Lease Renewal Clause
in Your Lease
What it actually means, what Colorado law says, what's specific to Denver - and exactly what to do. In plain English.
Quick Summary - What You Need to Know
- C.R.S. 38-12-1303 bars no-cause non-renewal, so a Colorado landlord must name a legal ground before letting your lease lapse.
- Most no-fault grounds require at least 90 days written notice before the day you have to vacate.
- Tenants in active military service fall under a shorter 45-day notice period under the same statute.
- The protection skips tenancies under 12 months, owner-occupied one-to-three-unit homes, and short-term rentals per C.R.S. 38-12-1302.
- Periodic tenancies that have run a year or longer take 91 days notice under C.R.S. 13-40-107.
Understanding the Lease Renewal Clause
A lease renewal clause decides what happens when your term runs out: whether the lease rolls over, whether you sign fresh paperwork, and how much warning either side owes. In most of the country that clause is the whole story, because state law lets a fixed term simply expire.
Colorado rewrote that default. Under C.R.S. 38-12-1303 your landlord needs a legal ground to decline a renewal, and most no-fault grounds carry at least 90 days written notice before you have to be out.
What renters assume
Most renters read a lease as a countdown clock - twelve months pass, the landlord shrugs, and you're expected to start packing on a month's warning.
What is actually true
Colorado landlords need a cause listed in C.R.S. 38-12-1303, and most no-fault grounds require 90 days written notice, or 45 for tenants in active military service.
Colorado tops this chart for a reason. Texas, Illinois, Arizona and Tennessee landlords owe zero notice when a fixed term expires, and California and Seattle stop at 60 days. Colorado's 90 days comes attached to something a bar chart can't show - your landlord needs a reason at all.
Plain English Version
In most states a lease is a parking meter: when the time runs out it runs out, and nobody owes you a warning. In Colorado it works more like a job with notice built in, where the landlord needs an actual reason to let you go and has to say so a season ahead.
Lease Renewal Clause Example - What the Wording Looks Like in Denver, CO
The sample clause below is real lease language - a court quoted it word for word, and then ruled on it. What the judge decided is at the bottom of this block.
Find the equivalent paragraph in your own lease and read the two side by side. The wording will differ; the moving parts rarely do.
The lease paragraph a Pennsylvania appellate court read in 2025, subsection (c), quoted exactly as the opinion has it:
(c) Landlord may increase the rent or change any other term of the Lease for any renewal period by sending written notice to Tenant. Landlord must send this notice at least 60 days before the end of the Term or of any renewal term. Tenant may reject the renewal terms by sending written notice to Landlord 60 days prior to the end of the current lease ending date. Tenant must then vacate at the end of the current Term. The Lease will renew on the terms set forth in Landlord's renewal notice if Tenant does not send notice ending the Lease.
Quoted from the published opinion in Cooper v. SGYS St. Ives, LLC, 333 A.3d 1046, 2025 PA Super 66 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2025). Judicial opinions are not subject to copyright; the lease language is reproduced in limited part for commentary under 17 U.S.C. § 107.
“by sending written notice to Tenant”
In Colorado a notice like this has to do more than announce a decision. Under C.R.S. § 38-12-1303 a no-cause non-renewal is barred and the permitted no-fault grounds are listed; most of them require at least 90 days' written notice before the tenant must vacate, cut to 45 days for a tenant in active military service. A letter that names no ground is a letter with a gap in it.
“Tenant must then vacate”
That demand is what the 90-day clock is built around, because the statute measures its notice before the tenant must vacate rather than before the paperwork goes out. Whether it reaches you at all depends on C.R.S. 38-12-1302, which exempts tenants of under 12 months, owner-occupied homes of one to three units, and short-term rentals. Your own tenure and your building's size are the first two facts to establish.
“The Lease will renew on the terms set forth”
Renewal on the landlord's stated terms is the default this clause creates. In Colorado the more useful question is whether the landlord could have refused at all, because the for-cause rule in C.R.S. § 38-12-1303 changes the shape of the conversation: a landlord with no listed ground is not choosing between renewing and not renewing, only between the terms offered.
“ending the Lease”
Two very different acts sit behind the same idea. A tenant ending a lease at the end of its term is doing something the lease governs; a landlord ending a tenancy in Colorado is doing something HB24-1098 governs, and that needs a ground from the statutory list. The asymmetry is the single most useful thing a Denver renter can know when a non-renewal letter turns up.
The clause was enforced exactly as written, and it came back on the landlord who wrote it. The underlying dispute was not about renewal at all - it was a claim under Philadelphia's lead-disclosure ordinance, and the landlord's answer was that the Coopers were former tenants with no right to bring it. The Superior Court disagreed. Because paragraph 24 renewed the lease automatically unless a party gave 60 days' written notice, and this landlord gave none, brought no eviction and filed no suit, the lease was still alive and the Coopers were still tenants - even though they had stopped paying rent. The landlord, the court held, “had a duty to take specific action against Appellants in order to end the lease,” and a tenant's own breach does not quietly turn them into a former tenant. Two things to keep in view. This is a standing holding that construes an automatic-renewal clause, not a renewal dispute, and it should not be read as one. And the same paragraph priced the renewal it created: subsection (b) raised the rent for each renewal term to market rent, as determined by Landlord, with a minimum increase of 7% above current rent. Automatic renewal runs in whichever direction the paperwork points, and here the paperwork pointed at the landlord.
One court, one lease, one state. That answer is not automatically yours, and your lease may be worded to land differently. Use this to know what to look for and what to ask - your state's tenant hotline or a local tenant attorney can answer it for your document.
Colorado Law on Lease Renewal Clause
- HB24-1098, codified at C.R.S. 38-12-1303, bars no-cause non-renewal and lists the permitted no-fault grounds.
- Most no-fault grounds require at least 90 days' written notice; 45 days for tenants in active military service.
- C.R.S. 38-12-1302 exempts tenants of under 12 months, owner-occupied one-to-three-unit homes, and short-term rentals.
- For periodic tenancies, C.R.S. 13-40-107 requires 91 days' notice when the tenancy is one year or longer.
C.R.S. § 38-12-1303 - statutes change; verify the current text for your situation.
HB24-1098, now codified at C.R.S. 38-12-1303, ended no-cause non-renewal in Colorado. Your landlord has to name a ground from the statute, and the no-fault ones - an owner move-in, pulling the unit off the rental market - are the ones that hit tenants who did nothing wrong. Those require at least 90 days written notice before you must vacate, dropping to 45 days for tenants in active military service.
Compare that with Texas, where a fixed term expires on schedule and the landlord owes no notice and no reason at all, or Arizona, where 30 days ends a month-to-month and that's the whole conversation. Colorado's protection does have edges: C.R.S. 38-12-1302 exempts tenancies under 12 months, owner-occupied buildings of one to three units, and short-term rentals. On a periodic tenancy that has run a year or longer, C.R.S. 13-40-107 sets the number at 91 days.
Colorado Tenant Protections
Colorado requires your landlord to state a legal ground under C.R.S. 38-12-1303 before declining to renew, so a tenancy no longer ends just because the calendar says the term is over. Most no-fault grounds, like an owner move-in or withdrawing the unit from the rental market, require at least 90 days' written notice before you have to vacate. For periodic tenancies that have run a year or longer, C.R.S. 13-40-107 requires 91 days' written notice to terminate.
What's Specific to Denver
Figures are the state rule, or the stronger city ordinance where one exists. Verify the current law for your own situation before relying on it.
Denver adds nothing of its own on renewal notice. The statewide for-cause rule in C.R.S. 38-12-1303 is what protects you here, and it reads the same in Denver as it does in Pueblo. What the city runs instead is residential rental licensing and eviction assistance, which matter after a notice lands rather than before.
The practical squeeze in Denver is timing. Renewal offers in Capitol Hill, RiNo, and the Highlands tend to arrive late and priced up, sometimes inside the window you'd need to line up a new place. Put the 90-day mark on your calendar the week you sign, and ask for terms in writing instead of waiting on the resident portal.
It should name a date or a window. Colorado's no-fault floor is 90 days, so anything vaguer than that is worth pinning down before you sign.
A promise to renew at "market rate" is a blank check. Ask for a stated figure or a ceiling inside the paragraph itself.
Red flag. A silent 12-month rollover with a short buried opt-out window can lock you into a year you never actually chose.
Strike it. The rights in C.R.S. 38-12-1303 come from statute rather than your lease, so language signing them away is worth challenging.
Sources
The law this guide relies on, and where to read it. Statutes change, so confirm the current text before you act on it.
- C.R.S. § 38-12-1303, read on codes.findlaw.com. Colorado publishes its official statutes through LexisNexis; there is no free government edition. FindLaw marks its copy of this section current as of January 1, 2025; the colorado.public.law copies the site links elsewhere predate the 2024 session.
Red Flags to Watch Out For
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Non-renewal with no reason given
A notice that only says the lease won't be renewed. C.R.S. 38-12-1303 requires a stated ground, and most no-fault ones carry 90 days.
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Renewal at "then-current market rate"
The clause promises a renewal but leaves the price wide open. Ask for a stated number or ceiling, because an unbounded rate is the same as no offer.
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Automatic 12-month rollover
The lease renews for another full year unless you cancel inside a narrow window buried mid-document. Find that window and calendar it the day you sign.
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Notice counted from the wrong day
The 90 days runs to the day you must vacate, not the day someone typed the letter. Count it yourself from delivery to move-out.
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Portal-only renewal notice
Notice delivered only as an app banner is easy to miss and hard to prove later. Ask for it in writing and keep a dated copy regardless.
Your Rights as a Denver Tenant
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A stated cause for non-renewal
C.R.S. 38-12-1303 bars no-cause non-renewal, so your landlord has to name a ground from the statute instead of letting the term quietly lapse.
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90 days on most no-fault grounds
Grounds like an owner move-in or withdrawing the unit from the rental market require at least 90 days written notice before you must be out.
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91 days on periodic tenancies
If you're periodic rather than fixed-term and the tenancy has run a year or longer, C.R.S. 13-40-107 requires 91 days written notice to end it.
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Written notice, not a call
The statute's notice has to be written. A verbal heads-up from the leasing office doesn't start the 90-day clock, and it proves nothing later.
What To Do - Step by Step
Find your lease end date
Pull the actual expiration date off page one, not your move-in date. Every deadline below counts backward from that day.
Calendar the 90-day mark
Colorado's no-fault floor is 90 days before the day you'd have to vacate. Set that reminder yourself instead of waiting on the leasing office.
Check whether you're covered
C.R.S. 38-12-1302 exempts tenancies under 12 months, owner-occupied one-to-three-unit homes, and short-term rentals. Confirm you're not sitting in one of those buckets.
Ask for terms in writing
Email the property manager for the renewal rent and term. The thread timestamps your request and gives you something concrete to point at later.
Read the notice for cause
A non-renewal has to name a ground under C.R.S. 38-12-1303. No cause on the page is the first thing to question, in writing.
Escalate before you pack
Put your objection to the property manager in writing, then contact Denver's rental licensing and eviction-assistance programs or a Colorado legal-aid line.