It looks like Colorado’s proposed HB09 civil asset forfeiture law, referred to by some as “Carnivorous”, has been postponed indefinitely – which is a probably a good thing if you’re a real estate investor looking for opportunities in the Rocky Mountain State.
This law would lower the hurdle for seizure of real estate properties in all sorts of communities when those properties were suspected of having been used to break the law. Essentially a conviction would no longer be required to “civilly forfeit” a person’s property. Instead, it seems that a “preponderance of evidence” would have been enough.
If passed, such a law could clearly introduce some troubling risk to a real estate investor who might be in less control or more removed from a property they owned since it would imply that for that property to be forfeited/seized, there would no longer need to be a criminal conviction first.
One has to wonder how quickly that type of increase in risk in an investor’s model might cascade to put downward pressure on home prices in general.
Seems like a smart move to pull this one during a housing market that is already fragile enough.
It is really a threat, and make a some downfall to real estate investor and some small business as well. There's nothing we could do about it.
It is really a threat, and make a some downfall to real estate investor and some small business as well. There's nothing we could do about it.