The Capitol Glitch That Almost Erased Common Law Marriage—and How It's Being Fixed.

What This Bill Actually Does

To understand what this bill does, you first have to understand how state laws get updated. In Colorado, we have a group called the Statutory Revision Committee. Think of them as the state's official proofreaders. Every year, they draft bills to clean up old laws, delete repetitive text, and fix typos. But sometimes, when you are doing massive copy-edits to decades of state law, you accidentally delete something incredibly important. That is exactly what happened in 2025 with Senate Bill 25-014. During a routine cleanup of marriage statutes, lawmakers accidentally repealed a crucial provision that explicitly protected the validity of common law marriages.

Currently, Colorado is one of only a handful of states that still fully recognizes common law marriage—meaning you can be legally married without a formal license, ceremony, or officiant, provided you meet certain criteria. But because of last year's accidental deletion, the law technically lost the exact sentence saying that the lack of formal marriage requirements "does not repeal or invalidate an otherwise valid common law marriage." That missing sentence left a massive legal loophole. In theory, an aggressive lawyer in a probate or divorce case could have pointed to the deleted statute and claimed a common law marriage wasn't valid simply because the couple never went to the county clerk.

House Bill 26-1218 is a simple, straightforward fix to close that loophole before it causes real chaos in the courts. It recreates and reenacts Section 14-2-104(3) of the Colorado Revised Statutes. By putting this exact text back into the lawbooks, it clarifies that yes, common law marriages are still 100% valid regardless of ceremonial formalities. Specifically, the bill protects marriages formed prior to September 1, 2006, as well as those formed on or after that date, provided they comply with the state's minimum age requirements outlined in Section 14-2-109.5. In short, it is the legislative equivalent of restoring a deleted file from the trash bin.

What It Means for You

If you and your partner consider yourselves common law married, this is the one bill you need to pay attention to right now. Under Colorado law, if you mutually agree to be married and "hold yourselves out" to the community as spouses (like filing joint taxes, sharing bank accounts, or calling each other husband and wife), you are legally married. Period. But last year's legislative glitch created a tiny, dangerous window of uncertainty. If you were going through a messy separation, or fighting over a deceased partner's estate, an opposing party could have used that glitch to claim your marriage was never officially recognized.

HB26-1218 removes that risk entirely. It ensures that your shared assets, your ability to make medical decisions for your partner in an emergency, and your legal rights in a separation remain rock solid. To be clear, this bill does not change the actual rules for how to enter a common law marriage, nor does it create a new "common law divorce" (you still need a formal legal divorce to end a common law marriage, no matter how it started). It just guarantees the legal foundation under your relationship hasn't accidentally vanished due to a proofreading error in Denver.

Here is what you should do right now to protect yourself and your family while this bill works its way through the Capitol:

• Document your relationship: Keep copies of joint tax returns, residential leases, or auto insurance policies where you list each other as spouses. Evidence is everything when proving a common law marriage.
• Sign a proxy or affidavit: If you want zero ambiguity, you and your partner can download a standard affidavit of common law marriage, sign it together, and have it notarized. This shuts down any argument about your status.
• Check your estate plan: Make sure your wills, trusts, and medical powers of attorney explicitly name your partner. It is always better to have your wishes explicitly written down than to rely solely on your common law status.

What It Means for Your Business

If you run a business, manage human resources, or administer employee benefits in Colorado, you might be wondering if this statutory hiccup changes your payroll or compliance obligations. The short answer is: crisis averted. Colorado employers are legally required to treat valid common law spouses exactly the same as ceremonially married spouses when it comes to health insurance coverage, family leave under FAMLI, and survivor benefits. If last year's glitch hadn't been caught, HR departments could have faced a nightmare scenario of auditing employee marriages, or dealing with insurance carriers suddenly denying medical claims for common law spouses.

By passing HB26-1218, the state is keeping the status quo firmly intact. You will not need to change your employee handbook, update your benefits enrollment software, or ask your employees to prove the validity of their common law status any differently than you did two years ago. The rules remain exactly the same: if an employee claims a common law spouse for benefits enrollment or tax withholding purposes, you generally accept their attestation or request a standard affidavit, depending entirely on your specific insurance carrier's rules.

Here are your action items to ensure your business is squared away THIS WEEK:

• Review your benefits policy: Double-check your employee handbook to ensure your definition of "spouse" doesn't accidentally exclude common law partners. You want your internal language to match state law.
• Talk to your insurance broker: Confirm what specific documentation your health plan currently requires for common law spouses during open enrollment. Usually, a signed, notarized affidavit is plenty.
• Hold steady on employee changes: Do not change any employee's spousal coverage or W-4 tax withholdings based on rumors about the 2025 statutory deletion. This legislative fix will be officially on the books by August 2026.

Follow the Money

Because this is essentially a typo-correction bill introduced by the Statutory Revision Committee, the fiscal impact to the state is practically zero. It does not require any new state funding, it does not create a new regulatory program, and it doesn't change how the Colorado Department of Revenue collects taxes from married couples.

However, it actually saves money in a massive, hidden way: judicial resources. If this glitch remained in the law, Colorado's family courts and probate courts would likely see an influx of expensive, time-consuming litigation. Lawyers would spend billable hours arguing over whether a specific common law marriage was invalidated by the 2025 repeal. By clearly restoring the language, HB26-1218 keeps those messy, protracted arguments out of the court system, saving both taxpayers and private citizens a fortune in legal fees.

Where This Bill Stands

This bill was officially introduced in the House on February 17, 2026, and immediately assigned to the House State, Civic, Military, & Veterans Affairs Committee. Because it is sponsored by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle (Representatives Espenoza and Luck, alongside Senators Catlin and Ball) and originates from the nonpartisan Statutory Revision Committee, it is about as uncontroversial as legislation gets at the Capitol.

Expect this bill to fast-track through both the House and the Senate. Unless an unexpected, highly unusual political fight erupts over the broader concept of common law marriage itself, it will likely pass with overwhelming, unanimous support. Once signed by the Governor, the law will officially take effect at 12:01 a.m. on August 12, 2026 (assuming the legislature adjourns on time in May and no citizen files a referendum petition against it). Keep an eye on the committee calendar if you want to submit written testimony, but otherwise, this bill is on a smooth glide path to becoming law.