Estes Park family’s duplex dispute centers on missing records, occupancy permit

Editor’s note: After publishing this story, the Town of Estes Park provided a written statement to the Estes Valley Voice about claims made in this article, which are based on our interview with Matt Tschohl, the property owner, about his property and its legal use.

The EVV published a follow-up article on July 29, 2026, to address the issues raised by the Town. According to the Town, “the property is not a legal duplex because of an unresolved life-safety hazard: a gas water heater in an enclosed space without ventilation. That hazard is why the Board of Appeals in 1981 denied the then-owner’s request to complete the conversion without correcting it, why no final inspection or certificate of occupancy exists, and why the conversion has never been lawfully completed.” 

Matt Tschohl and his wife, Tram, have a four-pound, two-week-old baby on oxygen, a 4-year-old daughter, and a big housing problem.

They closed on a house May 28, but they still can’t move in because the Town of Estes Park will not recognize the property as a legal duplex, even though it has functioned as one since the early 1980s and is located in an R-2 zoning district where duplexes are a permitted use.

Instead, the family remains in a rental home while paying the mortgage on a house they say the town will not allow them to occupy in the manner it has been used for decades.

“It’s financially not sustainable,” said Tschohl, a local businessman who owns Estes Valley Tree Care LLC.

The dispute over the home at 450 Hillside Lane has grown into a debate over missing municipal records, decades-old building permits, historical building codes, and whether a local government can require a homeowner to satisfy modern permitting standards when records from a project completed more than 40 years ago no longer exist.

It also raises questions about how municipalities should handle properties with incomplete historical records. This issue surfaced earlier this year in another Estes Park zoning dispute involving missing documentation for a property at 440 Valley Drive.

A house with a long history

The four-bedroom home was built in 1951. According to property records, it was expanded in the 1970s when its size roughly doubled, remodeled in 1980, and converted into a duplex.

Since then, Tschohl says, the property has consistently functioned as two dwelling units and has been rented as a duplex for decades. It was marketed and sold as a duplex. And the Larimer County Assessor has identified it as a duplex, according to Tschohl.

A recorded subdivision plat approved by the Town of Estes Park in 1981 labels the building “DUPLEX.”

A permit routing slip that was prepared before the building permit was issued also identifies the proposed use as a duplex, with approvals from multiple town departments. Images contained in the historical permit file show the application routed through utilities, engineering, and other reviewing agencies before approval.

Yet, shortly after purchasing the property in May for $797,000, Tschohl learned the town would not recognize it as a legal duplex.

The town’s position

Community Development Director Steve Careccia outlined the town’s position in a June 26 letter. According to Careccia, the town’s records show a building permit was issued in November 1980 to convert the single-family residence into a duplex. A framing and rough plumbing inspection occurred one week later.

Town records indicate several deficiencies were identified during that inspection, including a gas water heater installed in an enclosed space without proper ventilation.

The town’s historical file also documents correspondence throughout early 1981 concerning several alleged code violations, culminating in a Board of Appeals hearing involving the water heater.

According to Careccia, there is no record showing the deficiencies were corrected, no record of additional inspections, and no record that certificates of occupancy were ever issued for the duplex.

“As absent any further information to the contrary, I am unable to state the duplex was legally permitted and approved for occupancy,” Careccia wrote.

He offered Tschohl two options:

• Occupy the structure as a single-family residence after a life-safety inspection; or
• hire an architect to evaluate the building, complete a building permit process under the International Existing Building Code, and obtain new certificates of occupancy before the town would recognize the property as a duplex.

Less than two weeks later, Careccia proposed a third alternative:

• Rather than recognizing the building as a duplex, the town offered what it called a “two-family” occupancy arrangement.

Under that proposal, Tschohl’s family could occupy one portion of the home while renting the other, but the property would not be treated as a duplex.

The proposal would require owner occupancy, shared utilities, no separate addresses, and a notarized affidavit agreeing to those conditions. The town also stated a duplex would require fire separation between the units and potentially other life-safety improvements.

Tschohl has rejected the proposal.

A dispute over the law

What began as a disagreement over a missing certificate of occupancy has evolved into a technical debate over the 1979 Uniform Building Code, which governed construction when the project was permitted.

Tschohl has assembled dozens of pages of historical documents, including building permits, committee minutes, ordinances, plats, utility approvals, and code books.

He contends those records show the town is applying legal requirements that did not exist when the duplex conversion occurred.

Among the documents are minutes from the town’s Code and Sanitation Committee meeting Feb. 2, 1981.

Those minutes recommend amending Section 307(a) of the Uniform Building Code by deleting the words “Division 1,” which committee members said would then require certificates of occupancy “for all one and two family dwellings also.”

The town board later adopted Ordinance No. 10-81 making that change in June 1981 — several months after the Hillside Lane permit had been issued.

Tschohl argues that chronology demonstrates certificates of occupancy were not required for one- and two-family dwellings when his property’s permit was issued in November 1980.

He also points to the same committee minutes, which state that requiring one-hour fire walls between adjacent multiple-family dwelling units was still under discussion in February 1981.

If the requirement was still being debated months after his permit was issued, Tschohl argues, it could not have applied to his project. He believes his property falls under the grandfathering rules.

“Show me the code”

Throughout weeks of correspondence with town officials and SafeBuilt, the private company that provides building inspection services for Estes Park, Tschohl has repeatedly asked the same question.

He has requested that the town identify the specific building code section, ordinance, or statute that legally prohibits occupancy of the property as a duplex.

In one email, he wrote that despite repeated requests, he had not been provided “a single cited provision of the adopted building code, development code, ordinance, statute, or other legal authority identifying the legal basis for prohibiting occupancy of the property as a duplex.”

Town officials did not identify a specific code section in the email exchanges reviewed by the Estes Valley Voice, instead reaffirming the town’s earlier determination and directing Tschohl toward an appeal before the Board of Appeals.

Initially, that written appeal was due July 16, but Tschohl asked for an extension due to the extenuating circumstances of his daughter’s premature birth on July 11. The baby was released from the hospital on oxygen July 16.

Tschohl was given an extension until August 4 to file a written appeal; however, he has asked for clarification for the specific building code section, ordinance, or statute that legally prohibits occupancy of the property as a duplex, which he should cite in his appeal.

SafeBuilt enters the discussion

SafeBuilt Chief Building Official Rich Novasio initially took a somewhat different approach.

In a July 10 email, Novasio acknowledged Tschohl’s extensive research but said the available records still identified the home as a single-family residence and did not demonstrate a legally completed duplex conversion.

Rather than ending the discussion, however, Novasio proposed an on-site assessment of the building to compare its current condition against the requirements of the 1979 Uniform Building Code.

“The best way to resolve this matter … is to perform an on-site assessment of the property,” Novasio wrote.

Tschohl immediately accepted the offer, writing that such an inspection was “exactly what I have been hoping for.”

Subsequent emails indicate the disagreement continued over historical code interpretation, including whether fire-separation requirements cited by SafeBuilt actually applied to a wood-frame, two-family dwelling constructed under the 1979 code.

Missing records

Central to Tschohl’s argument is what he calls an incomplete municipal record.

“The town has confirmed in writing that a framing and rough-plumbing inspection occurred at the property on November 17, 1980, under the permit, and it cannot produce its record of that inspection,” Tschohl told the Estes Valley Voice.

“The entire basis for blocking our occupancy is a missing final-inspection record in that same demonstrably incomplete file.”

Tschohl believes there is a plausible historical explanation. He notes that the Lawn Lake Flood of July 15, 1982, devastated downtown Estes Park, damaging numerous municipal buildings and records.

He also points to another recent Estes Park land-use dispute involving missing historical zoning documentation for property at 440 Valley Drive.

“The flood falls squarely in the window when these records would have been stored,” Tschohl said.

Town officials have not suggested the missing records were destroyed in the flood.

What happens next

The dispute may be headed to both the Board of Appeals, regarding the interpretation of the building code, and the Estes Park Board of Trustees, regarding the denial of the permit to occupy the property. The process could take six to eight weeks.

The appeals are expected to focus not only on whether the duplex can be occupied, but also on broader questions of historical code interpretation, the legal significance of missing municipal records, and what evidence is sufficient to establish that a 45-year-old building permit was completed.

The Estes Valley Voice reached out to the Town of Estes Park on July 19, but because the matter is being appealed, Careccia said that he had been “advised it was best to not discuss the issue to ensure the validity of the appeal.”

“Though I would state that we have been working with the parties involved (seller, purchaser, brokers) over the last several weeks to help them find a resolution to issues brought to our attention,” Careccia added.

The Estes Valley Voice also reached out to the town’s public information officer and the town’s administrator, and as of today, our questions about the status of the matter have not been answered.

For the Tschohl family, however, the legal questions remain secondary to a more immediate reality.

Nearly two months after closing on the home, the Tschohls continue paying both mortgage and rent while caring for a premature newborn with medical needs, as they wait for a decision on whether they can finally move into the house they purchased.