Many Minnesotans know the process someone has to go through to find an apartment. Today, it usually entails checking out Facebook marketplace, apartments.com, craigslist, or any other number of websites and postings that hundreds of other people are also all looking at and applying to. When someone finally can contact a landlord, it’s usually a pretty fast process. Sometimes they can check out the place, but especially for younger students in college or for many families and renters in the current housing environment, you sign the lease as quickly as you can to find a place to live. But how often do tenants ask for changes to the lease? How many landlords would even bother negotiating when they have other desperate tenants who will sign immediately? How many tenants bring to their would-be landlord a lease for them to sign and agree to? How many landlords would actually take them seriously? The fact of the matter is that landlords hold most of the cards and almost always force tenants to agree to any terms and conditions they see fit. Tenants are faced with either upsetting their brand new landlord or failing to find a place to live.
For example, a tenant from the northern suburbs called HOME Line seeking legal help following an interaction with their new landlord that exemplifies the power imbalance most tenants face in Minnesota. “I was initially excited to move in. My soon-to-be landlord had reached out with an email regarding move-in fees, details of the property, and a description of the background check process. The list itself was called a welcoming letter and was pretty descriptive. It outlined all the fees and charges that would be associated with my move-in. The total amount [including the first month’s rent, security deposit, and fees] was $3973.33. I passed the background check, signed the lease, began the move-in process, and paid all the costs on the welcoming letter. About a week after moving in, a note slipped under their door. The note stated I owed an additional $350, labeled as prorated rent, with additional late fees that were being tagged on as needing to be paid immediately. Nowhere in the welcoming letter, the lease, or any other documents were the charges listed. My landlord immediately threatened eviction if I did not pay the fees on or before the next rent-due date. I am well into my 50s and I was incredibly anxious and worried. An eviction on my record would make renting almost impossible. I felt hopeless and that there was nothing I could do, my landlord had complete control over my lives.”
HOME Line has compiled a number of leases over the years, and we took a look at some of them. Today, a standard lease can be over 50 pages of binding language and responsibilities. One might assume that there would be an equal balance between the two but after reviewing a standard lease, we found that landlord rights dominated the lease. In two to three decades, standard leases have increased from three to five pages to 40, 50, to 60+ pages. As such, we need protections for tenants that come through state law because they sure as hell aren’t coming from the lease.
This legislative session we are working to clarify, modernize, and make landlord and tenant law more equitable, bringing more balance in landlord and tenant rights and obligations. Some provisions we are working to pass include: increased penalties for violations by landlords, capping security deposits at one month’s rent, reducing late fees from 8% to 4%, prohibiting prelease deposits and application screening fees, and giving tenants broader and greater accessibility to enforce their rights if a landlord violates them. When tenants can no longer negotiate fair leases, where flagrant violations by some landlords go unchallenged, and tenants are continually being forced to give up their rights, the only thing left is for the legislature to step in.
We will continue to fight for and expand those protections but we need your help. Last year, the outpouring of support for expanding tenants’ protections helped pass every legislative bill HOME Line helped introduce and move through the legislative process. We need your help to do it again. Call, email, schedule an appointment with your legislator, and let them know your support for expanding tenants’ protections. You can find your legislator and their contact info here.
If you have any further questions or want to know how to get involved, contact Michael Dahl at michaeld@homelinemn.org.
By Aidan Earnest, HOME Line Public Policy Intern
It would be helpful to be contacted as different landlord/tenant bills come up so we are able to call on individual bills