DENVER — Nearly half of Coloradans live in an HOA or Community Association, yet there's no state oversight or licensing of HOA management companies.
Thursday marked the first committee hearing for a bill introduced earlier this year, aiming to create two task forces that would study the practices of HOAs and metro districts in Colorado in hopes of keeping them accountable, following years of complaints and allegationsof questionable practices.
"They're getting away with breaking a lot of ... laws. So that's one aspect I'd like the task force to take up is, how can we have more oversight over what these entities are doing?" Democratic State Representative Brianna Titone, a co-sponsor of the bill, told Denver7 Thursday. "The task force's job is to look at what's happening, what's going on and then make recommendations for changes. Those recommendations will go back to us in the legislature and then we can adopt some of those bills that have been suggested by the task force.
The Denver-Metro Chamber of Commerce is opposing the bill.
In a statement to Denver7, Chamber Vice President of Government affairs Adam Burg said:
- If passed, HB23-1105 would just lead to unnecessary, hostile policies aimed at metro districts and HOAs – especially if the task forces are not properly designed.
- There is already plenty of existing statute related to HOAs and metro districts.
- Metro districts and HOAs have been the target of legislators for the last few years, and much work has been done to come to agreement on transparency measures, reporting mechanisms, structure and more.
- Even this session we see legislation aimed at metro districts. For example, SB23-110 is specifically focused on the transparency of metro districts and is a bi-partisan measure we are happy to support.
- This bill on the other hand, just creates additional administrative mechanisms to study what is already well-established data and understanding surrounding these organizations.
The bill is just beginning the legislative process and is expected to undergo modifications along the way.
