Press Release: Protecting Homeowners’ Rights While Promoting Affordable Housing Will Be Essential During 2025 Session

January 9, 2025

Today Gov. Polis’ State of the State addressed the shortage of affordable condos for sale in Colorado. Homeowners and their advocates support policies to promote affordable condo development and look forward to having a dialogue with decisionmakers on how to both build more affordable housing and protect homeowners’ rights when they need to hold builders and developers accountable when they produce shoddily built homes.

“We were pleased to hear the governor talk about the need to get to the bottom of why more condos aren’t being built while also protecting homeowner rights to ensure every Colorado homebuyer can expect that their new home is built right – that it’s safe, sound and secure for their family,” said Jennifer Miller, a leader in Build Our Homes Right and Erie homeowner. “We noticed darkening wood soon after moving into our brand new home, later learning substandard construction caused extensive water damage and a mold infestation that could have worsened my chronically ill auto immune system. The builder repaired that damage, but wouldn’t fix the foundation issues as a result of the water damage. Colorado’s short legal timeline to address construction defects means it’s too late for us now – and my family will never fully recover from the financial debt, emotional stress and health problems we experienced due to shoddy construction.”

Colorado’s construction defect laws are already among the weakest in the nation for homeowner protection. Homeowners here have an incredibly short time frame to find a construction problem and for taking legal action. Homeowners have just two-years to discover the symptom of a construction problem, like flooding, even if the owner does not know the cause is faulty waterproofing.

Developers and builders routinely insert boilerplate language in purchase agreements and community declarations that deny homeowners basic consumer protections, like the ability to join together with their neighbors to take collective action and restricting the right to a jury trial in construction cases. And even though repair costs rise over the years of the legal process, homeowners cannot receive interest in the settlement, meaning they never are able to cover the cost of all repairs.

“Colorado homeowners are here to stand up for our right to hold builders accountable for poor workmanship that results in crumbling foundations and flooding basements,” said Janine Musser, Westminster homeowner. “Builders already have the solution to construction defects in their control – all they need to do is build homes right the first time. As we see proposals move forward at the state legislature, it’s essential that Coloradans have protection of their right to have safely built homes since it’s the largest investment most of us will ever make.”

Build Our Homes Right is a coalition of homeowners and legal advocates dedicated to protecting homeowner rights and opposing attempts to weaken legal protections for consumers who buy a defective home.