Methodology

Every substantive page on this site links the official source that owns the rule. Not a blog about the rule. The agency, county, city, or district that actually decides it.

In Colorado, that usually means one of a short list of offices. Parks, wildlife, hunting, and fishing belong to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Property tax, assessment, and exemptions belong to the Division of Property Taxation and the county assessor and treasurer. Vehicles, registration, and driver licenses belong to the Colorado DMV. Water rights and wells belong to the Division of Water Resources. Roads and mountain passes belong to CDOT. Statutes and their effective dates belong to the Colorado General Assembly. On federal land, the National Park Service, Forest Service, and BLM control the rules.

You can see this on the pages themselves. Guides and tools list their official sources near the bottom, next to a "Last reviewed" date. Notes list the official references behind each claim.

Facts age. A fee, a rate, or a deadline can change in one legislative session. So every one of the site's notes — more than 2,800 of them — carries the date it was last verified, and how often it comes back up for review depends on its topic. Money, tax, vehicle, and outdoor-safety facts come due about once a year. Home, property, water, and local-rule facts come due about every eighteen months. History notes get a fresh look about every three years.

A small watch-list tracks the facts a page date can't capture on its own: a law's effective date, an annual fee, a statutory rate. Each entry names the fact, its official sources, the pages it touches, and when it needs another look.

An in-house dashboard reads all of those dates and shows what is due. It also runs the automated checks: dead or moved external links, notes missing their required sources, high-stakes wording that needs a closer read, and quiz questions that have drifted from the guides they came from.

The automated checks only find the work. A person still does the verifying: read the current official Colorado page, change only what a newer official source supports, and update the review date. When official sources disagree with each other, the disagreement gets logged rather than papered over.

If a number, date, or link on this site looks wrong, unclear, or outdated, please say so on the Send a Note page. Include the page address and what looks off.

Reports get checked against the official source. If the page is wrong, it gets fixed and its review date gets updated. One thing the feedback channel cannot do is answer a private legal, tax, insurance, or property question — for those, the official office or a qualified professional is the right door.

Colorado Porch is published by Emma Rose Holdings LLC. It provides general educational information only — not legal, tax, real estate, financial, or insurance advice. Its calculators and guides are planning aids, and they can be incomplete, outdated, or wrong for a specific address, property, vehicle, tax year, or personal situation.

Colorado Porch gets you oriented; final decisions belong with the official source. Always confirm with the Colorado state agency, county office, city office, or licensed professional that has the final say. The full disclaimer spells this out.