# ESA Letter in Aurora, CO: One City, Two County Courthouses

> Aurora sits in both Arapahoe and Adams counties, so free tenant help splits two ways. What Colorado's August 12, 2026 assistance animal law changes here.

- Source: https://supportanimal.com/blog/colorado-emotional-support-animal/aurora/
- Publisher: Support Animal (supportanimal.com)
- Updated: 2026-08-07
- License note: informational content; not legal or medical advice.

## Key facts

- Population: 403,130
- Households renting: 37.6%
- Typical pet deposit (as a pet): Capped at $300
- Typical pet rent (as a pet): Capped at $35/mo
- Breed/weight limits common: yes
- Pet fees, deposits, and breed limits with a valid ESA letter: none (FHA reasonable accommodation)

## A city split between two county courthouses

Aurora is one city with two county lines running through it. Part of it
falls in Arapahoe County and part in Adams County, and that single fact
decides which free eviction clinic is yours. Colorado Legal Services holds
the Arapahoe County clinic on Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.,
at 1790 West Littleton Blvd in Littleton. The Adams County clinic runs
Wednesday and Friday, 8 to 11 a.m., at 1100 Judicial Center Drive in
Brighton.

Two Aurora renters can live a short drive apart and be sent to different
buildings on different mornings. Clinic help is available only at the
courthouse named on your summons, and only on your court date, so the
summons settles it. Case work for the whole area runs out of the Colorado
Legal Services office at 1560 Broadway, Suite 1100, on 303-837-1313,
covering Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, Elbert, Gilpin and
Jefferson counties.

## Aurora has no fair housing office of its own

There is no city desk in Aurora that takes a housing discrimination
complaint. It goes to the Colorado Civil Rights Division, part of the
Department of Regulatory Agencies, and C.R.S. § 24-34-504(1) bars a housing
charge that is not filed within one year of the practice complained of. The
Division states it cannot extend that year for any reason, however good.

One step catches people out. Sending intake through the Division's
CaseConnect system does not file anything. The charge is drafted and signed
after intake, so a tenant who starts in month eleven can still lose the
claim. Because the Division is a HUD-certified Fair Housing Assistance
Program agency, most housing matters end up carrying a state case number and
a federal one together. Its number is 303-894-2997, with a Spanish line on
720-432-4294. The Denver Metro Fair Housing Center answers fair housing
questions across the metro area, Aurora included.

## What Aurora's rental numbers actually say

Aurora has 145,310 occupied homes, of which 54,627 are rented. That is a
37.6% renter share against 33.8% statewide, on the 2020-2024 American
Community Survey five-year estimate, in a city of 403,130 people on the
Census Bureau's Vintage 2024 estimate.

Size of landlord makes no difference to the answer. Federal law leaves
owner-occupied buildings of four units or fewer outside its reach; Colorado's
disability rules do not. The narrow carve-out for buildings of three units or
fewer at C.R.S. § 24-34-502(1.5)(a) applies only to the source-of-income
rules. A duplex owner in Aurora owes the same accommodation duty as a
900-unit complex.

## The presumption that arrives on August 12, 2026

House Bill 26-1045 was signed on May 19, 2026 and takes effect on August 12,
2026. Its legislative declaration says the purpose is to restore rescinded
federal guidance by codifying it in state law.

Three pieces of it matter most. C.R.S. § 24-34-301(2.5) draws the category
wide: an animal qualifies where it gives therapeutic emotional support to a
person with a disability, or does work for them, performs tasks, or assists
them. An emotional support animal sits inside that category, not outside it.
C.R.S. § 24-34-502.2(2)(b)(II)(A) presumes that allowing an assistance
animal in housing is a reasonable accommodation.
C.R.S. § 24-34-502.2(2)(b)(II)(B) presumes a complete prohibition on
assistance animals discriminatory.

C.R.S. § 24-34-502(1)(a)(III) shuts down the fear argument. An animal
simply living in the unit proves no danger to health or safety, and it
raises no presumption that other people's property will suffer substantial
physical damage. A landlord may still raise documented, specific conduct by
the animal.

## Ask before the animal arrives

The presumption comes with a condition attached: it holds where the housing
provider has been given an opportunity to engage in an interactive
accommodation process. Act on that sentence.

Make the request in writing, and make it before the animal moves in.
The thing you want bent is a rule, policy, practice or service, and
C.R.S. § 24-34-501(3.5) names the bending of it a reasonable accommodation:
one necessary for a person with a disability to have equal opportunity to use
and enjoy housing, public and common-use spaces included: the shared halls,
lobbies and grounds of an apartment community. Raising the law after
the animal is already in the unit does not cancel the landlord's duty under
C.R.S. § 24-34-502.2(2)(b), but it does surrender a presumption you were
entitled to.

## Being asked for documents, and who may write them

A request for paperwork is not, by itself, discrimination.
C.R.S. § 24-34-502.2(2)(b)(II)(C) says a provider does not discriminate
solely by asking for reasonable documentation of the disability or of the
disability-related need, or by running a good faith interactive process,
unless the disability or the need is obvious. The two subjects named are
also the boundary. Breed, weight and training sit outside them, and so does
any online registry, because none exists and no Colorado agency issues one.

Colorado is equally particular about the author.
C.R.S. § 12-245-229(3)(a) requires a mental health licensee (psychologist,
counsellor, social worker, marriage and family therapist), to have met the
patient in person. C.R.S. § 12-240-144(3)(a) permits a physician to meet the
patient in person or by telemedicine. Either must be sufficiently familiar
with you and legally and professionally qualified, and must produce a
written finding on disability and a separate written finding on the
disability-related need. Disability covers mental impairment (any
behavioural, mental or psychological disorder), under
C.R.S. § 24-34-501(1.3).

## Pet charges, breed lists, and the insurance line

C.R.S. § 38-12-106 has capped pet charges since January 1, 2024. An
additional pet deposit stops at three hundred dollars and must be
refundable. Additional pet rent stops at thirty-five dollars a month or one
and a half percent of the monthly rent, whichever of the two is larger, so
the percentage becomes the operative ceiling once rent climbs past roughly
two thousand three hundred dollars.

Those ceilings describe pets. An approved assistance animal is not a pet,
and dropping the charge is the sort of exception to a policy that
§ 24-34-501(3.5) is written for, so the right figure for both is nothing.

Breed lists get a separate answer. When an Aurora leasing office says its
insurer will not allow the dog, C.R.S. § 10-4-110.8(16) has since
January 1, 2024 barred an insurer from refusing or surcharging a
homeowner's or dwelling fire policy over a dog's breed, and barred it from
asking about breed at all beyond whether the dog has been declared
dangerous.

## The deposit at the end of the tenancy

C.R.S. § 38-12-103, rewritten by House Bill 25-1249 with effect from
January 1, 2026, governs move-out. The deposit returns within thirty days,
or up to sixty where the lease says so, and money may be held back only for
unpaid rent, unpaid utilities, other lawful charges the lease names, and
repair of damage beyond normal wear and tear that did not already exist when
you arrived.

The burden of proof rests on the landlord. Both on whether the withholding
was wrongful and on the amount of the actual damages. Keeping 125% or more
of actual damages is presumed to exceed them unreasonably. Carpet may not be
treated as substantially and irreparably damaged if it was not replaced with
new carpet in the preceding ten years, and paint follows a parallel rule.
Under C.R.S. § 38-12-102(4), uncleanliness now counts as normal wear and
tear unless the unit is substantially less clean than at the start of the
lease.

Either party may request a walk-through inspection under § 38-12-103(1.5),
and a written request obliges the landlord to hand over photographs,
inspection reports, receipts, invoices or estimates within fourteen days
under § 38-12-103(8). Wrongful retention costs treble damages plus attorney
fees and costs, after seven days' written notice of intent to sue.

## Misrepresentation, and the defence written beside it

C.R.S. § 18-13-107.3 makes it an offence to intentionally misrepresent an
entitlement to an assistance animal in order to obtain a housing
accommodation. One element is easy to miss: the person must already have
been given a written or verbal warning. It has been a class 2 civil
infraction since March 1, 2022, carrying a twenty-five dollar fine for a
first offence, fifty to two hundred for a second, and one hundred to five
hundred after that.

The same statute supplies the answer. A written finding made under
C.R.S. § 12-240-144(1)(a) or § 12-245-229(1)(a) is an affirmative defence,
and the absence of one is expressly not proof of the offence. A current
letter from a licensed professional who genuinely assessed you is the
strongest thing an Aurora renter can hold, and where that professional is a
therapist rather than a physician, the assessment has to have happened in
person.

Colorado has enforced a statewide fair housing law since 1959, the first in
the nation and nine years ahead of the federal Fair Housing Act. From
August 12, 2026 it hands Aurora renters a presumption to argue from rather
than a case to build from scratch.

## What Aurora landlords can and cannot do

**Cannot:**
- Cannot operate a complete prohibition on assistance animals, which C.R.S. § 24-34-502.2(2)(b)(II)(B) presumes to be discriminatory from August 12, 2026
- Cannot treat the mere presence of an assistance animal as a direct threat to health or safety, or presume it will cause substantial physical damage to the property of others, under C.R.S. § 24-34-502(1)(a)(III)
- Cannot refuse to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services where necessary to afford a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, under C.R.S. § 24-34-502.2(2)(b)
- Cannot rely on the small-landlord and owner-occupied exemptions that exist under federal law, because Colorado's disability provisions carry no equivalent, the three-or-fewer-units carve-out at C.R.S. § 24-34-502(1.5)(a) applies only to the source-of-income rules
- Cannot charge a pet deposit or pet rent for an approved assistance animal, because waiving that charge is an exception to a policy within the definition of reasonable accommodation at C.R.S. § 24-34-501(3.5)
- Cannot take more than a three-hundred-dollar refundable pet deposit, or more than thirty-five dollars a month or one and one-half percent of rent, whichever is greater, for an ordinary pet under C.R.S. § 38-12-106
- Cannot justify a breed restriction by pointing at its insurer, since C.R.S. § 10-4-110.8(16) bars an insurer from pricing or refusing a policy on dog breed and from asking about breed at all
- Cannot keep any part of a deposit without a written statement of the exact reasons within thirty days, and cannot charge for carpet replacement across a unit where the carpet was not replaced within the previous ten years, under C.R.S. § 38-12-103
- Cannot place a lien on the animal itself for unpaid rent, under C.R.S. § 38-20-102(3)(a)

**Can:**
- May request reasonable documentation supporting the claim of disability or the disability-related need, and may run a good faith interactive process, without that being discrimination, unless the disability or the need is obvious, under C.R.S. § 24-34-502.2(2)(b)(II)(C)
- May act on documented, specific conduct of the animal that poses a direct threat to health or safety or causes substantial physical damage to property
- May hold a tenant responsible for damage the animal actually causes, provided it exceeds normal wear and tear, did not preexist the tenancy, and is substantiated with the photographs, invoices or estimates C.R.S. § 38-12-103(8) requires on request
- May ask for a walk-through inspection at the end of the tenancy, as may the tenant, under C.R.S. § 38-12-103(1.5)

## How to get an ESA letter in Aurora

1. **Check that you qualify**, Answer a short screening about how your condition affects daily life in Aurora. No diagnosis paperwork needed up front. (About 5 minutes: free)
2. **Connect with a licensed professional**, You are matched with a provider licensed for Colorado clients who reviews your situation in a telehealth evaluation. (Telehealth evaluation)
3. **Complete your evaluation**, The professional evaluates whether an emotional support animal alleviates symptoms of a condition recognized in the DSM-5. Honest evaluations, not everyone qualifies. (Most of Our Applicants Qualify)
4. **Receive your signed letter**, Your letter arrives on the professional's letterhead with their license number: the documentation Colorado landlords may lawfully request. (Typically within days of approval)
5. **Send it to your landlord**, Submit the letter with a short reasonable-accommodation request. Pet fees, pet deposits, and breed limits no longer apply to your animal in Aurora. (Protection under FHA + state law)

## Conditions that can qualify for an ESA

No fixed government list exists. A licensed professional evaluates whether an animal alleviates symptoms of a DSM-5-recognized condition, commonly:

- Generalized anxiety disorder
- Major depressive disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Panic disorder
- Social anxiety disorder
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
- Bipolar disorder
- Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
- Phobias with housing impact
- Chronic stress affecting daily function

## Housing help in Aurora

- [Colorado Civil Rights Division, Housing Discrimination](https://ccrd.colorado.gov/housing-discrimination) (state agency)
- [Denver Metro Fair Housing Center](https://www.dmfhc.org/) (fair housing)
- [Housing Authority of the City of Aurora](https://www.aurorahousing.org/) (housing authority)
- [Colorado Legal Services](https://www.coloradolegalservices.org/get-help/) (legal aid)

## Frequently asked questions

### I live in Aurora and got an eviction summons. Which free clinic is mine?

It depends which county line your address falls behind, because Aurora sits in both Arapahoe and Adams. Colorado Legal Services runs the Arapahoe County eviction clinic on Tuesday and Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at 1790 West Littleton Blvd in Littleton, and the Adams County clinic on Wednesday and Friday, 8 to 11 a.m., at 1100 Judicial Center Drive in Brighton. Help at either is offered only at the courthouse named on your summons and only on your court date, so read the summons rather than guessing. General case work for the area runs from the Denver office at 1560 Broadway, Suite 1100, on 303-837-1313, which covers Adams, Arapahoe, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, Elbert, Gilpin and Jefferson counties.

### Does Aurora have its own office for a housing discrimination complaint?

No. The complaint goes to the Colorado Civil Rights Division, part of the Department of Regulatory Agencies, on 303-894-2997 or 720-432-4294 in Spanish. C.R.S. § 24-34-504(1) bars a housing charge filed more than one year after the practice complained of, and the Division says it has no power to extend that deadline. Note that sending intake through the CaseConnect system is not the same as filing a charge. The charge is drafted and signed afterwards. Because the Division is a HUD-certified Fair Housing Assistance Program agency, most housing matters are dual-filed under a state and a federal case number. The Denver Metro Fair Housing Center also takes fair housing questions from Aurora.

### My Aurora landlord owns one small building. Do these rules still reach him?

Yes. Federal fair housing law leaves owner-occupied buildings of four units or fewer outside its reach, but Colorado's disability provisions do not follow it there. The only small-building carve-out in the state statute, at C.R.S. § 24-34-502(1.5)(a), covers buildings of three units or fewer and applies solely to the source-of-income rules. The duty in C.R.S. § 24-34-502.2(2)(b) to make reasonable accommodations where necessary for equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling applies to a duplex owner in Aurora just as it does to a management company.

### Can an Aurora complex charge me pet rent or a pet deposit for my ESA?

Not for an approved assistance animal, which is not a pet. Dropping that charge is the kind of exception to a policy that C.R.S. § 24-34-501(3.5) describes, so the right figure is zero on both. C.R.S. § 38-12-106 sets the numbers for an actual pet instead. An additional deposit tops out at $300 and must come back to you; additional rent tops out at the larger of $35 a month and 1.5% of monthly rent. Because the statute takes the larger of the two, the flat $35 is the operative ceiling on a lower rent and the percentage takes over above roughly $2,333 a month.

### The leasing office says its insurer will not allow my dog's breed. Is that so?

It describes something the insurer is not permitted to do. Since January 1, 2024, C.R.S. § 10-4-110.8(16) has barred an insurer from refusing or surcharging a homeowner's or dwelling fire policy because of a dog's breed or mix of breeds, and barred it from asking about breed at all except whether the dog has been declared dangerous. Separately, from August 12, 2026, C.R.S. § 24-34-502(1)(a)(III) takes presence off the table: an assistance animal being in the unit is not by itself a danger to health or safety, and no presumption of substantial physical damage to other people's property follows from it. A landlord may raise documented, specific conduct by your animal, but not its breed.

### Do I have to register my animal before I ask my Aurora landlord?

There is nothing to register. No federal registry of assistance animals exists and no Colorado agency issues a certificate, so any site selling one is selling paper with no legal effect. What Colorado allows a landlord to ask for is set out in C.R.S. § 24-34-502.2(2)(b)(II)(C): reasonable documentation of the disability or of the disability-related need, and a good faith interactive process, unless the disability or the need is obvious. Those two subjects are also the limit, breed, weight and training fall outside them. The document that carries weight is a written finding from a licensed professional who actually assessed you. Under C.R.S. § 12-245-229(3)(a) a mental health licensee must have met you in person; C.R.S. § 12-240-144(3)(a) lets a physician meet you in person or by telemedicine.

### My Aurora landlord kept the deposit over my animal. What does the law require?

C.R.S. § 38-12-103, as rewritten with effect from January 1, 2026, returns the deposit within thirty days, or up to sixty if the lease says so, and permits retention only for unpaid rent, unpaid utilities, other lawful charges named in the lease, and damage beyond normal wear and tear that did not preexist your tenancy. The landlord carries the burden on both wrongfulness and the amount of actual damages, and keeping 125% or more of those damages is presumed to exceed them unreasonably. A written request forces disclosure of photographs, inspection reports, receipts, invoices or estimates within fourteen days, and a landlord cannot call carpet substantially and irreparably damaged where no new carpet went in during the preceding ten years. Wrongful retention carries treble damages, attorney fees and costs after seven days' written notice of intent to sue.

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Get evaluated by a licensed provider: https://my.supportanimal.com/qualify?sa_source=blog&sa_medium=blog&sa_campaign=esa-guides&sa_content=markdown&ref=blog&sa_term=colorado-emotional-support-animal%2Faurora