Colorado HOA Foreclosure After HB 24-1337

A Colorado association cannot foreclose an assessment lien on an owner-occupied home without first obtaining a personal judgment, with narrow exceptions for death, incapacity, failed service, and bankruptcy.

That has been the law since August 7, 2024. House Bill 24-1337 added it at C.R.S. §38-33.3-316(10.5), along with four other changes that move the point at which an association may take a home.

A widely read free law library still serves those sections as they stood before the bill, under a line reading current through Fall 2025.

The bill took effect in August 2024 — a year before the banner's own claim. By the page's own currency line, the amendments should be there. As of August 18, 2026, they are not.

The law is not hard to find. It is hard to find correctly. That is why this article exists.

What HB 24-1337 Changed

The act was signed June 5, 2024 and took effect August 7, 2024 as chapter 422 of the 2024 session laws. Section 9(2) limits it to debts accrued on or after the effective date, which matters more than it looks — the older text of the provisions it changed remains correct law for older debts, so a stale rendering is not wrong everywhere, only where it counts.

A Personal Judgment Comes First

Before an association forecloses a lien under §38-33.3-316, one of four things must be true (C.R.S. §38-33.3-316(10.5)):

The association obtained a personal judgment against the unit owner in a civil action to collect the amounts due. Or it attempted a civil action and was prevented by the owner's death or incapacity. Or it attempted a civil action, made a reasonable attempt to serve the owner, and could not serve within one hundred eighty days. Or the owner filed, or had filed against them, a bankruptcy petition covering the amount due.

The default path is the first one. The other three are what happens when the first is impossible.

This protection is not universal. Section 38-33.3-316(10.6) applies subsection (10.5) exclusively to a unit owned by an individual who occupies it as a principal residence, and to units used for workforce housing. A unit owned by an entity, or one the owner does not occupy, sits outside it — unless the unit is workforce housing, which is carved back in.

Thirty Days Notice of a Right to Mediate

At least thirty days before initiating legal action to foreclose, the association must give the unit owner written and electronic notice that the owner has the right to engage in mediation before litigation (C.R.S. §38-33.3-316(10.7)(a)). The owner must respond within thirty days of the notice to initiate it.

Both parties must then select a mutually agreeable mediator knowledgeable about article 33.3 and common interest community disputes, and schedule the session within thirty days of that same notice. If the owner does not comply within thirty days, subsection (10.7) does not bar the association from filing (§316(10.7)(c)).

The same subsection carries a second notice nobody quotes. At least thirty days before filing, the association must also notify every lienholder identified on the unit owner property records of the pending foreclosure action, including the outstanding assessment and other money owed (§38-33.3-316(10.7)(d)).

No Foreclosure While a Payment Plan Is Being Paid

An association, or the holder or assignee of its debts, shall not foreclose a lien created under §38-33.3-316 if the unit owner is in compliance with the terms of a payment plan required by §38-33.3-316.3 (C.R.S. §38-33.3-316.3(3.5)).

The payment plan itself is older law. HB 22-1137 set the minimum term at eighteen months in 2022. What 2024 added is the consequence of paying it: performance under the plan is a bar to foreclosure, not merely a defense to be raised.

Read alongside §38-33.3-209.5(7), which conditions a judicial foreclosure on the association having complied with the requirements of both §38-33.3-316 and §38-33.3-316.3, the plan sits inside the foreclosure path rather than beside it.

Attorney Fees Capped

An association is not entitled to reimbursement for attorney fees exceeding five thousand dollars or fifty percent of the assessments and money owed, whichever is less (C.R.S. §38-33.3-123(1)(a)(II)).

The cap binds the court as well. In a civil action to collect money owed, the court shall not award the association fees above the same ceiling, measured against actual costs — except that the court may exceed it, in its discretion, on a finding that the owner was financially, physically, and reasonably able to comply but willfully failed to (§38-33.3-123(1)(c)(II)).

The figure moves. Section 38-33.3-123(1)(g) adjusts the caps for inflation on August 1, 2025 and each year after, by the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood consumer price index, or a successor index, for all urban consumers. Any page quoting a flat $5,000 without that sentence is quoting a number with an expiry date.

Who May Buy, and Who May Buy It Back

Section 38-33.3-316(12) already barred board members, employees of a management company or law firm representing the association, and their immediate family from purchasing a foreclosed unit. HB 24-1337 widened it: the management company itself is named, the prohibition reaches anyone who held a listed role at any time in the five years before the sale, and it extends to a business entity owned by or affiliated with such a person or company.

Redemption is the newer machinery, and it does not live in CCIOA. Section 38-38-305.5, added whole by the act, creates a class of alternate lienors who may redeem a unit sold at an association foreclosure without holding a lien amount, ranked: the former unit owner whose interest was recorded before the lis pendens first, then a tenant whose unrecorded tenancy began before the lis pendens (the recorded notice that the foreclosure suit is pending), then a nonprofit whose primary purpose is developing or preserving affordable housing, then a community land trust, then a cooperative housing corporation, and last the state or a political subdivision (C.R.S. §38-38-305.5(1)(a)).

The window runs from thirty-five to one hundred eighty days after the sale (C.R.S. §38-38-302(4)(a)(II)(B)). It sits in article 38 of title 38, not in article 33.3 — which is why a summary that files it under §38-33.3-316 has put it somewhere it is not.

Finally, a purchaser at an association foreclosure takes the unit subject to any covenants or limitations on use or sale that bound the previous owner (§38-33.3-316(13)).

Where the Law Still Reads Wrong

On August 16, 2026 the pages for §38-33.3-316 and §38-33.3-316.3 at colorado.public.law rendered the text as it stood before HB 24-1337.

Section 316 ran (1) through (12) with no (10.5), no (10.6), no (10.7), and no (13). Subsection (11) lacked its opening qualifier, which in current law reads "Subject to subsection (10.5) of this section." Subsection (12) appeared in its pre-2024 form, without the management company, the five-year lookback, or affiliated entities. Section 316.3 ran (1) through (5) with no (3.5).

Each page carried the line "Current through Fall 2025."

The Internet Archive holds a capture of the §316 page from March 10, 2026 — nineteen months after the act took effect. Same missing subsections, same currency line.

The Office of Legislative Legal Services 2024 Colorado Revised Statutes, Title 38, carries all of it. The stale page's own source note says its text was taken from that same publication, accessed May 26, 2025 — the site cites the document that contains every amendment its rendering lacks.

How This Kind of Error Survives

Three properties keep a stale legal page in circulation.

It is right most of the time. Section 9(2) of the act limits it to debts accrued on or after August 7, 2024. For an older debt the pre-amendment text of the provisions the act changed is the correct law. A reader who checks the page against a case they already know will find it accurate and stop checking.

Nothing on the page dissents. The currency line is published by the same party that would have to notice the gap. It is a claim, and there is no second party attesting to it.

Reachability gets mistaken for currency. A page that returns HTTP 200, renders cleanly, and carries a recent-sounding date passes every check that does not read the text. That is the check we had, and it is the check that failed.

We found this because two quotes in our own corpus were flagged as not matching their source. The quotes were correct. Our first assumption — that our data was wrong — was the wrong assumption, and it is the assumption a monitoring system will push you toward every time, because indicting your own data is the only conclusion it is built to reach.

The six sections above were recaptured on August 16, 2026 from the Office of Legislative Legal Services Title 38 publication, not from the library that reads as current.

What a Colorado Board or Manager Should Do

Confirm which statute the debt sits under. Debts accrued before August 7, 2024 and debts accrued after it are governed differently, and the difference decides whether a personal judgment is required.

Before any foreclosure filing, confirm four things: a personal judgment exists or one of the three alternatives applies; the unit is or is not a principal residence or workforce housing; thirty-day notice of the right to mediate went out in writing and electronically; and the owner is not currently performing under a payment plan.

For a foreclosure action instituted on or after October 1, 2025, whenever the debt accrued, House Bill 25-1043 adds three notices and a condition. At least thirty days before filing, the association must give the owner written and electronic notice of the right to credit counseling at the owner's expense (C.R.S. §38-33.3-316(10.3)). By the same deadline, it must send a notice of intent to foreclose by certified mail, return receipt requested, and by at least two of the other means the statute lists, warning that a court-ordered sale at auction could cost the owner some or all of the equity in the unit (C.R.S. §38-33.3-316(10.8)). No later than five business days after filing, it must give every lienholder identified in the unit owner property records written and electronic notice of the right to cure and of the owner's right to move to stay the sale (C.R.S. §38-33.3-316(11.2)). Recovery through foreclosure is conditioned on strict compliance with every applicable lien and foreclosure provision of title 38 and of the association's own governing documents. A court that finds the association out of strict compliance with title 38 may stay the case while it comes into compliance, and during the stay the association may not assess or accrue late fees, interest, or other delinquency charges (C.R.S. §38-33.3-123(3)).

Check any fee figure against the current inflation adjustment rather than the $5,000 in the 2024 text.

And when a compliance summary and a statute disagree, read the statute. When two sources of the statute disagree, the state's own publication is the one that governs.

Sources

Primary text for every section cited here comes from the Office of Legislative Legal Services Colorado Revised Statutes, Title 38 (the 2024 and 2026 publications), and from the enrolled text of House Bill 24-1337, chapter 422, Session Laws of Colorado 2024, and of House Bill 25-1043, chapter 433, Session Laws of Colorado 2025.

Primary Sources

• Enrolled House Bill 24-1337, as signed: content.leg.colorado.gov.
• Bill page, Colorado General Assembly — signature and effective dates: leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1337.
• Bill page for House Bill 25-1043, Colorado General Assembly: leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb25-1043.
• The third-party renderings described above were captured August 16 and re-verified August 18, 2026; archived copies are retained.