How does a Colorado HOA board register or renew with the Division of Real Estate?

By OurHOA · General information · Revised October 27, 2026

How a Colorado HOA board registers or renews with the Division of Real Estate: the two accounts, fees, the new collection counts, and what a lapse does to liens.

Part of the HOA board handbook: running the board.

The short answer

Every unit owners' association in Colorado has to register with the Division of Real Estate once a year under C.R.S. 38-33.3-401. The board names one person as the designated agent, that person keeps a login on the Division's licensing portal, and each year they confirm the association's details, report four collection numbers and pay a small fee. Skip it and the association loses the right to file or enforce an assessment lien until it registers again. This filing is separate from the periodic report your nonprofit corporation files with the Secretary of State, and being current on one says nothing about the other. Put the renewal on the board calendar with a named owner, because registrations tend to lapse when the one volunteer who knew the password moves away. Rules vary with your governing documents, and this guide is general education, not legal advice.

Who has to register and what it costs

The statute covers every unit owners' association. The HOA Information and Resource Center reads that to include condominiums, planned communities, cooperatives, property owners' associations and road associations. It also says some older communities are not required to register, and it publishes a decision tree for boards to work through with their lawyer. If you are unsure which group you fall in, register anyway. For an association with little or no revenue it costs nothing. The fee is set by the Division. Its registration page lists $45 for a first registration and $44 for a renewal, and all fees are non-refundable. An older Division post still shows $30 and $33, so check the registration page before you budget. Under 38-33.3-401(2)(b) an association pays no fee, but still registers, if its annual revenue is $5,000 or less, or if it has no power to assess and no revenue. The Division counts gross revenue, before expenses. A 40-home community charging $300 a year collects $12,000 and pays the fee. A registration is good for one year. The statute also says any change to the association's name, agent, addresses, email, website, phone or unit count must be updated within 90 days.

Set up the two accounts once

The portal at apps2.colorado.gov/dre/licensing uses two accounts, and boards trip over the difference. The designated agent account belongs to a person. It is free, it has no prerequisites, and it carries a number that starts with DA. Register as an individual, verify the email (it comes from [email protected] and often lands in spam), then apply for the Designated Agent license under Homeowners Association. The confirmation page will say no payment is due. The HOA account belongs to the association. Register as a business, verify the email, then apply for the Home Owners Association license. Have this ready before you start: the legal name exactly as the Secretary of State shows it, the Secretary of State ID number and date of incorporation, the entity type, the community type, the number of units, the declaration information, whether you are self-managed, the designated agent's contact details, and a secondary contact. The portal asks you to attach the designated agent by searching their DA number, then to complete an attestation and pay if a fee applies. Write down the HOA number it gives you. Use an association email address for the HOA account, not someone's personal inbox. If a past board registered and nobody has the login, request an Online Registration Number from the HOA Center. The form is linked from the registration page.

Keep the four collection counts as you go

HB25-1043 added subsection (3.2) to 38-33.3-401, effective October 1, 2025. Every registration now has to report, for the 12 months before it is filed: 1. How many owners were six or more calendar months behind on a regular or special assessment at any point. 2. How many owners the association or its collector got a judgment against for unpaid assessments, fees or attorney fees. 3. How many payment plans the association entered under 38-33.3-316.3. 4. How many foreclosure actions it filed under 38-33.3-316. A treasurer who tries to rebuild these from bank statements the night before the deadline will get them wrong. Keep a one-page log instead. Each time an account crosses six months, a plan is signed, or the attorney reports a judgment or a foreclosure filing, add a line with the date and the lot. At renewal you count the lines. The Division says lawmakers use this data when they weigh changes to the law, so report what actually happened, zeros included. Our guide on the past-due dues timeline for boards covers the notices and votes that come before any of these steps in Colorado.

Renewing each year

The HOA Center emails a renewal notice about one month before the registration expires. It goes to the contact on file, which is why that contact matters more than anything else in the account. To renew, the designated agent logs into the HOA account, opens Online services, chooses Renew/Reinstate Your License, and clicks Start. They work through the questionnaire, confirming the unit count, management type, revenue band and the four collection counts. Then they click Add to Invoice and Pay Invoice. The portal takes a check or a credit card. Once the Division accepts the information and the fee, the registration is valid, and under subsection (4) the registration number and the Division's confirmation are evidence that it is. Save a PDF of the confirmation in the association's records. Here is a sample year for an association whose registration expires March 31. January board meeting: the secretary looks the association up in the Division's Licensee Lookup (use the Business Name/DBA field) and checks the expiration date, agent and email. Early March: the renewal email arrives and the treasurer pulls the collection log. Mid-March: the designated agent renews and pays. Next board meeting: the confirmation goes in the minutes. Anything that changes mid-year gets its own update within 90 days. A new designated agent goes through Add / Remove Designated Agent. Addresses, revenue and management changes go through Update HOA License Information. Neither costs anything.

If the registration has lapsed

Under 38-33.3-401(3), an association that never registered, or whose registration expired, cannot impose or enforce an assessment lien under 38-33.3-316. It also cannot pursue the actions and remedies 38-33.3-123 would otherwise give it. That covers collection suits and covenant enforcement. The statute softens this in three ways. A lien recorded while the association was registered is not wiped out by a later lapse. A pending enforcement case on that lien is paused, and its time limits stop running, until the association registers again. And a valid registration revives the suspended rights with no penalty. So the fix is quick, but the order matters. If you find a lapse, stop sending new accounts to the attorney or collector and tell them in writing. Renew through the portal the same week. Once you have the confirmation, send it to the attorney and resume. If a case is already in court, let the attorney decide what to file, because the other side may raise the lapse. Then find out why it happened, which is often a dead email address or a departed agent, and fix that too.

A motion and a minute entry you can copy

Name the agent by vote so the authority survives board turnover: "I move that the board designate [name], [office], as the association's designated agent for registration with the Colorado Division of Real Estate under C.R.S. 38-33.3-401, with authority to register, renew and update the registration and to pay the registration fee from the operating account; that [name] be listed as the secondary contact; and that the HOA account use the association email address [address]." After each renewal, add a line like this to the minutes: "The secretary reported that the association's registration with the Division of Real Estate, number HOA.[number], was renewed on [date] and is valid through [date]. Reported for the prior 12 months: [x] owners six or more months delinquent, [x] judgments, [x] payment plans, [x] foreclosure actions. Fee paid: $[amount]. Confirmation filed in the association records."

Mistakes boards make, and other states

The designated agent is a volunteer who sold their house, and the renewal email has gone to a dead address ever since. Fix it by naming the agent by office, giving the account an association email, and checking the Licensee Lookup every January. The legal name on the registration does not match the Secretary of State record because someone typed the neighborhood's everyday name. The statute asks for the name as the Secretary of State shows it. The treasurer reports net income instead of gross revenue and wrongly claims the fee exemption. A few dollars saved is not worth a registration someone can later question. The board treats the Secretary of State periodic report and the Division registration as one filing. They are two, with different dates and logins. Our guide on changing the registered agent and mailing address lists every office to update when the people change. Other states run different systems. In Texas the comparable filing is the management certificate: a property owners' association must record a management certificate under Property Code 209.004 and file it electronically with the Texas Real Estate Commission within seven days of recording, and it must file an amended certificate when any listed information changes. Check what your own state requires, because a missed filing often surfaces at the worst moment, in the middle of a collection.

Sources

These guides are general education for HOA boards and residents, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Rules vary by state and by your community's governing documents - check with a professional for your situation.

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