Colorado's fair housing law reaches further than the federal Fair Housing Act, and it applies to a five-month ski season lease exactly the way it applies to a twelve-month one. If you rent to seasonal workers in Breckenridge, most of your exposure sits in three places: how the listing is worded, what you screen on, and how many people you let sleep in the unit.
Colorado's protected class list is longer than the federal one
Federal law names seven protected classes: race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability. Colorado adds creed, ancestry, marital status, sexual orientation (defined by statute to include transgender status), veteran or military status, and source of income. The Colorado Civil Rights Division enforces the whole list under C.R.S. § 24-34-502 and dual-files most housing cases with HUD.
Two of those classes come up constantly in seasonal rentals.
Familial status covers households with a child under 18 and applicants who are pregnant or securing custody. Ski town listings say "adults only" more often than they should. That phrasing is a violation whether or not a family ever applies.
Source of income has been protected in Colorado since January 1, 2021 under HB20-1332. You can't turn someone down because their money arrives as a housing voucher, disability benefits, savings, or a trust rather than a paycheck.
Before leaning on an exemption you read about somewhere, note that CCRD says Colorado's law covers properties federal law doesn't, including owner-occupied buildings with four or fewer units. The exemptions that do exist in Colorado are narrow and fact-specific, which makes them a question for CCRD or a Colorado attorney rather than for a blog post.
What Colorado actually lets you screen on
The Rental Application Fairness Act, C.R.S. § 38-12-904, sets limits that apply on top of fair housing law:
- Rental and credit history: nothing older than seven years.
- Criminal history: arrest records are off the table entirely, from any point in time. So are convictions more than five years old, with carve-outs for certain methamphetamine manufacturing and distribution offenses, offenses requiring sex offender registration, and homicide and stalking offenses.
- Income: you can't require an applicant to earn more than 200% of the annual rent, or ask about the amount beyond confirming they clear that bar. The "three times the rent" standard common in other states isn't available in Colorado. Double the rent is the ceiling.
- Portable screening reports: if an applicant brings one less than 30 days old, you have to accept it and can't charge for using it. A narrow exemption applies if you take only one application fee at a time and refund it within 20 days.
- Denials: written, with the reasons stated, in good faith within 20 calendar days, plus a copy of the consumer report if you pulled one.
Seasonal applicants tend to look thin on paper for reasons unrelated to risk. A 23-year-old lift op with a short credit file, a job that starts in late November, and a deposit funded by a summer of guiding is a normal Summit County tenant, not a red flag. The screening that holds up is the boring kind: verified income against the 200% ceiling, prior landlord references, the same questions in the same order for every applicant, and notes kept in a file.
Listing copy is where most of it goes wrong
The advertising rules are wider than the rest of the Act. Under 24 CFR § 100.75, they cover every written or spoken statement about the unit, including applications, flyers, signs, and a text message back to an applicant, and they apply even to owners who would otherwise be exempt.
Four lines that fail, and why:
- "Perfect for young professionals." Signals a preference against households with children. Familial status.
- "Students only" or "single seasonal workers, no families." The same problem, stated outright.
- "Employed applicants only" or "no vouchers." Source of income under Colorado law.
- "Quiet Christian household." Creed and religion.
Describe the unit and the terms instead of the tenant: bedrooms, bath, lease dates, rent, parking, pet policy, utilities. Housing listings submitted to TurnSeasons run through a Fair Housing text check before they publish, but a filter is a backstop, not a substitute for writing the ad correctly.
Occupancy limits are the seasonal trap
Seasonal workers double and triple up, and the landlord instinct is to cap the head count. Two rules shape how you can do that.
HB24-1007, effective July 1, 2024, bars Colorado local governments from limiting how many people live together based on familial relationship. Towns keep the authority to set limits grounded in demonstrated health and safety standards, like building and fire code or state wastewater and water quality standards, or in affordable housing program guidelines. That constrains the town, not your lease, but it also removes the "the town only allows three unrelated people" justification that a lot of older leases relied on.
Your own cap still has to be reasonable. HUD's Keating memorandum treats two people per bedroom as generally reasonable while weighing unit size, room size, configuration, the ages of any children, and applicable local codes. What draws complaints is uneven application: renting a two-bedroom to four unrelated lift ops, then telling a couple with two kids the same unit is too small.
Program rules aren't the same as your preferences
Breckenridge and unincorporated Summit County run Lease to Locals, which pays owners of licensed short-term rentals to sign longer leases with local workers. Its published terms require a lease of at least five months and tenants working at least 30 hours a week for an employer based in and serving Summit County, with incentives up to $20,000 per property. A five-month minimum lines up almost exactly with the winter season, which is why the program gets attention from owners weighing a season lease against another winter of nightly turnovers.
Those employment criteria come from the program. Inventing a similar rule on your own is a different situation, because a blanket "must have a local job" standard can collide with Colorado's source of income protection. That one is worth running past the program administrator or a Colorado attorney before it goes in your listing.
The habit that protects you is unglamorous: write your criteria down before you advertise, apply them in the order applications arrive, and keep the paper. None of this is legal advice, and CCRD is the place to check the current rules or ask about a situation that doesn't fit the pattern.
If you're ready to put a unit in front of workers arriving for the season, you can list a seasonal rental on TurnSeasons or see what's already posted across the TurnSeasons city pages.