Minnesota’s Tenant’s Right to Privacy Statute Lags Behind Other States’ Statutes and Should Be Improved.

Minn. Stat. § 504B.211, the Tenant’s Right to Privacy statute that governs landlord notice prior to entering the tenant’s home, is out of sync with comparable statutes in other states. This essay, in PDF and in Word, includes a survey of the privacy statutes in all 50 states + the District of Columbia. Relevant provisions of each statute are shown in Chart 1. A summary of how the states deal with five issues – [a] limiting the tenant to a specific kind of law suit (only Minnesota prohibits suits in small claims court); [b] the cap on damages (Minnesota’s “up to .. $100” is at the low end); [c] specificity in the amount of notice (e.g. “24 hours”) & [d] the time of entry (e.g. “9 am to 5 pm”) where section 504B.211 is not specific; and [e] whether notice must be written – is provided in Chart 2. I suggest improvements to section 504B.211.

On 12/2/2021 I revised the essay slightly by adding a new paragraph about filing a section-504B.211 case in the last few days of the tenancy. This paragraph is marked with a red asterisk and is on page 3 of the essay.