The Landlord Lens - Denver Might Raise Landlord Fines to $5,000 — What You Need to Know

Episode Date: November 28, 2025

Denver is considering raising the maximum fine for unlicensed rentals from $1,000 to $5,000. In this episode, we break down why the city wants the increase, how many landlords are still unlicensed, and what the data shows about enforcement since the rental license requirement began in 2023.We cover how the current system works, why thousands of properties remain unlicensed, what the proposed change would do, and what landlords should expect if the higher fine is approved in 2025. If you’re a Denver landlord or watching this issue in your own city, this gives you the full context without the noise.

News came out recently that Denver is thinking about increasing their fines for landlords that are operating unlicensed rental properties. Someone in a bureaucratic office, you know, seeing, oh, shoot, he hasn't paid yet, $5,000 again. That's now legal for them to do. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Landlord Lens. In this episode, we get to talk about where we live, which is very exciting. I'm joined by our lovely co-host, Seamus Nally. Seamus, how are you doing on this fine fall day? Doing fantastic.

And I do want to tell our audience that maybe you don't live in Colorado like we do. But what we're about to talk about, while it is a local situation, is spreading all the across the country. Absolutely. And Denver's not even at the forefront. I mean, it plays like California, New York, D.C., we did an episode on that has regulations just like the one we just, we're going to talk about. today. Absolutely. So let me set up the conversation. News came out recently that Denver is thinking about increasing their fines for landlords that are operating unlicensed rental properties. Yes, that's a thing. You can have an unlicensed rental property. As of 2004, Denver made it,

implemented a regulation that requires every single landlord. of a rental property to get a license. Yes. And that's 2024, is every rental, I think a few years before it was only rentals with two plus units. And a few years before it was a general ordinance and recommendation. Exactly. And so like we've seen across the country with these sorts of regulations, right? It's like you give the government a license and all of a sudden it wants to apply it to everyone.

And so it's definitely gone from something that was, like you said, recommendation to something that's being enforced, and they're really putting teeth behind it. I mean, $5,000 a day for having a violation, which could just be going unlicensed, right? Saying, nah, this isn't for me. Yep. Is incredible. Someone in a bureaucratic office, you know, seeing, oh, shoot, he hasn't paid yet, $5,000 again. Yes.

And then he wakes up tomorrow because of the office hasn't paid yet, $5,000 again. Like, that's now legal for them to do. Yeah, and heaven forbid they find out. on, you know, MLK weekend or something that they didn't pay on Friday and then they're not open again until the following Tuesday, right? You could have rack up $20,000 in fines pretty easily. And while we joke, what's really incredible is when you look at the violations that you could be fine for here in Denver under this license, one is, you know, a failure display, a valid license on your listing, right, on an advertisement that it's a

available. So you post a Facebook marketplace, let's say, or use a product like TurboTenant, which is going to syndicate out your listing. You have to make sure to add your license number to that description or you could be fined for every day that that posting is up without a valid license. And that's very common in short-term rentals, right, where licensing became much more normalized in the last five years. You got to put it on your Airbnb listing, your VRBO listing, whatever. That's now made it into long-term rentals. And it's an easy one if the city wants to enforce, because all they have to do is go to the major listing sites. Yep.

Type in Denver, right, Colorado, and they're going to see all the listings pop up, and then they can just kind of pruse through and find a couple targets if they need to boost their revenue or their tickets for the month. Exactly. It's, there's an absurdity to this that's hard to ignore. But it caught, it's a threat of real pain to landlords. and honestly, another reason not to be a DIY landlord in Denver, unfortunately. Yeah, and I think it is important, too, to talk about, okay, as a landlord, why would you not want a license, right? Okay, licensing is required. Pay the fee.

Go ahead and get license. What's interesting in Denver is you actually need a third-party inspection to come with your license. Now, in Fort Collins, where I own a rental property, it's a self-inspection. There are, you know, so there's no additional cost. It's a $37 fee to file your license. And then you just fill out a checklist, basically, of do you have a set number of things in your rental property? In Denver, they've gone the next step, right, which is actually you're going to have to pay for an inspection to take place on your property. Then you're going to have to submit those details to the city to have a valid license.

Man, so if you're an inspector in Denver, this is good news. Yes, if you're an inspector in Denver, this is good news. If you're a remote landlord in Denver, this is just something else you have to coordinate, right? And honestly, this just turns something that may be cash flowing a couple hundred dollars a month as you build equity value into a real headache. Yeah, absolutely. Because it, and you mentioned the Fort Collins one is self-inspection on $37. In Denver, you have to pay the certified inspector to get the inspection. You're likelyer to find things you need to fix to get up to code, right?

Because it's a certified inspector that's going to sign that thing. And then the other thing is you've got $100 in fees. You have a $50 application fee and then a $50 rental fee for a single unit. So it's much more onerous in Denver than it is in Fort Collins, which I guess goes to the importance of local lobbying

because obviously, I guess the landlords in Fort Collins just did a better job. Possibly. We tried. I had an opportunity to talk to some of the city officials when they're thinking about doing this.

And my big pushback was, because I asked why they want to do this, they said they wanted to make sure housing was safe. Yeah. My pushback was, well, shouldn't housing be safe for everyone, whether it's a rental house or primary residence, isn't that why we have building codes in general to make sure that there is safe housing out there?

And so I asked what they were going to do for all of us, primary residents that weren't being protected by their licensing platform. What would they say? Hmm. You know, it was kind of like, nah, let's not talk about that. Yeah. But I think it's super important. This is what people can do.

One, stay aware of what regulations are happening locally and then be vocal about it. What's fantastic in smaller cities, right? Not as easy in Denver, but in smaller cities is a handful of vocal residents can really make a difference with some of this legislation to at least push back or even play a role in shaping it so it's less onerous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's really important is to be active as the small. Especially in these cases where it goes from regulations being applied to large apartment buildings and gradually hitting the single family person that maybe is an accidental landlord, it's really important because those big apartments, they employ people to lobby. When you're doing it yourself, you've got to do it yourself for lobbying too. And so it's often that they, it's very easy once they have the apartment regulations in place to just map it right over those single family owners that are renting it out because what are they going to do?

They're not going to show up to the council meeting. Yeah, and don't fall into the trap of thinking, hey, this is only going to impact corporate housing. Yeah, the corporate landlords. Clearly, that's not the case. Yeah, because every one of them bleeds down into our own businesses, right? So bummer, Denver. You're joining the ranks of Oakland. Yeah, that's, it ain't great, and I'd hate to be the person getting that $5,000 a day, fine.

It'll be really interesting to watch to see if any of those are actually assessed, right? If anyone actually gets those. but what I would love is for anyone in our audience that has licensing in their, you know, in their backyard or where their rental properties are, share in the comments. What is the licensing? How much does it cost? What do the fines look like? I think it's really interesting to understand how licensing initiatives by local municipalities are changing what it means to be a landlord around the country. It's always useful, not just to know what's going on in your backyard, but what's going on in the country generally because a successful regulation, somewhere might land in your backyard pretty soon. Awesome. Well, looking forward to hearing from all of you in the comments.

As always, like and subscribe. Appreciate talking to you today. TurboTenant is the all-in-one platform for landlords to manage their rental properties. From vacancy to tenancy, we have you covered with industry-leading tools and expert advice. Landlord better from anywhere for free at turbotenant.com.