What’s the big deal about construction defects?

Colorado’s laws are among the most builder-friendly laws in the country, some big developers are asking for even more changes to Colorado’s construction defects laws which will make it harder than ever for homeowners to hold buildiners accountabile. Shoddy construction negatively impacts our communities by causing blighted areas, putting Colorado’s homeowners in harm’s way, and increasing housing costs for homeowners who are never made whole.

Build our Homes Right Homeowner Principles

Quality construction: All homeowners have the right to expect their home was built with quality construction that followed building codes, basic warranties and that it is free of construction problems. Builders should be responsible for providing quality construction and for carrying adequate insurance to cover the cost of fixing serious construction problems that occur, even though Colorado law does not require it.

 Property rights of homeowners should be protected: When construction defects caused by shoddy construction occur, homeowners should have the right to reject an unreasonable and inadequate proposed repair by the builder who created the problems in the first place.

 Builders should not be allowed to to run out the clock to take legal action: Homeowners generally have just 6 years to hold builders accountable for faulty construction under our “statute of repose,” which  is the third shortest time frame in the country with only 4 states (Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana and Virginia) having shorter time frames.  Concurrently, homeowners only have 2 years from the time they notice a problem to pursue legal action. This clock can start before the cause of the problem is even known unlike other areas of consumer law in Colorado where the clock doesn’t begin to run until the cause of the problem is known.  Furthermore, builders and developers are not responsible for the increasing cost of repairs from the time the claim is filed, even though repair costs inevitably go up over time. This is the only area of consumer law in the state where this is true. Homeowners deserve stronger protections, and builders should not be allowed to limit or eliminate their liability simply by unreasonably delaying their response to homeowner concerns.

 Homeowner rights should not be unfairly reduced in the small print in contracts or homeowner association governing documents. In multi-family housing developments managed by homeowners associations, builders and developers write the governing documents for the community themselves, with no input from homeowners and very few limitations. Provisions of these developer-created documents, including purchase agreements, often attempt to restrict homeowners’ access to justice and their practical ability to recover the cost of repairing serious construction problems that the builders and developers created. Additionally, these documents can restrict the ability of homeowners associations to govern their own communities in ways that protect the rights of innocent homeowners to hold builders and developers responsible for construction problems. Rights homeowners have under Colorado law should not be able to be contradicted in governing or contract documents created by a developer.

 Real barriers to affordable housing should be addressed. Coloradans deserve and need affordable housing, but developers’ claim that construction defect lawsuits prevent them from developing affordable housing is not supported by the facts. They claim the high cost of insurance due to construction defect lawsuits but refuse to provide information about their rates and coverage. These claims are a disservice to our state when there are other issues that actually are barriers to affordable housing that need to be addressed, such as stricter lending standards, increased student debt for younger potential homebuyers, and increased profitability for developers to build rental over for-sale units, or high-end for-sale units.