refusing a new lease on reasonable terms; and a history of nonpayment. Each requires at least 90 days' notice stating the legal and factual basis, plus additional conditions.

Q4. How much notice is required for a no-fault eviction?

At least 90 days for every no-fault ground. A shorter 45-day notice applies in the narrow case where the landlord assuming occupancy is on active military duty or is the spouse of such a person.

Q5. Which tenancies are exempt from HB 24-1098?

Short-term rentals, certain owner-occupied or owner-adjacent 1-to-3-unit homes, mobile home spaces leased to home owners, employer-provided housing, tenants who have not been a tenant for at least 12 months, and people not known to the landlord to be tenants. See CRS 38-12-1302.

Q6. What counts as a "history of nonpayment" under the law?

The tenant must have paid rent late more than two times during the term. A payment is late only if it was more than 10 days past due with proper written notice, and it does not count if paid within the cure period. In practice, three or more documented late payments.

Q7. What happens if a landlord does not follow HB 24-1098?

The tenant can raise the non-compliance as an affirmative defence, and if the landlord cannot prove compliance by a preponderance of the evidence, the court must dismiss the eviction. A landlord who removes a tenant without a court order may also face the unlawful-removal remedies under CRS 38-12-510, and lease clauses that try to waive these protections are void.

Q8. Can a landlord raise the rent to get a covered tenant to leave?

No. CRS 38-12-1307 prohibits raising rent in a discriminatory, retaliatory, or unconscionable manner to circumvent the law.

Disclaimer : This blog is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Colorado eviction and landlord-tenant laws are subject to change, and individual circumstances vary. Property managers and landlords should consult a qualified Colorado attorney before initiating any eviction or non-renewal proceeding.