Colorado construction defect bill, meant to boost condo building, passes House
Rep. Shannon Bird, pictured speaking in front of the Capitol on April 29, 2024, sponsored a bill to address Colorado's construction defect claim process. (Sara Wilson/Colorado Newsline)
A bill that aims to encourage condominium construction by lowering litigation risks passed the Colorado House on Monday.
House Bill 25-1272 passed on a bipartisan 59-5 vote, with some of the chamber's most progressive Democrats voting against it.
It is the Legislature's second attempt in as many years to pass a policy to reverse the decline in condo construction in the state, which supporters see as an accessibly priced option for first-time buyers who want to stop renting but can't afford a detached single-family home. In February, the median single-family home in Colorado was $640,000 and the average condo was $424,200, according to RedFin.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
The number of condo developers in Colorado dropped by 84% between 2007 and 2022, partially due to rising liability insurance costs and frequent litigation from homeowners, according to a report from the Common Sense Institute.
'The current course that we are on right now is unacceptable. Our kids and our grandkids, for those of us who are older — they need a better future than (for) their only hope to ever be a forever tenant,' bill sponsor Rep. Shannon Bird, a Westminster Democrat, said ahead of the vote. 'That is no way to achieve financial security and stability and to become a permanent member of your community. They need the chance to have home ownership.'
The bill would create an incentive program for multifamily builders to opt into, dubbed the Multifamily Construction Incentive Program. They would need to hire a qualified third-party inspector to review the project as it is being built and offer a warranty for any defect or damage the owner discovers, ranging from one year for workmanship problems and six years for major structural issues.
In exchange, the builder would be protected from construction defect claims unless the damage affects the home's functionality or safety, including an inability to use the property, failure of a building component, injury or death.
Under the program, an owner would have six years to bring an action and the builder would need to offer to fix the defect.
The idea is to address problems without litigation, encouraging more insurers to back projects in Colorado.
'They know that those homes will be built right in the first place, but also that the first mechanism for fixing an issue — God forbid if one exists — isn't simply litigation. In the case of the program, the expectation is that they exhaust the remedies offered to them through the warranty, knowing that if the warranty is insufficient or doesn't meet the need at stake, a homeowner still has the opportunity to litigate that claim,' bill sponsor Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, a Fort Collins Democrat, said during a committee hearing on the bill in March.
That incentive program was amended into the bill, as well as a handful of other amendments, to appease some homeowners and the Colorado Trial Lawyers Association. As introduced, the bill would have protected builders during defect litigation as long as they had a certificate of occupancy from a local government.
A separate bill sponsored by Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat, would have added more protections for homeowners in defect litigation, but she pulled it when some of its provisions got rolled into HB-1272. That includes a requirement for builders to give a claimant documents related to building plans, soil reports, maintenance recommendations and insurance.
Still, Bacon said there are questions lingering about the process and cost to homeowners who find construction defects under the proposed program.
Her bill would have changed the statute of limitations for defect claims to begin when a homeowner discovers a problem, not when the problem happens in the first place, but that timeline switch did not make it into the amended HB-1272.
'We're still looking forward to striking a balance where we could confidently say that we have created a program where builders will build, but also the things that were bargained with that have to do with homeowners are not going to leave them in a place where they have to buy at their own risk, and that is incredibly important,' she said ahead of the final House vote.
The bill now heads to the Senate for consideration, where it is sponsored by Senate President James Coleman, a Denver Democrat, and Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Frisco Democrat. Six senators, including three Republicans, are already signed on in support.
SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
26 minutes ago
Election conspiracy theorist sticks by false 2020 claims in defamation trial
DENVER -- One of the nation's most prominent election conspiracy theorists, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, stuck by his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen while testifying Monday during a defamation trial over statements he made about a former official for a leading voting equipment company. Taking the stand for the first time during the trial, Lindell denied making any statements he knew to be false about Eric Coomer, the former product strategy and security director for Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems. Among other things, Lindell accused Coomer of being 'a part of the biggest crime this world has ever seen." Lindell also distanced himself from a story told by a conservative podcaster who accused Coomer of helping to rig the 2020 election. It was discussed during a 2021 symposium Lindell hosted to discuss election fraud. Lindell said he did not know about the story before it was discussed onstage at the event and only learned about it during the trial. Coomer said his career and life have been destroyed by statements Lindell made about him and allowed to be promoted through his online media platform, Frankspeech. During sometimes rambling testimony in federal court in Denver, Lindell painted himself as the victim of 'lawfare' — when people are sued to scare them into silence. Several conservative news organizations, including Fox News, Newsmax and One America News, have settled defamation lawsuits from voting machine companies over allegations that they promoted falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election. In 2021, Newsmax also apologized to Coomer for airing false allegations against him. Nevertheless, Lindell said he hoped his trial would lead people to look at what happened in the election and get rid of electronic voting machines, which have been targeted in a web of conspiracy theories. Reviews, recounts and audits in the battleground states where Trump contested his 2020 loss all affirmed Democrat Joe Biden's victory. Trump's own attorney general at the time said there was no evidence of widespread fraud, and Trump and his allies lost dozens of court cases seeking to overturn the result. Lindell said he never accused Coomer of rigging the election, but he testified that Coomer's claims led Newsmax to block him from being able to go on air to talk about voting machines. 'You're part of the biggest coverup of the biggest crime the world has ever seen,' he said to the Coomer lawyer questioning him, Charles Cain. Lindell said he used to be worth about $60 million before he started speaking out about the 2020 election, and now he has nothing and is $10 million in debt. 'I believe what you did to me and MyPillow was criminal,' he said to Cain during questioning. Both Cain and U.S. District Judge Nina Wang had to remind Lindell several times to listen to the questions and only provide the answers to them, rather than head off on tangents. During the trial, Coomer's attorneys have tried to show how their client's life was devastated by the series of conspiracy theories about him. Lindell was comparatively late to seize on Coomer, not mentioning him until February 2021, well after his name had been circulated by other Trump partisans. Coomer said the conspiracy theories cost him his job, his mental health and the life he'd built and said Lindell's statements were the most distressing of all. He specifically pointed to a statement on May 9, 2021, when Lindell described what he believed Coomer had done as 'treason.' Asked by his attorney what he wants out of the trial, Coomer said he would like an apology, compensation and 'a chance of rehabilitating my public image.' Lindell's attorneys argued that Coomer's reputation was already in tatters by the time Lindell mentioned him — partly because of Coomer's own Facebook posts disparaging Trump, which the former Dominion employee acknowledged were 'hyperbolic' and had been a mistake. 'Your reputation was shattered long before Mr. Lindell said a word about you,' Chris Katchouroff said to Coomer. Katchouroff noted that Lindell also is known for making hyperbolic statements and that what he said about Coomer was simply the result of his sincere concern over vote-rigging in the 2020 presidential election — a claim for which there is no evidence.
43 minutes ago
Minnesota budget deal cuts health care for adults who entered the US illegally
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Adults living in the U.S. illegally will be excluded from a state-run health care program under an overall budget deal that the closely divided Minnesota Legislature convened to pass in a special session Monday. Repealing a 2023 state law that made those immigrants eligible for the MinnesotaCare program for the working poor was a priority for Republicans in the negotiations that produced the budget agreement. The Legislature is split 101-100, with the House tied and Democrats holding just a one-seat majority in the Senate, and the health care compromise was a bitter pill for Democrats to accept. The change is expected to affect about 17,000 residents. After an emotional near four-hour debate, the House aroved the bill 68-65. Under the agreement, the top House Democratic leader, Melissa Hortman, of Brooklyn Park, was the only member of her caucus to vote yes. The bill then went to the Senate, where it passed 37-30. Democratic Majority Leader Erin Murphy, of St. Paul, called it 'a wound on the soul of Minnesota,' but kept her promise to vote yes as part of the deal, calling it "among the most painful votes I've ever taken." Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who insisted on maintaining eligibility for children who aren't in the country legally, has promised to sign the legislation, and all 13 other bills scheduled for action in the special session, to complete a $66 billion, two-year budget that will take effect July 1. 'This is 100% about the GOP campaign against immigrants,' said House Democratic Floor Leader Jamie Long, of Minneapolis, who voted no. 'From Trump's renewed travel ban announced this week, to his effort to expel those with protected status, to harassing students here to study, to disproportionate military and law enforcement responses that we've seen from Minneapolis to L.A., this all comes back to attacking immigrants and the name of dividing us.' But GOP Rep. Jeff Backer, of Browns Valley, the lead author of the bill, said taxpayers shouldn't have to subsidize health care for people who aren't in the country legally. Backer said California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has proposed freezing enrollment for immigrants without legal status in a similar state-funded program and that Illinois' Democratic governor, JB Pritzker, has proposed cutting a similar program. He said residents can still buy health insurance on the private market regardless of their immigration status. 'This is about being fiscally responsible,' Backer said. Enrollment by people who entered the country illegally in MinnesotaCare has run triple the initial projections, which Republicans said could have pushed the costs over $600 million over the next four years. Critics said the change won't save any money because those affected will forego preventive care and need much more expensive care later. 'People don't suddenly stop getting sick when they don't have insurance, but they do put off seeking care until a condition gets bad enough to require a visit to the emergency room, increasing overall health care costs for everyone,' Bernie Burnham, president of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, told reporters at a news conference organized by the critics. Walz and legislative leaders agreed on the broad framework for the budget over four weeks ago, contrasting the bipartisan cooperation that produced it with the deep divisions at the federal level in Washington. But with the tie in the House and the razor-thin Senate Democratic majority, few major policy initiatives got off the ground before the regular session ended May 19. Leaders announced Friday that the details were settled and that they had enough votes to pass everything in the budget package.
an hour ago
New York lawmakers approve bill that would allow medically assisted suicide for the terminally ill
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Terminally ill New Yorkers would have the legal ability to end their own lives with pharmaceutical drugs under a bill passed Monday in the state Legislature. The proposal, which now moves to the governor's office, would allow a person with an incurable illness to be prescribed life-ending drugs if he or she requests the medication and gets approval from two physicians. A spokesperson for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she would review the legislation. The New York Senate gave final approval to the bill Monday night after hours of debate during which supporters said it would let terminally ill people die on their own terms. 'It's not about hastening death, but ending suffering,' said state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat who sponsored the proposal. Opponents have argued the state should instead improve end-of-life medical care or have objected on religious grounds. 'We should not be in the business of state-authorized suicide,' said state Sen. George Borrello, a Republican. The state Assembly passed the measure in late April. The proposal requires that a terminally ill person who is expected to die within six month make a written request for the drugs. Two witnesses would have sign the request to ensure that the patient is not being coerced. The request would then have to be approved by the person's attending physician as well as a consulting physician. The legislation was first introduced in 2016, Hoylman-Sigal said, though it has stalled year after year in the New York statehouse. Dennis Poust, executive director of the New York State Catholic Conference, which has opposed the measure, said 'This is a dark day for New York State." Eleven other states and Washington, D.C., have laws allowing medically assisted suicide, according to Compassion & Choices, an advocacy organization that backs the policy. Corinne Carey, the group's local campaign director, said lawmakers had 'recognized how important it is to give terminally ill New Yorkers the autonomy they deserve over their own end-of-life experiences.' 'The option of medical aid in dying provides comfort, allowing those who are dying to live their time more fully and peacefully until the end,' said Carey.
