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# Lender Requires Repairs? The Colorado Closing Clock
- URL: https://truenorthboulder.com/guides/lender-required-repairs-before-closing-colorado/
- Published: 2026-09-16T09:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-19T14:20:09.000Z
- Description: The inspection is behind you, the appraisal cleared, and the lender won't fund until the furnace is replaced. If the seller never agreed to that work, the demand has its own section and a clock of three days at most: the contract ends by itself. Three things stop it; the easy one is the trap.
- Author: Daniel Hsieh
- Tags: Buyer Guide, Financing, Buying, Colorado Law

The inspection is behind you and the appraisal came back at value. Then, a week out from closing, your loan officer says the furnace has to be replaced before the loan will fund.

That is not the inspection coming back. It is a different section of your contract, and it is already counting.

> **The short answer:** A lender's written demand for repairs **the seller has not already agreed to** is a **Lender Property Requirement** under Colorado's standard residential contract, and it carries a default most buyers do not expect: unless something is done first, **the contract terminates on its own**, on the earlier of closing or three days after the **seller** receives it. Nobody has to act to end it; someone has to act to save it. Three things do: the parties agree in writing to satisfy it, the work is completed, or the buyer waives it in writing. Waiving looks safest, and it is the one that closes the financing exit.

## Termination is the default, not the argument

> **The short version:** Nobody signs anything and nobody sends notice. The requirement has to be in writing, the three days run from the day the seller receives it rather than the day your lender issued it, and the period ends earlier still if closing comes first. No line in the contract's deadline table tracks any of it.

Most contract provisions hand somebody a right and wait to see if they use it. This one runs the other way: left alone the contract ends, no notice or signature.

The provision runs on a **written** requirement: a loan officer's phone call isn't one. It arrives as a loan-commitment condition, an underwriter's condition sheet, or a line in the appraisal. The three days run from the **seller's** receipt, not from the lender issuing it and not from your loan officer telling you. That usually cuts in your favor, because the conditions come to you and your loan officer first: the seller normally receives the requirement when someone on your side forwards it, so the clock generally starts on an email your own broker sent.

And three days is the ceiling, not the number. It terminates on the **earlier** of three days after the seller's receipt or Closing, so a requirement landing four days out gives you three days and one landing the day before closing gives you one. Late conditions are the normal kind.

It has no row in the Dates and Deadlines table. It is event-triggered, so the calendar your broker built at contract does not carry it, though the general counting rules still reach it, weekends aside. The [Colorado contract deadline schedule](https://truenorthboulder.com/guides/colorado-contract-deadlines-boulder/) has them.

## Three ways to stop a lender repair demand, and what each costs

> **The short version:** There are only three ways out and the form names all of them, so the useful question isn't which one works but which one you control. Two need the seller to cooperate, on the seller's house and on the seller's timetable. The third, waiving in writing, is the only one you can do alone.

The provision lists its own exits.

| The escape                            | Who has to act                          | What it costs you                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 |
| ------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **A written agreement to satisfy it** | Both parties, before the clock runs out | A real negotiation over money and access, on the seller's house, at the seller's discretion                                                                                                                                                                       |
| **The work is completed**             | Often you, on a house you don't own yet | Time you may not have, a contractor, written permission to access and alter the seller's property, and whatever re-inspection the lender requires. If the deal dies anyway the furnace stays with the house, and your obligations to whoever you hired survive it |
| **The buyer waives it in writing**    | You, alone                              | Nothing today. The whole exposure is what it removes, below                                                                                                                                                                                                       |

Only the third is yours alone to do, which is why buyers reach for it when a closing date is bearing down.

## The waiver keeps the deal and closes the financing exit

> **The short version:** The escape you control is the one that closes your way out. The contract's loan-availability right to terminate expressly does not reach a Lender Property Requirement, so waiving keeps the deal alive and hands you the whole risk that your lender still says no.

Colorado's contract gives a buyer a Right to Terminate if loan availability is unsatisfactory, then lists what that right does **not** cover. Lender Property Requirements are named there, and that one line is the whole difference.

Waive the requirement and you keep the contract alive while giving up the provision that would have ended it. You are left holding a contract to close on a house your lender may still decline to finance, and if it does, the party who can't perform at closing is you. What protects your deposit then is [a question of its own](https://truenorthboulder.com/guides/colorado-earnest-money-when-at-risk/).

There is a fourth outcome the table does not list, because it needs nobody: let the clock run. The contract ends and the deposit is directed back to you, though directed back isn't in your account: it moves on written mutual instructions someone has to send and the seller has to sign. One move that feels like an escape is not one. Extending the closing date does nothing to the three days, because the clock runs from the seller's receipt rather than from closing, so an extension that only moves the calendar leaves the contract terminating on schedule. It cuts the other way too: completing the work usually needs an extension as well, since the lender's re-inspection generally outruns three days. The paper has to address the requirement, not just the date. A waiver can still be right where the item is small, priced, and you hold the cash, but it is a risk decision, not paperwork.

## Can the lender hold money back and close anyway?

> **The short version:** Sometimes, and it changes nothing about this clock. An escrow holdback is a loan product your lender may or may not offer, not a provision of your contract. It can satisfy the lender, but satisfying the lender isn't one of the three things that stops the termination.

It's the first question a broker asks when the weather is against you, and on a Front Range winter closing it can be the only one that matters, because the work often can't be done before the closing date at all. Frozen ground, a roof under snow, exterior paint below the temperature the product needs. The calendar stops you, not the money.

Some lenders will fund and hold money back until the work is finished. Whether that's available on your file depends on the loan, the property and the lender's own rules, so ask your loan officer in the week the condition lands rather than the week of closing. What matters here is the boundary. A holdback lives in the loan, not in the contract: it doesn't appear in the provision, and the provision doesn't stop for a satisfied lender.

So it isn't another exit. It's a way of making one of the three reachable, and in practice it's usually the first one: a holdback can be what a written agreement between you and the seller is actually for. That still needs the seller to agree, and it still needs somebody's money sitting in escrow until the work is signed off, which is the same negotiation the first row of the table describes with a lender's willingness attached to it.

## What the seller already agreed to is not in this section

> **The short version:** A requirement only counts here if it goes beyond what the seller already agreed to, so the first move is to sort which one you have. The ones that catch buyers on unincorporated parcels arrive late and from outside the contract: a well test or a septic condition, where the repair the result calls for is what this provision reaches, and conditions an inspection objection often didn't raise.

One qualifier does real work. The provision reaches lender requirements **beyond those matters already agreed to by the seller in the contract**. Repairs the seller signed up for at inspection resolution aren't new demands; they are existing obligations, sitting outside this clock.

So the first question when a requirement lands is whether it's genuinely new or already promised, which is why inspection agreements are worth writing specifically. Our [Boulder County inspection guide](https://truenorthboulder.com/guides/home-inspection-boulder-county/) covers that.

The conditions that draw these demands are ordinary in the stock here, and on the unincorporated parcels around Niwot, Lyons and rural Berthoud two of them recur: a lender can require a potability test on a private well, and it can require evidence that the septic is working. Those are usually a step ahead of this provision rather than the provision itself: what it names is work to be made to the property, and its own examples are roof repair and repainting. The test is what surfaces the problem; the treatment system or the septic repair the result calls for is what lands here. Keep both apart from what the contract already assigns. Where the local health department or other applicable government entity requires one, the standard form has the seller pay for and furnish a Septic Use Permit, which is usually why a septic condition is already the seller's rather than a new demand. Check that it survived on your contract before you rely on it: that duty sits among the [due-diligence documents the contract deletes outright](https://truenorthboulder.com/guides/due-diligence-documents-deadline-colorado/) when their deadline row is left blank or marked N/A, and this one also carries its own deadline set by the health department rather than by your contract, so ask your broker which applies to your file. If nothing was agreed, a lender's septic demand is beyond what the seller signed up for, and it lands back inside the provision this page is about. The water side sits differently: the form's own water provision is an acknowledgment of the source rather than a test result. A demand that repeats what the seller already signed up for isn't new; what lands in this section is whatever your lender adds on top of it, and that usually arrives late, from a party who isn't on your contract, and often on a condition your inspection objection never raised.

The other question is worth asking today: get your broker to find out from the listing side, in writing, what day the seller received it. That clock may already be running, and the receipt date may be the one thing nobody on your side has written down yet. If you are selling to buy, this termination ends only this contract; your sale is a separate contract and is not ended by it unless its own terms tie the two together. If they are chained, tell your broker the day the requirement lands, not the day this contract ends. Both questions have a version you can ask before you are under contract at all; the [Boulder County buying process](https://truenorthboulder.com/guides/buying-a-home-in-boulder-county/) asks them there.

*True North Boulder is a real-estate team with eXp Realty. This is general information for Boulder and northern Front Range buyers, not legal, tax or lending advice. For how this provision applies to your contract and your dates, talk to your broker or a Colorado real-estate attorney.*

Common questions

## Frequently asked

Can a lender require repairs after the inspection is over?+ 

Yes, and it runs on a separate track. Colorado's standard contract has its own provision for written requirements a lender imposes, including anything specified in the appraisal. It reaches only what the seller has not already agreed to in the contract, so a repair the seller signed up for at inspection resolution is an existing obligation rather than a new demand.

Who pays for a lender-required repair in Colorado?+ 

The provision does not assign it. It says only that the contract terminates unless the parties agree in writing to satisfy the requirement, the work is completed, or the buyer waives it. Who pays, and who is admitted to a house the seller still occupies, are terms of that agreement, and a seller with no incentive to spend can let the clock run out.

What happens to my earnest money if the contract terminates this way?+ 

If the contract terminates under this provision, the termination section directs that all earnest money be timely returned to you. That is the direction; the release itself still runs on written mutual instructions signed by both sides. Set the two side by side: letting it terminate protects the deposit, while waiving keeps you in a deal you may not be able to close. The all-capital nonrefundable language elsewhere in the contract belongs to a buyer who missed a written notice on loan availability, and this termination needs no notice from anyone.

Sources & notes 
- **The provision itself.** Colorado Real Estate Commission, [Contract to Buy and Sell Real Estate (Residential)](https://dre.colorado.gov/real-estate-broker-contracts-and-forms?ref=truenorthboulder.com), form CBS1, adoption date August 5, 2025, mandatory use January 1, 2026\. Lender Property Requirements sit at § 6.3, which provides that where a lender imposes written requirements, replacements, removals or repairs, including any specified in the Appraisal, to be made to the Property “beyond those matters already agreed to by Seller in this Contract, this Contract terminates on the earlier of three days following Seller’s receipt of the Lender Property Requirements, or Closing,” unless prior to termination the parties enter a written agreement to satisfy them, they have been completed, or their satisfaction “is waived in writing by Buyer.” Read from the promulgated form in full; the Division’s forms index blocks automated retrieval, so it was downloaded with a browser user agent and read 2026-08-29.
- **The carve-out that makes the waiver consequential.** Same form, § 5.2.2 (New Loan Availability): “Buyer does not have a Right to Terminate based on the New Loan Availability if the termination is based on the New Loan Terms, Appraised Value (defined below), the Lender Property Requirements (defined below), Insurability (§ 10.5\. below) or the Conditional Upon Sale of Property (§ 10.7\. below).” The same paragraph carries the capitalized earnest-money consequence where a seller is not in default and does not timely receive written notice to terminate.
- **What happens to the earnest money.** Same form, § 24.2, Effect of Termination: “In the event this Contract is terminated, all Earnest Money received hereunder must be timely returned to Buyer and the parties are then relieved of all obligations hereunder, subject to §§ 10.4\. and 21.” The carve-out matters: § 10.4 covers the buyer’s inspection-work damage, lien and indemnity obligations and says in terms that it survives termination, and release itself runs through mutual written instructions under § 4.3.2.
- **Counting the days.** Same form, § 3.3: a “day” is the entire day ending at 11:59 p.m. Mountain Time; in computing a period of days, when the ending date is not specified, the first day is excluded and the last included; and whether a deadline falling on a Saturday, Sunday or holiday extends to the next business day is itself a checkbox on the contract, which does not extend if neither box is marked. Whether that weekend-and-holiday extension reaches a provision with no deadline row is not something the form settles on its face; count as though it does not, and ask your broker.
- **The septic permit duty.** Same form, § 10.6.1.5: “If required by the local health department or other applicable government entity, on or before the local health department’s applicable deadline, Seller must pay for and furnish to Buyer a Septic Use Permit.” It is enumerated under § 10.6.1 (Due Diligence Documents), whose opening keys delivery to the Due Diligence Documents Delivery Deadline; § 3.2 provides that a deadline left blank or completed with “N/A” or “Deleted” means “the corresponding provision containing the deadline is deleted.” Whether that reaches a sub-item carrying its own deadline is not something the form settles on its face; ask your broker.
- **Section numbering is not stable between revisions**, which is why these provisions are described by name rather than relied on by number. Confirm the version and the section on your own contract with your broker before relying on any of this.
- On a Colorado broker’s completion and interpretation of the Commission-approved forms, see the Commission’s rules regarding real estate brokers, [4 CCR 725-1, chapter 7](https://www.coloradosos.gov/CCR/DisplayRule.do?action=ruleinfo&ruleId=2307&deptID=18&agencyID=98&deptName=Department+of+Regulatory+Agencies&agencyName=Division+of+Real+Estate&seriesNum=4+CCR+725-1&ref=truenorthboulder.com). Deliberately out of scope: FHA and VA appraisal provisions, which the form structures as value escapes (§ 6.3 itself applies whatever the loan type); the availability and terms of an escrow holdback, which turn on the loan, the property and the lender, and which the body treats only as a boundary on this provision; and re-inspection mechanics.