Buying or selling in Lakewood

Lakewood is in Jefferson County, so the Jefferson County Assessor values the property, the Jefferson County Treasurer collects its property tax, and deeds and other documents are recorded with the Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder. The treasurer's record lists every taxing entity on the bill, and the guide to metro districts explains how to read it.

Zoning and building permits are the city's. Lakewood's Planning and Building department covers permitting, engineering and planning services and publishes the city's zoning. The city adopted its first zoning code in 1983, when it was remapped from county zoning, and replaced it with a new code and a citywide remap in 2012. A house older than the city may have early records with the county rather than the city.

The city's own plan says it plainly: because much of Lakewood developed before incorporation, it is still served by numerous water and sewer providers. The City of Lakewood runs a water utility that buys its water from Denver Water, and Denver Water sells water to nearly 20 providers within Lakewood.

Which one serves a property is an address question, and the city's My Neighborhood lookup answers it. It matters because rates, service rules and responsibility for the line to the house are set by the provider. Within the city utility's area, Public Works maintains the mains and the service lines as far as the meter pit. Other providers set their own rules, so ask the one named for the address.

Lakewood addresses are served by Jeffco Public Schools, the Jefferson County district. The district's School Finder and boundary maps show which schools an address is assigned to, and the assignment is the district's to confirm, not a listing's. Here is how to check which school district an address is in.

RTD's W Line, a light rail line that opened in April 2013, runs from Denver Union Station through Lakewood to the Jefferson County Government Center in Golden, with stations in the city including Lakewood-Wadsworth and Federal Center. By road, the city's plan names I-70, US 6, US 285 and the C-470 beltway as its main connections to the rest of the metro.

Before World War II Lakewood was mostly rural, with early subdivisions along West Colfax Avenue. The Denver Ordnance Plant opened in 1941 and became the Denver Federal Center after the war, and housing grew around that workforce. The city then grew rapidly through the 1970s and 1980s and was approaching build-out by the 1990s, so much of the city's housing dates from the postwar decades through the 1980s, with redevelopment since.

Houses of those decades carry a known inspection list: a camera scope of the sewer line, the make and capacity of the electrical panel, aluminum branch wiring in some houses, and asbestos in ceiling texture or older flooring. The guide to buying a 1970s house covers each, and the radon guide explains why testing is routine on the Front Range.