New Minnesota Law Offers Important Protections For Renters

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There is a slate of new laws that are now in effect in 2024 in Minnesota, and one of them includes important new protections for renters.

Last year's legislative session in the North Star State produced several new laws, many of which have just taken effect on January 1st, 2024.  According to Axios Twin Cities, the broad areas impacted by these new laws include topics like:

• Paid sick time
• New 'blackout' Minnesota license plates
• Prohibition of asking salary-history questions during a job interview
• A 'red flag' gun law
• A ban on 'forever chemicals' in food packaging

And, legislators also passed a massive bill that adds new restrictions on certain behaviors landlords can impose on their renters here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. It also includes new requirements landlords must do, like the requirement that landlords fully disclose non-optional fees in a lease agreement so that applicants have a full scope of what their rental costs look like.

READ MORE: Two Items Are Still Banned at Grocery Stores in MN in 2024

Or the requirement that landlords must now provide a heat source that keeps the rental unit at a minimum of 68 degrees during the winter in Minnesota. Or even new requirements that make it illegal for a potential landlord to refuse to rent a unit or require a current renter to declaw or devocalize their pets.

There are also other provisions in the new law that protect renters when facing possible eviction, as well. The Minnesota House of Representatives has outlined some of the new provisions of the law HERE, including:

• all nonoptional fees must be disclosed in the lease agreement with a total of rent
  and all nonoptional fees listed on the first page of the lease;
• a landlord must offer an initial inspection of a unit to identify deficiencies or
  clarify the state of the unit related to the damage deposit;
• before a tenancy ends, the landlord shall give the tenant written notice about
  the right to do a walk-through inspection no earlier than five days of the tenant
  moving out, thereby allowing the tenant a chance to fix any deficiencies or avoid
  having money taken out of the damage deposit;
• landlord entry into a residential unit is restricted to between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
  and the law clarifies that notice must be at least 24 hours before entry;
• a statutory procedure is created for a tenant to terminate a lease early if the
  tenant is moving into certain types of medical facilities; and
• for leases longer than 10 months, a landlord must wait four months after the
  tenant moves in before they can ask them if they want to renew the tenancy.

Lawmakers are set to meet for this year's 2024 legislative session starting on February 12, 2024 in St. Paul when even MORE new laws could be passed and written into law here in Minnesota. Meanwhile, speaking of laws, keep scrolling to check out the major laws that were passed the year you were born.

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