On March 29, 2021 I gave a CLE seminar entitled “Almost Everything You Wanted to Know About Minnesota Residential Security Deposits.” No doubt the title exaggerated the seminar’s value. However, the seminar did provide a considerable number of useful legal citations and (I think) some helpful detailed discussion of security-deposit law and of Minn. Stat. § 504B.178, the state’s security-deposit statute.
This blog post presents that same material in essay form. It includes some extra material, including some additional citations to statutes & case law plus expanded discussions of tax issues, the “fiduciary” clause in Minn. Stat. § 504B.178, subd. 2, and Minn. Stat. § 504B.178, subd. 4. It is available here in Word (Updated in August 2025) and here in PDF (Updated in August 2025). The Word version includes hyperlinks to all the cited statutes, cases, regulations, and IRS materials. Some of the cited materials are also available in these Appendices.
The essay was edited on 3/23/2022. The discussion of “other funds due to the landlord pursuant to an agreement” was expanded.
Last year I updated the essay to include a discussion of session laws enacted in 2023 and 2024. The 2024 law was just a non-material change included in the Revisor’s bill. The 2023 session law created an obligation on the landlord to afford the tenant joint move-in and move-out inspections. This essay also discusses a 2024 nonprecedential court of appeals case about the meaning of “written statement”.
I have now updated the essay to include a short discussion of a recent case, State v. Auleciems in the “Repeat offender landlords” section. I’ve also corrected a few typos.
On August 6, 2025 I edited the essay again. I made some minor stylistic changes and added discussions of Peebles v. JRK Property (Mass. Aug. 1, 2025) and Steiner v. Campbell Prop Mgt (Minn. App. July 21, 2025).
Birnberg Minnesota Legislative Newsletter 