Gov. Polis order extends 30-day eviction requirement

Gov. Jared Polis has extended an executive order that requires that Colorado landlords must, for at least one more month, give tenants 30 days’ notice before pursuing evictions.

The normal rule requires only 10 days’ notice. Vulnerable tenants deserve a little extra wiggle room now, Polis wrote in his extension, because, “many Coloradans continue to experience substantial loss of income as a result of business closures and layoffs, hindering their ability to keep up with their rent payments through no fault of their own.”

Polis announced the extension Monday night, hours before the order was set to expire. The extended version will expire in a month, though it’s entirely possible — and even likely, barring a miraculous economic turnaround in the state — that he’ll extend it again come September.

The order does not prevent evictions. They have restarted in most of the state, though eviction defense advocates and some Democratic lawmakers continue to push Polis to temporarily ban them. He’s resisted those calls because, he told reporters recently, he believes people should generally be back at work and thus able to cover rent.

Several studies, both locally and nationally, have shown hundreds of thousands of Coloradans could be at risk of eviction in the coming months, as unemployment remains at near-record levels. Denver and state trade associations representing landlords have insisted that evictions will not happen on a major scale because landlords have strong incentives to keep tenants housed.

Polis wrote in his extension, “I encourage landlords to take steps to limit evictions for tenants who have made a good faith effort to make rental payments or who have made a good faith effort to establish a repayment agreement.”

So far this summer, there has been no eviction crisis in Colorado, but that could change soon, particularly given the recent expiration of the $600-per-week federal unemployment benefit upon which many have relied during the pandemic.