One Building, Six Owners, One Defective Stucco System: How Do You Coordinate Repairs?

Colorado’s new right-of-access statute may help address one of the unintended consequences of individually owned townhome developments, but it does not solve every problem associated with repairing interconnected building systems.

The Problem: Six Homes, One Building Envelope

Consider a hypothetical six-unit townhome building in Colorado.  Each residence is individually owned.  There is no homeowners association responsible for maintaining the building’s exterior, no commonly owned building envelope, and no association empowered to pursue construction defect claims on behalf of all six homeowners.  Instead, the development relies on individual ownership, recorded easements, and party wall agreements to govern relationships among neighboring owners.

Although the residences are separately owned, they share a continuous exterior stucco system, including interconnected flashing, waterproofing, and architectural transitions.

One homeowner discovers water intrusion and retains an expert who identifies defects in the stucco installation.  The expert recommends removing and replacing the stucco on the homeowner’s residence.  However, because the exterior cladding and waterproofing systems are interconnected, the proposed repair may require work extending beyond the boundaries of that homeowner’s property.

The homeowner brings a construction defect lawsuit against the general contractor.  The other five homeowners do not participate.  The contractor now faces a problem.

The plaintiff generally cannot recover damages for injuries to property owned exclusively by neighboring homeowners.  Nor can the plaintiff compel those neighbors to assert construction defect claims, participate in a coordinated repair, or contribute their own money toward replacing defective stucco.

Meanwhile, the contractor’s experts conclude that replacing the stucco on only the plaintiff’s residence may not provide a complete or durable repair.  Terminating the new stucco at the property lines could introduce additional waterproofing transitions, compromise the continuity of the building envelope, or leave defective components immediately adjacent to the repaired area.

The contractor seeks to join the neighboring homeowners in the lawsuit, arguing that their participation is necessary to resolve the dispute fairly and avoid potentially overlapping or inconsistent repair obligations.

The court denies joinder, concluding that the individual homeowner’s claims can be adjudicated without the neighboring owners.  The plaintiff can pursue damages for the defects affecting the plaintiff’s residence, even though accomplishing the proposed repairs may require cooperation from others.

The litigation can proceed.  The homeowner may recover damages.

But how does anyone actually repair the building?

This hypothetical illustrates an increasingly frequent problem in Colorado construction defect litigation: The legal right to recover damages for defective construction does not necessarily translate into the practical ability to accomplish the repairs.

The Unintended Consequences of HOA-Free Townhome Developments

In response to the risks associated with association-wide construction defect litigation, some Colorado developers have structured attached residential projects without traditional homeowners associations or commonly owned building components.

Instead of creating a common interest community in which an association has responsibility for shared building systems, developers may use individually platted lots, party wall agreements, easements, and other recorded instruments to allocate ownership and maintenance obligations among individual homeowners.

These structures can serve legitimate business and risk-management objectives.  In particular, they may limit the circumstances in which a single association can pursue construction defect claims affecting an entire development, leaving individual homeowners to pursue claims involving their respective properties.

But separating ownership does not necessarily separate the building.

Six individually owned townhomes may still share roofing systems, stucco assemblies, flashing details, waterproofing membranes, drainage components, or structural systems.  Defects in those components do not necessarily respect property lines.

And while the governing documents may allocate responsibility for maintaining or repairing particular portions of the building, they may not adequately address what happens when a comprehensive repair requires work affecting multiple separately owned properties.

The result can be a disconnect between legal ownership and construction realities.

A building may be divided into six separate legal interests while remaining a single, physically interconnected construction project.

That distinction becomes particularly important when construction defect claims arise.

The Difference Between Recovering Damages and Accomplishing Repairs

Under Colorado’s Construction Defect Action Reform Act (“CDARA”), damages for defective construction are subject to statutory limitations, including the reasonable cost of repairing the alleged defects, subject to the applicable measure of actual damages.  See C.R.S. §§ 13-20-802.5 and 13-20-804.

In a development with individually owned residences, each homeowner’s right to recover damages must be evaluated in light of that homeowner’s ownership interests and legally cognizable losses.

The owner of Unit 3 generally cannot recover the cost of repairing property belonging exclusively to the owners of Units 2 and 4 simply because repairing those neighboring properties would produce a more comprehensive solution.

Nor can the owner of Unit 3 ordinarily require those neighbors to undertake repairs at their own expense merely because an expert believes that coordinated work would be preferable.  This creates several practical complications.

First, a contractor may face claims seeking the cost of a partial repair that its experts believe is technically inadequate or potentially damaging to adjoining properties.

Second, the contractor may face subsequent claims from neighboring owners involving the same interconnected building system, creating the possibility of overlapping repair costs or inconsistent expert opinions concerning the appropriate scope of remediation.

Third, even if the individual homeowner recovers damages sufficient to perform the proposed repairs, the homeowner may be unable to accomplish that work without obtaining permission to enter or disturb neighboring properties.

Colorado Rule of Civil Procedure 19 addresses the joinder of persons whose participation is necessary to adjudicate a dispute.  But the existence of physically interconnected building systems does not automatically require every affected homeowner to participate in litigation brought by one owner.

A tribunal may conclude that complete relief can be afforded between the existing parties, even when the practical implementation of repairs will require coordination with neighboring owners.  That distinction is critical.

A court or arbitrator can resolve the dispute between a homeowner and a contractor without necessarily resolving how the resulting repairs will be accomplished.

It is precisely this gap between litigation and remediation that makes Colorado’s new right-of-access statute noteworthy.

Colorado’s New Right-of-Access Statute

Effective August 12, 2026, Colorado enacted C.R.S. § 13-20-1304, establishing a procedure through which certain residential property owners may obtain court-ordered access to adjoining property when necessary to accomplish repairs or maintenance.

Importantly for attached residential developments, the statute defines a qualifying single-family residence to include not only a separate residential building but also an individual residence within a row of residences joined by common sidewalls.

Thus, the statute expressly contemplates circumstances involving townhomes and similar attached residences.

Under the new law, a qualifying homeowner may petition the district court for access to adjoining property when:

1. The homeowner seeks to perform repairs or maintenance on the homeowner’s property;
2. The work cannot reasonably be accomplished without entering adjoining property; and
3. The adjoining property owner refuses permission.

For purposes of the statute, refusal includes an express denial of access or failure to respond within 60 days after receiving written notice sent by certified mail.

The requesting homeowner must identify the proposed work, explain why access is necessary, and demonstrate reasonable efforts to obtain permission.

The statute encourages alternative dispute resolution, including mediation, before filing an action.

If the court determines that access is necessary and will not negatively affect an easement on the adjoining property, it must grant such access as it deems necessary to permit the repairs or maintenance.

The court must establish the conditions and duration of access and may require advance notice, reasonable compensation, insurance, a bond, or other appropriate protections.

The statute excludes adjoining property owned or controlled by governmental entities.

For homeowners attempting to repair defects in attached residences, this new procedure may provide a valuable remedy when neighboring owners refuse to cooperate with reasonable access requests.

But its limitations are equally important.

The Right to Access Is Not Necessarily the Right to Repair

Return to our hypothetical six-unit townhome building.

Suppose the owner of Unit 3 recovers damages for defective stucco and retains a contractor to perform the repairs.

To accomplish the work, the contractor needs to erect scaffolding on the property belonging to Unit 2. The owner of Unit 2 refuses permission.

Section 13-20-1304 may provide a mechanism for the owner of Unit 3 to obtain court-ordered access to the neighboring property, subject to the statute’s requirements.

But suppose the problem is more complicated.

The defective stucco system extends continuously across Units 2, 3, and 4. The repair contractor determines that properly integrating the new waterproofing and flashing requires removing portions of the stucco on the neighboring residences.

The owners of Units 2 and 4 refuse to participate.  They do not want their stucco removed, do not agree that repairs are necessary, and have no intention of contributing financially to the project.

What happens then?

The statute expressly authorizes access to adjoining property for the purpose of repairing or maintaining the requesting owner’s property.  It does not expressly authorize one homeowner to compel another to repair that neighbor’s residence or pay for a coordinated remediation project.

Nor does it necessarily authorize alterations to neighboring property merely because those alterations would facilitate a more comprehensive repair.

Those questions may depend on the nature of the proposed work, ownership of the affected components, applicable easements, party wall agreements, and other property rights.  The distinction is fundamental.

The right to enter neighboring property to accomplish repairs is not necessarily the right to perform repairs to the neighboring property itself.

And even where access can be obtained, the statute does not establish a general mechanism for allocating the cost of an integrated repair among multiple homeowners.

Consequently, the new law may solve the access problem without solving the participation or funding problems.

The Problem Extends Beyond Stucco

Although our hypothetical involves defective stucco, the same issue can arise with numerous other building systems.

A roof may extend continuously across multiple townhomes, making replacement of an isolated section technically difficult or requiring special transitions that would not exist in a comprehensive replacement.

Defective siding or exterior cladding may require coordinated removal and replacement to maintain the integrity of the weather-resistive barrier.

Improperly installed flashing or waterproofing may cross property boundaries, with water entering one residence through defects located at or near an adjoining residence.

Drainage systems may serve multiple properties, requiring coordinated work to address grading, collection, or discharge problems.

And shared structural components, including foundations and party walls, may present even greater complications when a proposed repair to one residence could affect neighboring properties.

In each circumstance, the underlying problem is similar: individual property ownership and individual construction defect claims may not align with the physical scope of necessary repairs.

What Should Builders, Contractors, and Insurers Take Away?

For builders and developers considering attached residential projects without traditional homeowners associations, the lesson is not necessarily that such ownership structures should be avoided.

Rather, the recorded documents should be evaluated with an eye toward what happens when something goes wrong.

Party wall agreements, easements, and other governing instruments should address more than routine maintenance. Depending on the development, they may need to establish enforceable rights and procedures concerning access, investigation, coordinated repairs, allocation of costs, restoration of affected property, and resolution of disputes among owners.

A recorded right of access may be valuable, but it may not be sufficient if the underlying problem requires a coordinated repair to an interconnected building system.

For contractors and insurers defending or resolving construction defect claims, the same considerations should inform repair proposals and settlement negotiations.

A proposed repair should be evaluated not only for its engineering adequacy and cost, but also for whether it can legally and practically be accomplished.

If the work requires cooperation from nonclaimant homeowners, that issue should be identified before a repair-based settlement is finalized.

Likewise, when an individual claimant seeks damages based on a repair affecting interconnected building components, the parties should carefully evaluate whether the proposed scope is technically appropriate, whether it can be performed independently, and whether it implicates the property rights of neighboring owners.

A damages award does not itself confer the right to enter, alter, or repair property belonging to someone who was not a party to the litigation.

Conclusion: One Building Does Not Necessarily Mean One Legal Claim, or One Workable Repair

Colorado’s new C.R.S. § 13-20-1304 provides an additional legal tool for homeowners who need access to adjoining property to accomplish necessary repairs.

For attached residential developments, that tool may prove particularly useful.

But the statute does not eliminate the fundamental challenges created when multiple owners hold separate legal interests in physically interconnected building systems.

An individual homeowner may have the right to pursue construction defect damages without joining neighboring owners. The homeowner may even recover the reasonable cost of repairing defects affecting the homeowner’s property.

Yet the homeowner may still be unable to accomplish a comprehensive repair without the cooperation, consent, or financial participation of neighboring owners.

The new statute may help homeowners get onto neighboring property. It does not necessarily give them the right to repair their neighbors’ homes or require their neighbors to share the cost.

For developers, builders, contractors, insurers, and homeowners, that distinction deserves attention long before a construction defect dispute arises.

After all, a building may have six separate owners, six separate property interests, and six separate potential construction defect claims. But that does not mean its defective building systems can be repaired six different ways.