More legal options proposed for renters when a promised unit isn’t ready

Imagine pulling up to your new apartment building with a car or rental trailer full of your possessions, eager to move in only to be told the residence is not ready and you need to find other accommodations right away.

That’s what hundreds of University of Minnesota students faced last fall when the Identity Dinkytown residence was still under construction.

What made this situation so bad for these students, Rep. Mohamud Noor (DFL-Mpls) said, was that the management company collected rent on Aug. 1, then told renters the next day they could not move in as promised before classes began after Labor Day.

Identity management “left tenants with nowhere to go,” said Noor. Many had to pay rent at two separate places until their unit was ready.

“The imbalance of power between the housing providers and tenants is significant,” Noor said. “We need to rectify that.”

To that end, he sponsors HF3961 which would expand the legal remedies tenants have if they cannot move into a rental unit on the promised move-in date.

The House Housing Finance and Policy Committee approved the measure, as amended, on a split voice vote Wednesday and sent it to the House Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee.

Under its provisions, if a management company cannot provide a livable rental unit on the date promised in a lease, the landlord must notify a tenant at least seven days prior to the start of the lease, plus offer the tenant:

• an equivalent unit to rent until the unit is ready;
• an amount equivalent to the rent they would be paying so that the tenant can find other housing; or
• the option to cancel the lease and have any money paid toward the housing returned.

If a landlord doesn’t offer these options, a tenant could sue to recover “the greater of one month’s rent, $1,000, or actual damages, plus reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs.”

Shana Tomenes, a staff attorney at the University of Minnesota Student Legal Service, said while the Identity Dinkytown situation was an “egregious example” of a management company failing to deliver on promises made in a lease, it was not a rare occurrence.

“When this happens, it leaves renters without housing and with slow and inadequate legal remedies,” Tomenes said.

Republican objections to the measure touched on the enhanced legal remedies the bill would provide for tenants.

The Identity management company did provide adequate resources – such as money to offset rent at another place – for students inconvenienced by the construction delay, said Rep. Jim Nash (R-Waconia).

“I think that the housing provider provided over and above to compensate them for being put out,” he said.

An amendment unsuccessfully offered by Rep. Brian Johnson (R-Cambridge) would have deleted the additional legal remedies provided to renters.