LT Income, LLC v. Purnell.
2025 COA 74. No. 24CA1399. Property Tax—Redemption of Real Property of Person Under Disability—Treasurer’s Deed.
August 28, 2025
Purnell served as a military police officer in the Air Force. While responding to a domestic violence report, he was shot in the head with a large caliber handgun and suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. The Air Force placed Purnell on medical retirement, and he has a 100% service connection disability rating. Purnell subsequently purchased a property that he financed with a mortgage, which he had repaid in full by early 2018. But Purnell failed to pay his 2017 property taxes after his loan servicer stopped collecting them as part of the mortgage payment, and a tax lien attached to the property. In 2018, the Fremont County Treasurer sold the tax lien to LT Income, LLC at a public auction. Purnell failed to exercise the three-year statutory right to redeem the tax lien, and in 2022 the treasurer issued a treasurer’s deed to the property to LT Income, which recorded the deed. LT Income then brought an action seeking to quiet title to the property. In response, Purnell alleged that he was under a legal disability when the treasurer’s deed was executed and delivered because he had been suffering from cognitive impairments resulting from his traumatic brain injury. And based on this disability, Purnell asserted that, under CRS § 39-12-104(1), he had the right to redeem his property within nine years of the date the deed was recorded. The court determined that Purnell was under a legal disability within the meaning of the redemption statute and concluded that he was entitled to redeem the property within nine years of the date the treasurer’s deed was recorded.
On appeal, LT Income contended that the district court erred by concluding that Purnell has a right of redemption under § 39-12-104. It maintained that the phrase “under legal disability” in the redemption statute only encompasses property owners who, when the treasurer’s deed was executed and delivered, (1) were minors under age 18 or mentally incompetent; or (2) had been adjudicated incapacitated in a protective proceeding under the Colorado Uniform Guardianship and Protective Proceedings Act (UGPPA) or were under a legal disability within the meaning of § 27-65-127. Section 39-12-104(1) provides that a property owner who was under a legal disability when a treasurer’s deed was executed and delivered has a right to redeem the property within nine years of the deed’s recording. The court of appeals held that a person “under legal disability” for purposes of this section includes an individual who, due to a mental impairment, lacks capacity to manage their affairs and adequately protect their interests in the underlying tax sale proceeding. Further, the redemption statute doesn’t require that a property owner, at the time of the execution and delivery of a treasurer’s deed be subject to a protective proceeding under the UGPPA or have a legal disability imposed on them as contemplated by § 27-65-127. Here, the record supports that Purnell’s condition qualified as a legal disability within the meaning of the redemption statute and that the condition existed when the treasurer’s deed was executed and delivered. Accordingly, the district court didn’t err by determining that Purnell was under a legal disability when the treasurer’s deed to his property was executed and delivered to LT Income and that he could redeem his property within nine years of when the deed was recorded, as permitted by § 39-12-104(1).
The judgment was affirmed.