Most Minnesota landlords are aware that the state legislature passed sweeping changes to Minnesota’s landlord-tenant laws during the 2023 legislative session, most of which took effect on January 1, 2024. With less fanfare, however, the legislature passed another round of significant changes during the 2024 legislative session. With a few exceptions, these new changes do not take effect until January 1, 2025, to give landlords time to train their employees and alter their lease templates. The most significant of these changes are described below:
Tenant Associations
Minn. Stat. § 504B.212 protects tenants’ right to form associations “to improve housing conditions, amenities, community life, or the contractual position of member tenants.” The law explicitly protects the right of these associations’ members to engage in activities “for the purpose of addressing issues related to [tenants’] living environment.” This includes distributing leaflets, contacting other tenants, convening tenant meetings and more. The law includes additional provisions prohibiting landlords from excluding both resident and nonresident tenant organizers from buildings, prohibits landlords from attending association meetings unless invited, and precludes landlords from establishing rules “that set unreasonable limits as to time, place, and manner of the meetings or communication” of these associations. Landlords who violate these requirements may face penalties of up to $1,000 per occurrence.
Tenant Habitability Protections
Under Minn. Stat. § 504B.161, landlords have long been required to keep rental units in “reasonable repair.” This statutory covenant of habitability is expanded to include a building’s common areas and to require the “extermination of insects, rodents, vermin, or other pests on the premises.” In addition, the definition of a “violation” for which a tenant may bring a rent escrow or tenant remedies action against a landlord has been expanded to explicitly allow tenants to raise claims in these proceedings based on a lack of rental license, violations of discrimination laws and the new tenant organizing rights under 504B.212, as well as any other violation of § 504B.161, including the new common area and pest control provisions.
Landlord Duty to Mitigate Following Abandonment of Dwelling
Minn. Stat. § 504B.154 will require residential landlords to “make reasonable efforts to rent” a rental unit “at fair rental value” after a tenant abandons the unit prior to the end of a lease. Minn. Stat. 504B.001 now defines “abandonment” as “the intentional and voluntary absolute relinquishment of premises by the residential tenant.” A residential tenant’s lease will be terminated on the date the landlord re-leases the rental unit. Landlords who fail to mitigate their damages as required by this new law may not be able to collect any unpaid rent from an abandoning tenant. Landlords cannot require tenants to waive these requirements in their leases.
“New Construction” Delays
Tenants now have several options when a landlord is unable to deliver occupancy of a rental unit because of delays associated with “new construction” of rental units. Although this statute uses the term “new construction,” it applies more broadly to any “new building, rehabilitation, modification, reconstruction” or “any physical changes altering the use or occupancy of the dwelling units, or an addition to a building.” Under Minn. Stat. § 504B.153, whenever a landlord is “notified by a builder or otherwise knows” about a construction delay that will affect its ability to deliver occupancy of a rental unit to a tenant by the start of a lease, the landlord must notify the tenant within seven days. Tenants in these circumstances will then have the right to elect to take “reasonably equivalent” alternative housing from the landlord, receive payments to secure such reasonably equivalent alternative housing on their own, or they may terminate their lease and recover amounts previously paid to the landlord. These provisions may not be waived in the lease and violators may face monetary penalties.
Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs)
Minn. Stat. § 504B.117 will require landlords to offer to accept an ITIN in lieu of a Social Security Number (SSN) in their rental applications. Landlords may not deny a rental application based solely on a tenant choosing to supply an ITIN as opposed to an SSN.
Denials for “Pending” or Expunged Evictions
Minn. Stat. § 504B.173 is amended to prohibit landlords from denying rental applications because prospective tenants have “pending” evictions on their records. The statute encompasses any eviction case that did not result in a writ of recovery being issued by the court following a final eviction judgment. The statute will apply to a significant amount of eviction records because tenants often settle eviction cases with their landlords before the court issues an eviction writ. For example, if a past landlord filed an eviction case against a tenant and the tenant settled the case with the landlord by agreeing to pay back rent or to voluntarily move out, future landlords would not be able to deny the tenant’s rental application based on this court record alone. This statute will, therefore, impose an obligation on landlords to scrutinize the court records associated with prospective tenants’ prior evictions more closely. Denials based on expunged eviction records are also prohibited.
Tenant Screening Agencies
Landlords often rely on tenant screening agencies to obtain information about a tenant’s eviction records when considering a rental application. Minn. Stat. § 504B.241 is amended to place an affirmative duty on these agencies to provide up-to-date information about prospective tenants’ eviction records. In particular, agencies must verify the accuracy of a tenant’s eviction records by accessing Minnesota Court Records Online no more than 24 hours before providing this information to a landlord.
Mental Health Protections
Minn. Stat. § 504B.205 currently prohibits landlords from penalizing a tenant for calling the police or other emergency assistance. The statute is amended to explicitly protect a tenant’s right to make emergency calls for “mental health or health crises.”
Service/Support Animals and Pet Fee Disclosures
Minn. Stat. § 504B.113 is amended to require landlords who charge pet fees to disclose in their leases that they are prohibited from charging fees for service or emotional support animals. Minn. Stat. § 504B.113 already provides definitions of service and support animals and describes the documentation landlords may request from tenants to verify an animal’s status within one of these two categories.
Domestic Violence
Minn. Stat. § 504B.206 is amended to require tenants who are terminating their tenancies due to domestic violence to provide their landlords with the date on which the “lease will terminate.” This is in addition to the other information required in domestic violence termination notices under the prior version of § 504B.206. This termination notice may be delivered by electronic communication, such as text message or email, if the tenant regularly uses this type of communication with her landlord. Unlike most of the other provisions found in the new law, this provision became effective on June 23, 2024. Another section of § 504B.206 is amended to add a penalty of $2,000 against landlords who disclose certain information about a tenant who is the victim of domestic violence to third parties.
7-Day Move Out for Non-Payment Cases
Minn. Stat. § 504B.345 is amended to clarify that judges may stay a writ of recovery for up to seven days in cases involving non-payment of rent, as well as in eviction cases involving other types of claims.
Notifying Tenants of Eviction Hearings
The procedures for serving an eviction summons and complaint on a tenant found in Chapter 504B have been restyled with few substantive changes. However, one substantive change that may be significant for landlords is found in Minn. Stat. § 504B.332, subdivision 2(b), which will require landlords to “make a good faith attempt to communicate to the defendant that an eviction hearing has been scheduled at least seven days before the date of the court appearance” by notifying the tenant of the hearing through an “electronic written communication” such as an email or text message. Notably, this requirement only applies if the landlord “regularly uses” such electronic written communications with the tenant.
Fredrikson’s real estate attorneys regularly assist housing providers in navigating complex legal requirements like those described above. If you have questions about these new requirements or any other aspect of Minnesota’s landlord-tenant statutes, please do not hesitate to contact us.
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