The Colorado Revised Statutes Title 38, Article 12, Section 509 prohibits a landlord from retaliating against a tenant in the following manner:
Tenant Complains of Uninhabitable Property
A landlord shall not retaliate against a tenant for alleging a breach of the warranty of habitability by discriminatorily increasing rent or decreasing services or by bringing or threatening to bring an action for possession in response to the tenant having made a good faith complaint to the landlord or to a governmental agency alleging a breach of the warranty of habitability.
Note: A landlord shall not be liable for retaliation under this section, unless a tenant proves that a landlord breached the warranty of habitability.
Landlord Right to Take Action for Lease Violations
Regardless of when an action for possession of the premises where the landlord is seeking to terminate the tenancy for violation of the terms of the rental agreement is brought, there shall be a rebuttable presumption in favor of the landlord that his or her decision to terminate is not retaliatory. The presumption created by the subsection Tenant Complains of Uninhabitable Property cannot be rebutted by evidence of the timing alone of the landlord’s initiation of the action.
Landlord Right to Take Action at End of Lease
If the landlord has a right to increase rent, to decrease service, or to terminate the tenant’s tenancy at the end of any term of the rental agreement and the landlord exercises any of these rights, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that the landlord’s exercise of any of these rights was not retaliatory. The presumption of this subsection cannot be rebutted by evidence of the timing alone of the landlord’s exercise of any of these rights.
C.R.S. 38-12-509
Return to Colorado Landlord-Tenant Laws.