Legislation Would Add Protections for Tenants Asserting Their Rights

A common story HOME Line hears from tenants is when they reach out to their landlord about a problem, request the problem be solved, and experience some form of retaliation, such as their landlord refusing to address further concerns, charging surprise penalties, or threatening (or actually) evicting them. While this is clearly retaliation, the burden falls entirely on tenants to prove, and the penalties in statute are so minimal they rarely are enough to dissuade further retaliation by landlords or make it worthwhile for tenants to pursue. Tenants often choose not to enforce their rights because they are afraid of losing their homes.

Currently, protections against retaliation are a patchwork of protections that do not fully cover tenants. Tenants who do stand up to their landlords and encounter retaliation are generally forced to wait for an eviction to be filed to even raise it as a defense. This has a built-in risk of the tenant both losing their current home and having an eviction on their record, making it almost impossible to find a new home.  

This legislative session, HOME Line is proposing legislation that would consolidate and expand on existing retaliation defenses. Our legislation aims to protect tenants from retaliation when they assert any of their own rights, or assert themselves on behalf of others, and are either threatened or punished by their landlords because such actions. It would also extend the presumption that a landlord is retaliating against a tenant from 90 days to one year. Tenants would be able to demand a written explanation from their landlord for why they’re taking an action if the tenant believes that action is retaliatory and sue a landlord for retaliatory actions. Finally, tenants would have the right to cure a material breach of the lease within 30 days if a court finds in favor of the landlord in an eviction case despite the tenant raising the retaliation defense. 

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 piece of legislation we worked with legislators to introduce. 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 state legislators 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.