Unfair Landlord Tenant Law Costs Colorado Taxpayers Half a Billion

The Cost of Doing Nothing To Make Landlord-Tenant Law Equitable

37,971. That is the total number of eviction cases filed in the state of Colorado in 2017 alone, representing 27% of the state’s total caseload resulting in thousands of homeless or rent-burdened or low-income earners trapped in substandard housing conditions (Judicial annual, 2017).

Since 2014, the Colorado courts have processed 150,086 eviction cases averaging 26% of the state’s caseload. Each of the 150,086 eviction cases stand as evidence of landlords’ use of the courts as cover for their own failure to comply with the terms of the lease contract.

• 150,086 Coloradans facing homelessness, substandard housing conditions, and entrapment in poverty from our largest cities to our most productive rural counties.
  • 21,579 evictions in Denver County (2014-2016), 8,113 in 2016 alone
  • 30,221 evictions in El Paso County including Colorado Springs since 2014, 6,908 in 2017 alone
  • 5,089 evictions in Douglas County including parts of Aurora, 1,456 in 2017 alone
  • 6,238 evictions in Weld County, 1,520 in 2017 alone
  • 504 evictions in Morgan and Yuma Counties, 124 of those in 2017
• 150,086 Coloradans whose credit has been ruined as a result of being evicted while the landlord is free to victimize the next renter by tricking them into a contract for an apartment that has black mold, cockroaches, water damage, inadequate heat or water supply, windows and doors without proper locks.

7,571. That is the number of homeless persons in Colorado counted on one night in 2017 (Henry et al, 2017). Of that total, 4,019 homeless in Denver and 1,415 homeless in Colorado Springs.

637,938. That is the number of Coloradans living below poverty level (U.S. Census, 2016).

730,999. That is the number of renter-occupied housing units in Colorado (U.S. Census, 2016).

40.9%. That is how many Coloradans are rent-burdened, meaning they pay more than 30% of their monthly income on housing expenses (U.S. Census, 2016).

427,000. That is the estimated number of Coloradans with asthma—a chronic condition triggered by mold, cockroach allergen, pollutants, pet dander, and other irritants often found in substandard housing (Martin et al, 2008).

Landlords and their lobbyists like to talk numbers, but their complaints of burdensome business expenses don’t add up compared to the social costs borne by all tax payers across the state to cover expenses from court costs of processing evictions to sheltering and feeding the homeless and low-income families. Social costs become real costs borne by communities and cities across Colorado due to tenants’ inability to petition the court for contract compliance. The total annual budget request for the Colorado Judicial Department in FY2016-17 was $536.4 million, an increase of $4.8 million over FY2015-16 (Judicial Branch Budget Request, 2016). Eviction cases account for an average of 26% of the total caseload. In 2007, there were 4,044 hospital stays averaging 3 days in length for a median charge of $10,729 per asthma case; Medicaid, Medicare, and other government programs were the primary payor for 45% of the asthma hospitalizations (Martin et al, 2008). Finally, shelters estimate costs of about $40,000 per year to house and feed one homeless person. How much do Coloradans have to pay to relieve the burden of common business expenses on landlords? Communities bear the social cost of substandard housing in ways that are not easily quantifiable. However, we can estimate the bottom line on court costs, medical expenses, and the cost of feeding and housing the homeless. The total cost passed on to all Coloradans: the court’s budget for evictions--$140 million; sheltering and feeding the homeless, $303 million; 45% of asthma hospital stays under Medicaid and Medicare programs, $20 million; for a final bill of $463 million.

Consumers in Colorado have better protection against any other business or service than they do against predatory landlords. It’s time for that to change. It’s time for renters to have the right to enforce the terms of the lease agreement and to ensure the basic foundational need of a home that provides the security and safety upon which to build their lives and livelihoods.

Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska. These are our neighboring states that have equitable landlord tenant laws; five of the seven states that directly border Colorado recognize the right of renters to enforce the rental contract. Our neighbors recognize the right to withhold rent, to repair and deduct, to sue for damages, and to petition the court to support enforcement of the lease contract. Almost forty years after most of the states, including our immediate neighbors, have recognized landlord tenant law as one based in contract law and not common law, Colorado adopted a warranty of habitability law but stripped away the tenant’s ability to enforce the contract including to petition the court for injunctive relief.

The fundamental basis of contract law is equitability in the enforcement of contractual obligations. Current Colorado landlord tenant law explicitly removes the tenant’s opportunity to enforce the rental contract; this begs the question of unconscionability. Landlords fail to conduct proper maintenance and repairs of their rental properties and fail to disclose this fact to potential renters. Local news reports such trickery in the state’s three largest cities--Denver, Colorado Springs, and Aurora. Renters fear being evicted if they notify the landlord about maintenance problems and the landlord neither responds nor repairs the problem. Among the maintenance problems are leaking water pipes that have caused black mold growth in walls and floors, cockroach infestations, lack of heat, broken fixtures, lack of insulation around windows and doors. Each of these represents a breach of the warranty of habitability but the tenant is denied access to the mechanism that enforces compliance with habitability law and health and safety codes—the courts.

The bill before the General Assembly Concerning a Landlord’s Breach of the Warranty of Habitability repairs the errors of the 2008 Warranty of Habitability law. Colorado 9to5 supports legislation to update and amend current Warranty of Habitability law in Colorado consistent with the original provisions of the Uniform Residential Landlord Tenant Act of 1972 adopted by the majority of western and central neighboring states. These provisions include:

• the right of tenant to withhold rent
• the right of tenant to make repairs and deduct cost from rent
• the right of tenant to break a lease due to uninhabitable conditions

These provisions are consistent with equitable tenets of contract law that protect both landlord and tenant.

The recommendation is singular and simple: remove the barriers in Colorado’s current landlord tenant law preventing the rightful parties to a lease contract from seeking enforcement of the terms of the contract in a court of law. As Coloradans like to say, get government out of the way of the people’s right to address matters concerning their own lives and well-being.

References

Colorado Judicial Branch. (2015). 2017 Budget Request. Retrieved from: https://www.courts.state.co.us/userfiles/file/Administration/Financial_Services/FY17BudgetRequestWeb.pdf?11032015

Colorado Judicial Branch. Annual Statistical Reports, 2014-2017. Retrieved from: https://www.courts.state.co.us/Administration/Unit.cfm?Unit=annrep

Henry, M., Watt, R., Rosenthal, L., Shivji, A. (2017). 2017 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Retrieved from: https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2017-AHAR-Part-1.pdf

Martin, J. & Calonge, N. (2008). The Colorado Asthma Surveillance Report. Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Retrieved from: https://www.cohealthdata.dphe.state.co.us/chd/Resources/adultdata/asthmaSurveillanceReport.pdf

United States Census Bureau. (2016). American Fact Finder. Retrieved from: https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml

UPDATE: The total number of Eviction cases filed in Colorado: 39,081 in 2018, for a total of 187,167 since 2014. Eviction cases filed in El Paso County, including Colorado Springs: 7,171 in 2018 and 37,392 since 2014.


NOTE: ICYMI, the bill passed and was singed into law effective August 2, 2019.