Key Points:
The Colorado Attorney General’s office has reached a string of settlements with Colorado landlords ranging from $30,000 to $7 million, over voucher discrimination, illegal tenant screening, insurance billing, price fixing, and security deposit practices.
Colorado rental laws apply to every housing provider, whether you manage thousands of units professionally or own and self-manage one rental property.
With Attorney General Phil Weiser now elected Colorado Governor, there is every reason to expect enforcement of landlord-tenant law to continue.
Are landlords and rental housing providers in Colorado always following the law? And when they get outside of the law, where are they going wrong?
Grace Property Management has been in business since 1978, so we have seen a lot of property managers and landlords come and go over almost five decades. Recently, there has been increased emphasis from the government agencies on ensuring that property management companies, landlords, and housing providers are following the law. In many cases, they are not.
Here are a few recent examples directly from the Colorado Attorney General’s office, and the results for these landlords have been substantial.
Voucher Discrimination: A $30,000 Settlement
In September 2026, the Attorney General announced a settlement with Sares Regis Group over housing discrimination against voucher holders. To be clear, this was a settlement reached before the case was fully adjudicated. But the message from the AG was direct: discrimination based on source of income will not be tolerated, and landlords will be held accountable.
What this means for you as a housing provider is not new: Colorado law requires you to accept housing vouchers. Source of income is a protected status under C.R.S. 24-34-502. If an applicant calls your office and asks, “Do you take Section 8?”, the answer required by law is yes, and it has been for years. We covered this requirement in detail in our article on HB25-1240 and Colorado’s Section 8 acceptance rules.
What makes this case interesting is how it started. A nonprofit called the Housing Rights Initiative conducted random housing testing and found housing providers who were not following the law, and turned that information over to the Attorney General’s office. The result was a $30,000 settlement.
Illegal Tenant Screening: A $300,000 Settlement
Just a few weeks earlier, the AG’s office secured a settlement with Avail Property Management, Inc. and PK Management resolving allegations that the companies illegally denied prospective tenants housing based on criminal background checks that did not meet Colorado’s requirements.
Under Colorado’s Rental Application Fairness Act (C.R.S. 38-12-904), a housing provider cannot consider arrest records, only convictions. In most instances, you cannot look back more than five years. The companies in this case were alleged to have considered arrest records, records beyond the five-year scope, and conviction information that was simply incorrect.
If you are scratching your head saying, “Wait, I did not know I could not do that,” that is exactly the point. These screening rules are complicated, but complicated does not mean optional. You can see how we apply them in our published rental criteria. This one was a $300,000 settlement. For more on what Colorado now requires in the screening process, see our article on HB25-1236 and tenant-provided background reports.
Renters Insurance Billing: A $75,000 Settlement
In April 2026, the AG announced a settlement with Baron Property Services that won payments back for renters. This one involved renters insurance. A housing provider may require residents to carry renters insurance, but this company told residents they would be charged if they did not obtain their own policy, and because the system was automated, some residents who did get their own coverage were double charged anyway.
Renters insurance is a stickier area than most housing providers realize. For example, did you know that in Colorado you may NOT require your tenant to file a claim on their renters insurance, even when they have it? The rules here are murky, and in this case the result was a $75,000 settlement.
The Bigger Ones: Price Fixing and Security Deposits
Going back a little further, two larger settlements set the tone for all of this.
In November 2025, the Attorney General announced a $7 million settlement with Greystar, the largest apartment manager in the country, over a price-fixing scheme that used algorithmic pricing software on vacant properties.
And in January 2024, the AG announced a $1 million settlement with Four Star Realty over illegal tenant billing, much of it related to security deposits charges. We wrote about that case when it happened, and about what it means for every Colorado investor, in this article. Security deposits remain the single most common place landlords get into legal trouble. If you want to pressure test your own practices, start with our articles on the top reasons landlords get sued on security deposit returns and Colorado’s new deposit return rules under HB25-1249.
Enforcement Is Not Slowing Down
We are recording this in early November, just after the Colorado election, and Attorney General Phil Weiser has just been elected Governor of Colorado. The reasonable assumption is that as Governor, his administration will continue this emphasis on ensuring that residential property management companies follow the law and that tenants are protected. Colorado has also given the state and tenants stronger enforcement tools in recent years, which we covered in our overview of SB25-020, the enforcement of landlord-tenant law.
Some housing providers view this focus as punitive against landlords. Our opinion is that landlords have largely brought this focus on themselves by not following the laws of Colorado. Yes, the laws can be complicated, but they still have to be followed. We track every Colorado rental housing bill, with plain-language summaries, on our rental housing legislation page.
The pressure is not only coming from government agencies. There is a new law firm in Colorado called ‘Sue My Landlord’, Colorado tenant attorneys whose entire practice is representing tenants on security deposit disputes, unlivable conditions, pest infestations, wrongful evictions, defective lease agreements, and health code violations. They are a legitimate firm and tenants rightfully deserve that protection.
If your lease or your practices are not fully compliant there are well-organized legal groups ready to find the gaps. If you want a refresher on where landlords most often make legal mistakes, our articles on the top 2026 rental laws landlords do not understand and the 2026 legal update for real estate investors are a good place to start.
Final Thoughts
At Grace Property Management, we have always believed that when property management is performed with transparency, integrity, and honesty, it is pro-tenant and pro-landlord at the same time. That is the way we have operated since 1978, and we continue to operate that way.
If you are a housing provider, whether you are a professional or you own one single rental property, every bit of this applies to you. You are under the microscope as a housing provider in Colorado, and you will continue to be.
If you are an owner-client of Grace Property Management, know that we take this seriously and work to ensure you are compliant. If you are a tenant-resident of a Grace managed property, we believe you deserve proper protection, and we work to ensure you receive the full protection of the law. And if you are not a client of ours, consider us a resource.
If these things are important to you, we may be a good fit to provide you, your property, and your tenant-resident with our full-service property management services. Feel free to reach out to us for assistance.
This article is information, not legal advice. For guidance on your specific situation, consult the bill text or a landlord-tenant attorney.
