Construction Defect Legislation Consensus

Governor Hickenlooper, state legislators, and mayors had a press conference at the Capital on April 19, 2017, and announced that consensus has been achieved on a construction defect bill, after years of bills related to construction defects were introduced and dying due to lack of consensus.  House Bill 1279 has not yet passed the House and will need to be approved by the Senate. This announcement is the closest a construction defect bill has come to passage.

The Community Association Institute’s Legislative Action Committee (“CLAC”) has been an active participant in the debate and discussion on construction defect bills for the past several years. Its goal is to protect consumers’ rights to pursue developers for defective construction.  Without protections, homeowners could be left having to come out of pocket to pay for repairs necessitated by defective construction. The CLAC actively participated in the many hours of meetings debating, discussing and revising portions of this House Bill 1279.

As with most compromises, those advocating for consumers’ rights did not get everything they wanted in the bill. Neither did those advocating for developers and builders.  The bill gives homeowners increased information about potential construction defect claims. It allows them to vote on whether or not to pursue those claims.  The bill also allows developers and builders to participate in an association meeting. They can discuss potential issues and distribute written materials to homeowners.

Legislators started early in the session and invited stakeholders to participate in negotiating the bill that now appears headed for a vote in the House.  The legislators’ determination that 2017 would be the year that a construction defect bill would be signed by the Governor.  We will keep you posted as this bill moves, likely quickly, through the House and then to the Senate.