Colorado’s Construction Defect Action Reform Act (CDARA) governs how property owners bring claims against builders, contractors, designers, and other construction professionals for faulty work. Codified at C.R.S. Title 13, Article 20, Part 8, the statute forces a claimant to complete a pre-suit notice and inspection process before filing, sets tight deadlines for filing at all, and limits the damages a court can award. Get any of those pieces wrong and the case can be dismissed before it starts.
Who Can Be Sued Under CDARA
CDARA defines “construction professional” broadly. The term reaches architects, contractors, subcontractors, developers, builders, builder vendors, engineers, and inspectors involved in planning, supervising, or performing the work.1Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 13-20-802.5 – Definitions Liability is not limited to the general contractor. Everyone who contributed to the design or construction can be pulled in.
Individual homeowners can file claims, and homeowners’ associations frequently bring them on behalf of unit owners in condominium developments. One boundary matters if you bought a used home: under the implied warranty of habitability, Colorado courts have generally held that only the first purchaser of a newly built home can assert warranty claims against the original builder. Subsequent buyers have a much harder path, with limited exceptions when the builder knew the first buyer was not the intended occupant.
Material suppliers and manufacturers can also be involved in defect disputes, but claims against them usually proceed under product liability theories rather than CDARA.
The Pre-Suit Notice of Claim
Before filing suit, you must send the construction professional a written notice of claim by certified mail or personal service. For residential properties, the notice must be served at least 75 days before filing. For commercial properties, the window is 90 days.2Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 13-20-803.5 – Notice of Claim Process
The notice has to describe each alleged defect in reasonable detail, including its location and nature. General complaints about workmanship quality will not clear the bar. If you discover additional defects after sending the original notice, you can amend it, but the amended claims start their own inspection and response timeline.2Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 13-20-803.5 – Notice of Claim Process
Sending the notice within the applicable statute of limitations or repose period pauses the filing clock until 60 days after the entire notice process ends. That tolling protection keeps the pre-suit steps from consuming your deadline.2Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 13-20-803.5 – Notice of Claim Process Skipping the notice step, on the other hand, can get the whole lawsuit dismissed.
Inspection and Repair Window
Once the notice is served, the construction professional can request access to inspect. You must allow reasonable access during normal working hours, and the inspection has to be completed within 30 days of when the notice was served.2Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 13-20-803.5 – Notice of Claim Process The clock starts at service, not at the request, so the actual inspection window is often shorter than it looks.
If the construction professional wants to offer a repair, they must submit a written proposal within 30 days describing the scope, method, and timeline. You then have 15 days to accept or reject.3Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 13-20-806 – Limitation of Damages Rejecting a reasonable repair proposal without good cause can hurt your case later. If the professional never responds, never asks to inspect, or refuses to offer any remedy, you can proceed to litigation after the statutory waiting period runs.
SB24-106, enacted in 2024, formalized a “right to remedy” that lets a construction professional perform or hire someone to perform the repair. Once the remedial work is completed, the original claim is considered settled, and any further dispute is limited to the quality of the repair itself.4Colorado General Assembly. SB24-106 Right to Remedy Construction Defects The bill also expanded the alternative dispute resolution options that pause litigation and made the ADR results binding.
Extra Steps for HOA Claims
A homeowners’ association bringing a defect claim has to clear another layer of requirements under the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act (CCIOA).5Division of Real Estate. What CCIOA Says About Construction Defect Actions
The executive board must mail written notice of the anticipated suit to every unit owner and to each construction professional the association plans to sue. The construction professional’s notice has to go out at least five business days before the notice to unit owners. The notice must also call a meeting, held no fewer than 10 and no more than 15 days after the mailing, and the construction professional is entitled to attend and address unit owners there.
After the meeting, owners vote. The board can file suit only if owners holding a majority of the association’s allocated votes approve, with votes tied to developer-owned units, non-voting banks, nonresponsive owners, and units unaffected by the alleged defects excluded from the count. The entire process from notice to final vote must wrap within 90 days.
How Long You Have to File
You have two years from when you discovered, or should have discovered through reasonable diligence, the physical signs of a defect to file suit.6Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 13-80-102 – General Limitation of Actions The discovery rule protects owners from hidden problems like water intrusion behind walls or slow foundation movement.
There is an outer limit that discovery cannot extend indefinitely. No defect claim can be filed more than six years after substantial completion of the improvement, regardless of when the defect appears. That is the statute of repose. If a defect surfaces in year five or six, the two-year discovery period can push the actual filing deadline slightly past the six-year mark.7Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 13-80-104 – Limitation of Actions Against Architects, Contractors, Builders or Builder Vendors, Engineers, Inspectors, and Others Serving the notice of claim within the limitations or repose period tolls the clock until 60 days after the notice process ends, which can be the difference between a preserved claim and a lost one.
Certificate of Review for Architects and Engineers
If your claim is against a licensed design professional such as an architect or engineer, your attorney must file a certificate of review with the court within 60 days of serving the complaint.8Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 13-20-602 – Certificate of Review It applies even when the professional is sued through their firm.
The certificate is a sworn attorney declaration that a qualified expert has reviewed the facts and concluded the claim has substantial justification. The expert must be able to show, through training, education, and experience, that they are competent to opine on the alleged negligent conduct.8Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 13-20-602 – Certificate of Review Missing the 60-day deadline results in dismissal. It is one of the most common and unforgiving procedural mistakes in defect litigation against design professionals.
What You Can Recover
CDARA limits recovery to “actual damages” unless the claimant also proves a violation of the Colorado Consumer Protection Act.3Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 13-20-806 – Limitation of Damages In most cases, that means the cost to repair the defect, plus related expenses like temporary housing when a home is uninhabitable and professional fees for evaluating the problem.
Consequential damages are available when a defect causes harm beyond the defective work itself, such as water intrusion from a bad roof ruining flooring and electrical systems. Diminished property value can also be part of the claim, though it usually requires expert testimony.
Where a construction professional ignores a notice of claim or fails to follow through on an accepted repair, treble damages under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act may be available, but only if a separate consumer protection violation is proved. Even then, treble damages and attorney fees combined cannot exceed $250,000.3Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 13-20-806 – Limitation of Damages
For claims involving personal injury or bodily harm, noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering are capped at $250,000, and personal injury claims are excluded from the treble damages provisions.3Justia. Colorado Revised Statutes Section 13-20-806 – Limitation of Damages Punitive damages are not expressly included in CDARA’s definition of actual damages, and the prevailing view is that they are unavailable in CDARA actions, though no Colorado appellate court has definitively resolved the issue.
A mere building code or industry standard violation is not enough on its own. CDARA bars such claims unless the violation resulted in actual property damage, loss of use, bodily injury, death, or a threat to occupant safety.4Colorado General Assembly. SB24-106 Right to Remedy Construction Defects
Insurance Coverage Basics
Most construction professionals carry commercial general liability (CGL) policies, and whether those policies pay for defect claims turns on whether the defect qualifies as an “occurrence,” typically defined as an accident. The Tenth Circuit in Greystone Construction, Inc. v. National Fire & Marine Insurance Co. held that damage to nondefective portions of a building caused by a subcontractor’s faulty work can be a covered occurrence, though repairing the defective work itself is not.9FindLaw. Greystone Construction Inc v. National Fire Marine Insurance The Colorado Court of Appeals in General Security Indemnity Co. of Arizona v. Mountain States Mutual Casualty Co. held that poor workmanship standing alone is not an accident or covered occurrence when the alleged damage is limited to the insured’s own work.10FindLaw. General Security Indemnity Company of Arizona v. Mountain States Mutual Casualty Company
CGL policies also typically include a “your work” exclusion, often with a carve-out for work done by subcontractors, which is why a general contractor’s coverage frequently depends on which trade actually caused the problem. Insurers regularly raise late-notice defenses, and Colorado courts have enforced timely-notification requirements strictly.