What can a landlord do with a tenant’s belongings left behind in Colorado?

In Colorado, a landlord has no duty to store or maintain a tenant’s personal property removed from the premises during or after the execution of a writ of restitution, and a landlord who chooses to store it may charge reasonable storage costs and recover them either by disposing of the property under its lien rights or by releasing it once the tenant pays. A landlord who stores the property has no duty to inventory it, and the storage creates no bailment. Separately, property held under a lien is presumed abandoned when the owner has not contacted the lienholder for at least thirty days, and at least fifteen days before selling or otherwise disposing of it the lienholder must send the owner notice of the manner and date of disposition by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested; if the notice comes back unclaimed, it must be published at least one day in a newspaper in the county. The landlord’s lien reaches the tenant’s household furniture, goods, appliances and other personal property on the premises, but not pet animals, small kitchen appliances, cooking utensils, beds, bedding, necessary wearing apparel, personal or business records and documents, or personal effects, and after the tenant vacates the landlord must allow reasonable access to remove property the lien does not cover. This is C.R.S. §§ 13-40-122, 38-20-102, 38-20-116.

WhatColorado
Belongings left behindNo duty to store property removed on eviction
What the statute requires firstNo waiting period before disposal

What the statute says

“A landlord has no duty to store or maintain a tenant’s personal property that is removed from the premises during or after the execution of a writ of restitution.”

Quoted word for word from the section’s text.

Source

C.R.S. §§ 13-40-122, 38-20-102, 38-20-116

Read the statute in the Colorado Revised Statutes (Colorado General Assembly): leg.colorado.gov.

Checked against the statute on November 15, 2026.

This is a summary of a published statute, not legal advice. Rules change, local ordinances can add to them, and the terms of a specific lease may differ. Check the citation and speak to a lawyer before acting.

How Seayora uses this rule

Seayora keeps a lease’s end date and every notice sent through it, with the date it went out, in the lease record — so the dates a rule like this one counts from are on file rather than remembered.

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