Three years after fires, Club Valencia homeowners still can’t return home

ARAPAHOE COUNTY, Colo. — Three years after two fires ripped through the Club Valencia Condominiums off Parker Road, Linda Jones still hasn’t been able to go home.

Jones, a certified nursing assistant who has owned her condo since 2019, said the anniversary of the first fire in November 2022, feels less like a date on the calendar and more like an open wound.

“We’ve got 160 units shut down, people out of a home, people living on the streets, people in their cars,” Jones said.

Richard Bulter

Jones was displaced after the first fire and never returned to live in her unit. Today, she’s renting a room with a family in Aurora while continuing to pay both her mortgage and homeowners association fees at Club Valencia.

“I’m working all the time to pay for those two rents,” she said. “And I’m almost 70 years old. And I’m fine, the Lord is taking care of me, but there’s a lot of people that are not fine.”

The November 2022 fire was followed by a second fire in February 2023. Since then, the section of the complex that was damaged has remained closed because of asbestos contamination, fire and water damage and the cost of repairs.

Jones said multiple lawsuits tied to the fires and insurance disputes are still moving through the court system. Until those cases are resolved, she said, abatement and reconstruction cannot begin.

“We’ve been in the court system for three years,” Jones said. “Right now, we can’t do anything until we get through the court system.”

Jones contacted Denver7 ahead of the three-year mark, asking the community not to forget the families who remain displaced and the neighbors she says have been pushed to their limits. She said some residents have died in the years since the fires. Others, she said, have struggled with health issues, moved into memory care or given up on ever returning.

Denver7

“There’s a lot of people that have just given up that they don’t have the resources,” Jones said. “They’ve had to give up their units, and they’ve had to sell them off for $20,000 to $30,000. There is investors coming in and buying up all these units.”

Even for those who stayed, the financial burden has been heavy. Jones said some owners are still paying mortgages and HOA fees on top of rent or other housing costs while they wait.

“It’s been a very rough three long years,” she said. “We need to have closure. We’re suffering. We’ve got 160 units that are closed down, and there’s people that need to get back into their homes.”

The situation at Club Valencia caught the attention of state Rep. Naquetta Ricks, who represents House District 40 and has been working for several years on legislation involving homeowners rights.

“Beginning in 2022, I started to run bills around HOAs that would allow homeowners to have a level playing field with the HOA management companies and the HOA boards,” Ricks said.

She said Colorado’s existing law governing common interest communities, known as the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act, created “an imbalance of power between homeowners and the HOAs.” Recent legislation she has sponsored has focused on making HOAs more accountable and transparent.

Richard Butler

Ricks said Club Valencia has become a key example of what can happen when homeowners are left without meaningful recourse.

“These residents have not been able to go back into their homes. The damages are still there, and there’s a big dispute with the insurance companies that should have been protecting these residents,” she said. “Here they are having to pay HOA dues, maybe cover a mortgage, just to keep the property and still pay rent at another place to live. It’s a very tough situation.”

Ricks is now working on a new bill that would expand the authority of the state’s HOA office within the Department of Regulatory Agencies. Right now, she said, that office mainly collects data on complaints.

“What this bill will do is to expand the authority of the HOA office that currently exists,” Ricks said. “As those disputes come in, issues around governance or disagreements around the covenants can be solved within the HOA office.”

The proposal would include hiring an ombudsman and staff to review complaints and mediate disputes between homeowners and HOAs or management companies.

“This would keep the dispute out of court,” Ricks said. “It would then bring together the two parties within the HOA office and hopefully get things resolved quicker. You would have to pay a smaller fee than hiring a full-blown attorney, and it would save time and money as well.”

Denver7 reached out to Club Valencia’s board of directors for comment on the current status of the property and the ongoing lawsuits. In an email, the board said it cannot comment due to ongoing litigation with Illinois Union insurance company.

Denver7 also contacted attorneys representing Club Valencia homeowners but did not hear back.

Richard Butler

Jones said she believes the lawyers working on the cases are doing what they can, but the process has shown her how vulnerable homeowners can be when a disaster strikes in a community like this.

“We need to have stronger HOA laws that protect people and communities like this,” she said. “I’m praying that we can strengthen our laws, our HOA laws, that we can prevent this from happening to other people, that they will get through the court system a little bit faster, and they will get their homes rebuilt.”

For now, she continues to work, pay her bills and hold on to faith, and to the hope that the public won’t look away.

“We don’t want to be forgotten,” Jones said. “We’ve got to get these people back into their units. This is what they can afford. We’ve got to get this rebuilt.”

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