Is 2019 the year for HOA residents?

This year we have witnessed homeowner protections (HB 19-1309) for those living in mobile home parks/manufactured home communities, including an out-of-court binding dispute resolution process.

Until the program was vetoed in 2019, homeowners in communities governed by homeowners associations (HOAs) had protections against abusive HOA property management companies through an out-of-court, inexpensive, accessible dispute resolution process.

Now, HOA homeowners, comprising upwards of 55% to 60% of the state’s population, including people living in every new major housing project of the last several decades, have no means to pursue rights violations under the many state HOA laws and their HOA governing documents except turning to the costly, arduous, and time-consuming court system.

Thus, most HOA homeowners simply don’t and can’t contest abusive practices by HOA boards and management companies.

For years, the organization Colorado HOA Forum, of which I am president — the largest, mostknown HOA homeowner’s advocacy group in Colorado — has advocated an out-of-court binding dispute resolution process for complaints by homeowners with their HOA boards, but these pleas have been met with deaf ears from our legislators.

Colorado’s little-known HOA Office has received thousands of complaints from homeowners since its inception, but it is empowered to do no more than receive them.

A 2013 HOA State Study on HOAs recommended the creation of an out-of-court dispute resolution process, but this homeowner protection process was left to die. Every time the Colorado HOA Forum has pursued legislative reform on this topic strong opposition has surfaced from the property management industry/trade groups and the HOA legal industry.

The Colorado HOA Forum has completed several studies and presented them to lawmakers indicating that an out-of-court binding dispute resolution process can