Common Contracts

Landlords and Tenants – Provided by the Office of Attorney General Lori Swanson

March 7th, 2014

• Filed
  March 7th, 2014

According to Minnesota law, when the owner of a house or apartment agrees to give to someone else - for money or labor - the temporary use of that place, the two have entered into a legally binding rental contract. It doesn’t matter if the agreement is oral or in writing. It is an agreement to rent, and that means some of its most important terms are automatically defined by law. Some of these terms are fixed - that is, neither landlord nor tenant can change them. Other terms can be whatever the landlord and tenant want if both parties agree. The following pages describe what the law requires of both landlords and tenants in a typical rental agreement.