Colorado’s General Assembly is taking a hard look at homeowners associations again.

Starting in 2005, lawmakers began trying to reform HOAs after more and more complaints about abuses by HOA boards surfaced.

Colorado Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora

Leading the charge then and now is state Sen. Morgan Carroll, an Aurora Democrat, who co-sponsored the 2005 Homeowners Bill of Rights which made sweeping changes to how the state’s estimated 12,000 HOAs operate.

The law, and subsequent amendments, addressed common HOA abuses such as secret meetings, hidden financial documents, mishandling of money, selective enforcement of covenants and hidden meeting minutes.

Now, Carroll and a fellow Aurora Democrat, Rep. Su Ryden, are trying again to give homeowners help in their battles with HOA boards.

Colorado Rep. Su Ryden, D-Aurora

They have co-sponsored House Bill 1278, which is working its way through the legislature.

Originally, it would have created an HOA Ombudsman office, similar to a concept pioneered in 1997 by Nevada and subsequently copied by Florida, New Jersey and other states.

The idea was to give folks a place to get their conflicts resolved through mediation instead of automatically forcing people to sue in civil court.

Nevada is able to resolve half its complaints without going to court. I wrote about its office in January.

Here’s a link to my January column about the HOA ombudsman in Nevada.

And follow this link to my blog related to that column.

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