We have been watching all the new ordinances coming out of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Last July, St. Paul enacted the Renters Protection Ordinance. While there are multiple parts to this ordinance, one that is especially challenging for landlords will be the restrictions for screening tenants. St. Paul landlords this week filed suit in District Court of this and the rest of the ordinances. See a good article here.
In the filing, the attorneys for the plaintiffs spelled out the problems with the new ordinances this way:
Under the Ordinance, an Owner in 2021 is prohibited from making any distinction between Applicant A, who has never committed a crime, has never been evicted, has a high credit score of 800 and an income five (5) times higher than the rent, and Applicant B, who was convicted of first degree pre-meditated murder in 2009, convicted of second-degree manslaughter for a separate killing in 2012, convicted a number of times of running a house of prostitution with the latest conviction in 2016, evicted numerous times with the latest eviction in 2016, and has a low credit score of 425. And, once Applicant B is accepted and begins either not fully paying rent on time and/or causing a nuisance on the premises, the Owner must continue to renew that tenant’s lease at the expiration of the lease period or undergo the expensive and time consuming eviction process if and only if the Owner can establish Just Cause under the Ordinance and the tenant fails to Cure The Deficiency
I thought that this explanation was spot on.
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