Colorado Commercial Real Estate Loans: Public Trustee & C-PACE

Commercial property loans in Colorado use the same programs as every other state — SBA 504, DSCR loans, bridge loans, bank and life-company permanent loans. What Colorado changes is that the state barely taxes the transaction, while a few home-rule towns tax it heavily; that foreclosure runs through a county officer, the public trustee, with a short court step in the middle; and that energy rules for large buildings — state and Denver — now sit alongside a statewide C-PACE district.

A $200 state fee — and the town may add more

Colorado's documentary fee is charged on the deed when the price is over $500: $0.01 for every $100 of consideration, or 0.01%. The deed of trust that secures the loan pays no documentary fee, and Colorado has no state mortgage recording tax, so the loan itself adds only the county's ordinary recording fee.

Example: a $2,000,000 building bought with a $1,400,000 loan.

• State documentary fee on $2,000,000: $2,000,000 ÷ $100 × $0.01 = $200
• Tax on the $1,400,000 deed of trust: $0
• The same purchase inside the City of Aspen adds the city's transfer taxes, paid by the buyer: 0.5% Wheeler tax on $2,000,000 = $10,000, plus the 1.0% housing tax on the $1,900,000 above the first $100,000 = $19,000 — $29,000

Outside towns like Aspen, that is one of the lightest closing-tax bills of any state guide here — Georgia charges $2,000 to $6,200 on the same example and Florida $21,700 outside Miami-Dade. The exception is local: Aspen shows that a home-rule town can levy its own real estate transfer tax, so for a mountain or resort-area property ask the title company for the local tax before you set the purchase budget. It belongs in the sources and uses, and it is not something a lender will finance.

Public trustee foreclosure, with a court order

A Colorado commercial loan is secured by a deed of trust naming the county public trustee. To foreclose, the lender records a notice of election and demand, and for non-agricultural property the public trustee sets the sale 110 to 125 days later. Before that sale, the lender must get an order authorizing it from a court under C.R.C.P. 120 — a limited hearing, not a full lawsuit, but a sale without the order is invalid.

Two dates matter most to a borrower. The owner can cure the default and stop the sale by filing a notice of intent to cure with the public trustee at least 15 calendar days before the sale date. And since 2008 the owner has no right to redeem after the sale; only junior lienors whose liens were recorded before the notice of election and demand can redeem, by filing within eight business days. In practice the cure window is the borrower's last clean chance, which makes Colorado closer to Texas than to a court-run state. If a refinance or sale is the way out, start well before the notice is recorded. On any loan, read the personal guarantee and, on a non-recourse loan, the carve-outs that would turn on recourse.

C-PACE and building energy rules

Colorado's C-PACE program is run by the Colorado New Energy Improvement District, a statewide district created under C.R.S. § 32-20-101 et seq. A county joins by resolution of its board of commissioners, and only property in a participating county qualifies. The financing is repaid through a voluntary assessment on the property tax bill rather than a separate loan; HB23-1005, signed March 8, 2023, added resiliency and water efficiency improvements to the energy work it can fund. C-PACE Desk, a BestLoanUSA site, tracks Colorado's C-PACE status.

The state also requires owners of commercial, multifamily and public buildings of 50,000 square feet or more to report whole-building energy use to the Colorado Energy Office every year by June 1 (HB21-1286, Building Performance Colorado), toward sector-wide emission cuts of 7% by 2026 and 20% by 2030. Denver goes further: under Energize Denver, buildings of 25,000 square feet or more report every year and must meet energy-use targets in 2024, 2027 and 2030. For a lender, that data is part of the building's story — a property behind its targets has upgrade costs ahead, and C-PACE is one way to pay for them. Bring your existing mortgage lender in early, since C-PACE assessments sit on the tax bill.

Where to start

Choose the program — SBA 504 for an owner-occupied building, a DSCR loan or permanent loan for an income property, a bridge loan for a transition — and check the town for a local transfer tax before you set the down payment. Size the loan with the commercial mortgage calculator. For financing that isn't tied to real estate, the Colorado business loan guide covers SBA offices and state programs.

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Sources: C.R.S. § 39-13-102 and Colorado county clerk and recorder fee schedules (documentary fee); C.R.S. §§ 38-38-104, 38-38-105, 38-38-108, 38-38-302 and C.R.C.P. 120, with Larimer and Adams County Public Trustee guidance; C.R.S. § 32-20-101 et seq. and Colorado New Energy Improvement District; HB23-1005 (2023); HB21-1286 and Colorado Energy Office, Building Performance Colorado; City and County of Denver, Energize Denver; City of Aspen, Real Estate Transfer Tax. Checked 2026-10-06.