DENVER – A two-story house that once sheltered a family of six sits empty on a corner lot in Green Valley Ranch as years of legal wrangling over homeowners association fines, metro district foreclosures and Denver’s affordable housing covenants continue to move through Colorado’s judicial system.
A year after a Denver District Court judge ruled that Monica Villela’s home never should have been sold to Welcome to Realty LLC in a foreclosure auction, the investor who bought the house now wants the Colorado Supreme Court to intervene. That investor, Chrisophe Attard, is challenging the lower court’s ruling that the city’s inclusionary housing ordinance trumps a lien placed on the house by a homeowners association or metro district.
Earlier this year, the Colorado Court of Appeals sided with Denver, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, as the city attempts to protect its housing ordinance. The law allows price caps on certain homes to keep them affordable, then restricts who can buy them, based on income…