Selling a House With Tenants in Colorado: What the Law Actually Requires

Short answer: Colorado has no general statute requiring a landlord to give advance notice before entering a rental unit. Your lease controls. That surprises most sellers, because a great many websites state a flat 24-hour rule that does not exist in Colorado law. What does exist is a set of newer rules on ending a tenancy, and a long-standing principle that a lease survives a sale — both of which matter far more to your sale than showings do.

Does Colorado require 24 hours’ notice before entering a rental?

No, not as a general matter. There is no Colorado statute setting a universal notice period for landlord entry. The one entry-notice requirement we can point to in statute is narrow: bed bug inspection or treatment requires at least 48 hours’ written or electronic notice. Emergencies and apparent abandonment allow entry without notice.

In practice, the notice requirement that binds you is whatever your lease says. Most Colorado residential leases include an entry clause, and many specify 24 hours precisely because it is a reasonable industry norm. Local ordinances may add requirements in some municipalities. Read your lease before you schedule anything, and follow it.

Practical version: give real notice in writing, be flexible about timing, and do not schedule showings around your convenience. A tenant who feels ambushed can make a listing genuinely difficult, and they do not have to do anything unlawful to do it.

Does the lease survive the sale?

Generally yes. A leasehold is an interest in real property, and a buyer ordinarily takes subject to an existing lease. This is a common law principle rather than a single Colorado statute, but Colorado statute assumes it: under CRS 38-12-103, when a landlord’s interest ends “by sale, assignment, death, appointment of a receiver, or otherwise,” the holder of the security deposit must either transfer it to the successor and notify the tenant in writing, or return the funds to the tenant. If it is transferred, the transferee is then deemed to have all the rights and obligations of a landlord holding that deposit. What the statute does not allow is simply keeping it.

So the buyer inherits your tenant, your lease terms, and your deposit liability. That is not a problem — it is simply a fact that determines which buyers can realistically purchase your property.

Can I just end the tenancy so I can sell the house empty?

Not as easily as you could before 2024. Colorado’s HB24-1098, effective April 19, 2024 and codified at CRS 38-12-1301 and following, bars landlords from evicting or declining to renew without cause. Selling is a recognized no-fault ground — specifically, withdrawal of the residential premises from the rental market for the purpose of selling — but it is a defined ground with procedure attached, not a free pass. Non-renewal on a no-fault ground generally requires 90 days’ notice.

There are also exemptions from the for-cause rule, including short-term rentals, owner-occupied or owner-adjacent single-family, duplex and triplex properties, mobile home lots, employer-provided housing, and tenancies of under 12 months. Whether you fall inside or outside those exemptions is a question worth asking your attorney rather than assuming.

The practical consequence for most sellers: trying to empty the property first often costs you three months and creates legal exposure, when selling to a buyer willing to take the tenancy costs you neither.

What else stays your responsibility while you are selling?

• Habitability. Colorado’s warranty of habitability rules (SB 24-094, CRS 38-12-501 through 512) require remedial action to begin within 72 hours of notice, or 24 hours for emergencies. Those obligations do not pause because the house is on the market.
• The security deposit. It has to be transferred to the buyer and the tenant notified, or returned. Do not simply keep it.
• Fee rules. HB25-1090, effective January 1, 2026, requires residential landlords to fold mandatory, unavoidable costs into a single base rent and bans a range of separate fees. If you are still collecting anything separately, address it before a buyer’s attorney does.
• Disclosure. Selling as-is does not remove a Colorado seller’s duty to disclose known latent defects, and that applies to a tenant-occupied property the same as any other.

Selling a tenant-occupied house in Colorado, step by step

If you want the order of operations rather than the law, this is it. Every step below has a reason, and skipping step one is how most of these sales go wrong.

1. Work out what tenancy you actually have. A fixed-term lease with eight months to run, a lease that has rolled into month-to-month, and a handshake arrangement with a relative are three completely different sales. Find the document. If there is no document, you have a month-to-month tenancy by conduct, not no tenancy.
2. Read the lease before you talk to anyone. Look for the entry and notice clause, any early-termination right, whether it names a specific end date, and whether it contains anything about sale or assignment. What the lease says about entry usually matters more than what the statute says, because Colorado has no general 24-hour entry rule for residential tenancies.
3. Decide occupied or vacant, honestly. Vacant sells to more buyers at a higher price. Occupied sells faster, keeps the rent coming, and avoids the notice period entirely. There is no universally right answer, and the deciding factor is usually how long you can afford to carry the property.
4. If you need it vacant, serve the right notice and start the clock early. Under Colorado’s for-cause eviction law the no-fault ground for withdrawing a unit from the rental market requires 90 days’ notice, and the property has to be genuinely listed, not merely intended for sale. Ninety days before closing is not ninety days before you decide.
5. Tell the tenant in writing, early, and tell them what is not changing. The single biggest cause of a wrecked showing schedule is a tenant who found out the house was for sale from a sign in the yard. Say the lease survives the sale, say their deposit is protected, and say what you need from them.
6. Decide what happens to the deposit. C.R.S. 38-12-103(4) gives you a choice: transfer it to the buyer and notify the tenant in writing, or return it to the tenant. Decide before the contract, because it changes the closing statement.
7. Collect the paperwork a buyer will actually ask for. The lease and any amendments, the rent ledger, the deposit accounting, any notices served, the current contact details, and a note on who holds keys. A buyer who has to chase this will either re-trade the price or walk.
8. Run showings on terms the tenant will cooperate with. Fixed windows, decent notice, as few visits as possible. A tenant who feels ambushed can cost you more than a rent concession would have.
9. At closing, assign the lease and deal with the deposit. The lease transfers with the property. Make sure the assignment is documented and the deposit is handled the way you decided in step six.

If any of that reads like more process than the property is worth, that is a legitimate conclusion to reach. We buy tenant-occupied houses with the tenant in place, across the Front Range — Fort Collins, Greeley, Loveland, Longmont, Denver, Aurora and the towns between them — which removes steps four, five and eight entirely.

Two situations that are not this, and need different handling: a tenant who has stopped paying and will not leave is an eviction question before it is a sale question, and someone occupying the property with no tenancy at all is a squatter, which Colorado treats differently again. If the relationship has already broken down, this covers the bad-tenant version.

How to actually run showings without wrecking the relationship

• Tell the tenant early and in person that you are selling, before they see a sign or a listing photo of their bedroom.
• Put the notice arrangement in writing and honor it exactly, even if the lease is vague.
• Batch showings into windows rather than drip-feeding requests.
• Offer something real for the disruption. A rent credit for the month costs less than two weeks of extra market time.
• Do not ask the tenant to clean, stage or leave. They have no obligation to help you sell, and resentment is expensive.
• Never imply the tenancy is ending unless you have actually served a valid notice on a lawful ground.

The alternative: sell with the tenant in place

For a lot of Colorado landlords this is simply the better answer. A tenant-occupied property sold to an investor keeps the rent flowing, avoids the 90-day no-fault notice process entirely, requires no showings, no staging and no vacancy, and removes the risk that a financed retail buyer walks away because they wanted to move in themselves.

Grail Capital buys tenant-occupied houses across Northern Colorado and the Denver metro. We take over the lease on its existing terms, the deposit transfers to us, and the tenant keeps living there. There is no fee to find out what we would pay, and no obligation to accept.

This article is general information about Colorado law and is not legal advice. Landlord-tenant law in Colorado has changed substantially since 2024; talk to a Colorado attorney about your specific situation.

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Selling a rental in Colorado? Grail Capital buys tenant-occupied property with the lease in place, so you do not have to end a tenancy in order to sell. See how our process works or get a no-obligation cash offer.

Common questions about selling with tenants in Colorado

How much notice do I have to give a tenant in Colorado?

For a tenancy with no fixed end date, the written notice required to terminate is set by C.R.S. 13-40-107 and scales with how long the tenant has been in place:

• One year or longer — 91 days
• Six months to under one year — 28 days
• One month to under six months — 21 days
• One week to under one month, or a tenancy at will — 3 days
• Less than one week — 1 day

These periods apply to ending a tenancy without cause. A fixed-term lease normally runs to its end date regardless of the notice you give, and local ordinances in some Colorado municipalities add further requirements.

Does selling the house shorten the notice period?

No. A sale is not in itself a reason to end a tenancy, and listing or closing does not reset the clock. The notice ladder above runs on the length of the tenancy, not on your timeline for selling.

Does the lease survive the sale?

Yes. A buyer takes the property subject to any existing lease and steps into your position as landlord. The tenant keeps their right to stay until the lease ends or is properly terminated.

Do I have to transfer the security deposit?

Not automatically — you have a choice, and most articles get this wrong. C.R.S. 38-12-103(4) lets whoever holds the deposit either transfer it to the new owner and notify the tenant in writing, or return the funds to the tenant. Only if it is transferred does the buyer take on all of the rights and obligations of a landlord holding it. What you cannot do is quietly keep it.

Can I sell with the tenant still living there?

Yes, and for most owners it is the faster route. Selling to a buyer who purchases tenant-occupied property means no notice period, no vacancy, no turnover costs and no coordinating showings around someone else’s schedule. The lease simply continues with a new owner.

Notice periods and statutory references change. Confirm current requirements with a Colorado attorney before acting on any specific tenancy.

Related guides

• Dealing With Bad Tenants in Fort Collins
• Navigating the Legal Landscape: How to Remove Squatters from Your Colorado Property
• How Quickly Can I Sell My Colorado Home and Receive the Profits?

We buy tenant-occupied rentals across the Front Range, including Arvada, Thornton and Westminster. See every Colorado city we buy in.

Written by Luke Angerhofer, founder of Grail Capital and an active Colorado employing real estate broker (licence ER 100018905, issued 2007). Luke began his career as a licensed Colorado real estate appraiser and has been buying houses directly from Front Range homeowners since founding Grail Capital in 2016. Grail Capital buys across Northern Colorado and the Denver metro. This article is general information about Colorado real estate and is not legal, tax or financial advice. More about Luke and Grail Capital.