The part that cuts against associations

The association argued that its own refusal to participate in ADR was irrelevant. The court rejected that.

Under 9 U.S.C. § 3 a court may stay a lawsuit and compel arbitration only so long as the movant is “not in default in proceeding with such arbitration.” The court put it plainly: “If a party refuses to meaningfully participate in arbitration, that party can be found in default and consequently lose the right to seek a stay of a lawsuit” — citing a February 2026 Tenth Circuit decision in which a stay was properly lifted where the party compelling arbitration failed to pay the arbitration fee, and the long-standing Colorado-circuit waiver factors.

On this record the owner had not proved default or waiver. But the order carries an express warning that failure by the association to participate in good faith “could be considered either a waiver or default of the right to arbitrate and may lead to the lifting of the stay.”

The practical rule for a board is one sentence: if you compel it, staff it, pay for it, and show up.

The history that produced the warning

This was the second round. In August 2024 Hauman sued the association in Denver County Court over property damage, disability-access violations and misuse of funds. The association answered, then moved to dismiss on the declaration's arbitration clause — and on December 9, 2024 the county court dismissed, finding “there was a binding arbitration clause in relation to both Plaintiff and Defendant.”

Hauman says that for more than a year afterwards the association refused to arbitrate or mediate despite repeated demands. The magistrate judge found the county court had dismissed rather than compelled, so there was no arbitration order the association had disobeyed — and that Hauman's own materials contained no document answering to the declaration's § 20.5 notice-of-claim requirement, which specifies five mandatory contents. The record includes correspondence in which a mediator told Hauman that scheduling arbitration “requires the cooperation of the other party” and is “not something the Arbitrator can do.”

The removal ruling also relevant to boards

An earlier order, dated May 13, 2026, denied the owner's motion to remand. A unit owner who pleads a claim captioned as a Fair Housing Act violation has presented a federal question on the face of the well-pleaded complaint, and the association may remove — even though the underlying relationship is a Colorado condominium relationship governed by state law. The complaint “cannot be fairly read as mentioning the Fair Housing Act only as some subsidiary standard supporting a state law claim rather than as an independent cause of action.”

And the association's having litigated an earlier round in state court did not estop it from removing this one: federal subject-matter jurisdiction “cannot be conferred or waived by consent, estoppel, or failure to challenge jurisdiction early in the proceedings.”

What this means for a board

A broad ADR clause is a powerful gatekeeper, and it survived a CCIOA-based challenge here — but only because the owner did not develop one. The court declined to resolve whether CCIOA affects the clause's enforceability, noting that “[w]hile the enforceability of the Declaration may be subject to the CCIOA … it is not clear what this would mean to this case,” and that the owner “makes no persuasive argument that the ADR provision … is unenforceable or unconscionable under Colorado law.” An owner who builds that record gets a different analysis.

Check the notice-of-claim mechanics in your own Article 20 equivalent. The owner's inability to point to a compliant § 20.5 notice is what defeated his waiver argument. That provision protects the association here and would bind it equally.

And read this alongside what the legislature did not do. HB26-1236 would have voided consumer arbitration fee provisions that substantially exceed court costs and removed the bar on exemplary damages in arbitration. It passed both chambers and was vetoed on June 2, 2026. The Colorado Uniform Arbitration Act is unchanged, which is why declaration ADR clauses are doing this much work.

Why this case matters beyond its parties

A twenty-month sweep of Colorado appellate decisions found no merits ruling on whether an association owed a reasonable accommodation — not one. The Fair Housing activity in this period is all federal and all procedural. Hauman is the case to watch precisely because the accommodation questions were routed to arbitration rather than decided.

Note the procedural posture before citing it: these are district court orders, not appellate precedent, and no party objected to the recommendation, so the district judge reviewed it only for clear error on the face of the record.