Title 24
ARTICLE 70
Legal Notices
24-70-101. Definitions.
As used in this part 1, unless the context otherwise requires:
(1) “Legal notice” or “advertisement” means any notice or other written matter required to be published in a newspaper by any law of this state, or by the ordinances of any city or town, or by the order of any court of record of this state.
(2) “Privately supported legal notice or advertisement” means any legal notice or advertisement which is required by federal, state, or local law or court order which is paid for by a person or entity other than a governmental entity either directly or by direct, specific reimbursement to the governmental entity.
(3) “Publicly supported legal notice or advertisement” means any legal notice or advertisement which is required by federal, state, or local law or court order which is paid for by a governmental entity.
(4) “Published” means a newspaper maintains an office in the county to gather news, sell advertising, or conduct the general business of newspaper publications.
24-70-102. Legal publications.
Every newspaper printed and published daily, or daily except Sundays and legal holidays, or on each of any five days in every week excepting legal holidays and including or excluding Sundays shall be considered and held to be a daily newspaper; every newspaper printed and published at regular intervals three times each week shall be considered and held to be a triweekly newspaper; every newspaper printed and published at regular intervals twice each week shall be considered and held to be a semiweekly newspaper; and every newspaper printed and published at regular intervals once each week shall be considered and held to be a weekly newspaper. No publication, no matter how frequently published, shall be considered a legal publication unless it has been admitted to the United States mails with periodicals mailing privileges.
24-70-103. Requisites of legal newspaper.
(1) Any and every legal notice or advertisement shall be published only in a daily, a triweekly, a semiweekly, or a weekly newspaper of general circulation and printed or published in whole or in part in the county in which such notice or advertisement is required to be published, except as provided in this section. The newspaper, if published triweekly, semiweekly, or weekly, shall have been so published in such county, except as provided in this section, continuously and uninterruptedly during the period of at least fifty-two consecutive weeks next prior to the first issue thereof containing any such notice or advertisement; and the newspaper, if published daily, shall have been so published in such county, uninterruptedly and continuously, during the period of at least six months next prior to the first issue thereof containing any such notice or advertisement. In the case of a municipality having territory in two counties, each of which counties has one or more legal newspapers within the municipality, the publication by such municipality of its legal notices and advertisements in one of such newspapers shall be construed as valid publication under this part 1.
(2) The mere change in the name of any newspaper or the removal of the principal business office or seat of publication of any newspaper from one place to another in the same county shall not break or affect the continuity in the publication of any such newspaper if the same is in fact continuously and uninterruptedly printed or published within such county. A newspaper shall not lose its rights as a legal publication if it fails to publish one or more of its issues by reason of a strike, transportation embargo or tie-up, or other casualty beyond the control of the publishers. Any legal notice which fails of publication for the required number of insertions by reason of a strike shall not be declared illegal if publication has been made in one issue of the publication.
(3) If in any county in this state no newspaper has been published for the prescribed period at the time when any such notice or advertisement is required to be published or if there is no newspaper published therein, such notice or advertisement may be published in any newspaper published in whole or in part in an adjoining county and having a general circulation in whole or in part in said county having no newspaper published therein. If there is no newspaper in any adjoining county that has been published for the prescribed period at the time when any such notice or advertisement is required to be published, a required notice or advertisement may be published in a newspaper having general circulation within the county.
(4) Notwithstanding any other provision of this part 1, if no newspaper is published within the territorial boundaries of a municipality that satisfies the requirements for a legal publication as specified in section 24-70-102, but a newspaper that provides local news and that would satisfy the requirements to be admitted to the united states mails with periodicals mailing privileges but for the absence of paid circulation is distributed within such territorial boundaries, the municipality may publish any legal notice or advertisement required by law in such newspaper.
(5) When any legal notice is required by law to be published in any newspaper, the newspaper publishing the notice shall, at no additional cost to the person or entity placing the notice, place the notice on a statewide web site established and maintained by an organization representing a majority of Colorado newspapers as a repository for the notices.
24-70-104. Publication of proposed constitutional amendments and initiated and referred bills. (Repealed)
24-70-105. Proof of publication.
Proof of the publication of any such legal notice or advertisement may be made by the affidavit of the printer, editor, publisher, or proprietor of the newspaper in which the publication is made or by any other competent person who has personal knowledge of the essential facts, which affidavit, in addition to the other matters required by law to be set forth therein, shall state that such notice or advertisement was published in a newspaper duly qualified for that purpose.
24-70-106. Competency of newspapers – publication periods construed.
(1) Except as otherwise provided by law in express terms or by necessary implication, daily, weekly, semiweekly, and triweekly newspapers shall all be equally competent as the media for the publication of all legal notices and advertisements. Except where the publication of any such legal notice or advertisement at intervals of less than one week is required by law, publication once each week on the same weekday in any such daily, weekly, semiweekly, or triweekly newspaper for the required number of times shall constitute publication in accordance with the law.
(2) For the purpose of defining and clarifying ambiguities in the various statutes requiring the publication of legal notices and advertisements, but not for the purpose of increasing any period of publication or the number of publications required by any statute, the meaning and intent of any law governing the publication of legal notices and advertisements, except as otherwise expressly provided, is declared to be as follows, where publication is required for:
(a) Ten days, publication once each week for three successive weeks in any daily, weekly, semiweekly, or triweekly newspaper shall be sufficient;
(b) Two weeks, publication once each week for three successive weeks in any daily, weekly, semiweekly, or triweekly newspaper shall be sufficient;
(c) Three weeks, publication once each week for four successive weeks in any daily, weekly, semiweekly, or triweekly newspaper shall be sufficient;
(d) Four weeks, publication once each week for five successive weeks in any daily, weekly, semiweekly, or triweekly newspaper shall be sufficient;
(e) Five weeks, publication once each week for six successive weeks in any daily, weekly, semiweekly, or triweekly newspaper shall be sufficient;
(f) Thirty days, publication once each week for six successive weeks in any daily, weekly, semiweekly, or triweekly newspaper shall be sufficient;
(g) More than thirty days or five weeks, publication once each week in any daily, weekly, semiweekly, or triweekly newspaper for a period such that the interval elapsing between the first and last publication shall be equal to the period of publication prescribed by law shall be sufficient.
24-70-107. Rates for legal publications.
(1) (a) On or after January 1, 1993, for all publicly supported legal notices or advertisements published in newspapers, the rate paid for the first insertion of such notice shall not exceed forty-four cents for each single-column line of six-point type and shall not exceed thirty-two cents per line for each subsequent insertion. If the notice is set in larger type, the rate shall be prorated. Regardless of the size of type the notice is set in, the rates specified in this paragraph (a) are based on a single column measuring ten pica ems wide. If the column width is either wider or narrower for a single column, the rate per line shall be prorated on the ten pica em width.
(b) All emblems, display headings, rule work, and necessary blank space shall be considered to be solid type. For the purpose of calculating the charge for the items enumerated in this paragraph (b) only, the rate shall not exceed the line rate charge figured at twelve lines per inch for each column inch or a proportional amount for fractions of an inch.
(2) (a) On or after January 1, 1993, for all privately supported legal notices or advertisements, the rate paid shall not exceed the newspaper’s local classified display line rate which is offered to commercial customers and shall include the same frequency and volume discounts. The legal publication rate shall be published in the newspaper’s rate card.
(b) Notwithstanding any statute to the contrary, if any local government fee set by statute is too low to permit the local government to recover the full cost of publishing a privately supported legal notice or advertisement, the local government may adjust the fee by the actual dollar amount necessary to recover the full cost of the publication.
(3) Any contract providing for payment of a notice at a lesser sum than is provided in this section shall be valid.
(4) Upon request by the party placing a legal publication, the newspaper shall minimize the space required for publication of a valid and readable notice, but in no case shall the type be less than six points.
24-70-108. Designation of legal newspaper.
In all cases and proceedings brought in courts of record in this state and in foreclosure proceedings through the public trustee wherein the law requires the publication of a legal notice or advertisement or said legal notice or advertisement is published by order of the court in compliance with the law or rules of procedure of such court, the party upon whose motion or application or the beneficiary under the deed of trust or the legal holder of an indebtedness secured by a deed of trust shall have the right to designate the newspaper in which such legal notice or advertisement shall be published. Said newspaper shall be a legal newspaper as defined by law and shall be published in the county where such publication is required to be made by law or by the rules of civil procedure or rules of the court applicable thereto.
24-70-109. Legal notices – contents – requirements in the case of a foreclosure sale or a sale by a public trustee.
(1) All legal notices which are published to advertise sales of real property by a public trustee under a deed of trust or an execution sale resulting from the foreclosure of a mortgage shall contain a statement that the lien foreclosed may not be a first lien, which statement shall be printed in bold-faced type.