The Landlord Lens - Renters Can Now Force Repairs (New Law)

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

A new right-to-repair law just passed in Duluth, Minnesota and renters could now legally take action on repairs if landlords don’t act.In this video, we break down the actual law passed in Duluth, how it works, what it allows tenants to do, and what it means for landlords and property managers. We explain:• What the Duluth right-to-repair law actually permits• When a renter can demand repairs• How “repair-and-deduct” works under the new ordinance• Steps landlords should take to stay compliant and avoid deductions or disputesThis is something every landlord in Duluth (and other Minnesota cities watching) needs to understand before it affects your bottom line.

Today, we're diving into something that should make every landlord watching sit up straight. In Duluth, Minnesota, the most aggressive tenant repair law just passed, and it passed overwhelmingly. 69% of Minnesotans voted yes on the proposal to allow tenants to make simple repairs in their units without landlord oversight. Hey, everybody, welcome to Landlord Lens. I am joined, as usual, by Seamus. How are you doing today? Doing great, John. Excellent.

Are you ready to talk about self-repair laws? I absolutely am. I think it's a super important topic and an interesting example from Duluth, Minnesota with this new law that was passed. Yeah, and passed overwhelmingly. Sixty-nine percent is a huge win for the tenants rights groups there, but creates a brand-new reason to file a lawsuit for landlords and renters alike. Absolutely. It creates a lot of opportunity for friction in that relationship. But let's roll the video and learn more. Duluth just became the first city in Minnesota to pass a right to repair law empowering renters. The law lets tenants make simple repairs to their rental units and then deduct the cost of those repairs from their next month's rent. That can be up to $500 or a half-months rent, whichever is greater. How it works is tenants inform their landlord when a repair is needed, things like broken windows and doorknobs or leaky faucets and clogged drains.

The landlord has two weeks to fix it or at least schedule the repair. If they don't, the tenant can do the work themselves or hire someone to do it and then deduct the cost from their rent. Well, there you have it, John. The law is allowing tenants to self-repair if they've given written notice of a maintenance request that has gone unresponded to in 14 days. How do we feel about it? Complicated. Because I think one thing I'll ask you, Seamus, to kind of tee this off, is what is your repair process? When you get a repair request in, what do you have to do? All right. So I'm considering kind of four different things. The first is, the actual problem, right? Many maintenance requests will come in. They don't have a level of specificity.

Or maybe they're just the tip of the iceberg, right? So there is this mitigation of future damage, but also just a triaging of like, what problem should we actually solve, right? Water's pooling on the bathroom floor. Is it leaking from the toilet? Is it leaking from the sink, right? What problem should we actually solve? So that's one.

Number two, I'm thinking about the service provider, right? Who it is and the quality of work they do, right? I have my own team that I note a call, right? I got them on speed dial, a plumber, an HVAC, a individual, a handyman. Sometimes yourself? And sometimes it's myself, right? That will come in and do the job.

And I want a trusted individual. And if I have to go outside that team, I want to be able to ask about references. I want to ask about similar jobs they've done in the past, right? So that's number two, the quality of the service provider. Number three is the quality of the equipment that they ensure. install. What most people anticipate is the landlords are going to do everything in the cheap. But in a lot of cases, like a water heater I recently had, I actually wanted the better quality

one, because I don't want to do this again, right? I want that 20-year warranty. Yeah. And so the quality of equipment actually installed. And then the last one, of course, is the price. I want to make sure I get multiple bids so that I'm paying an appropriate price for the job that's getting done. Awesome. Okay. So that makes a lot of sense. A lot of clear ways in which you make sure the right work is done for the right price to achieve the best outcome to actually finish the maintenance job. How would your approach change if you weren't on the hook for the cost of the repair or for the change in the asset?

Yeah, so I'm a tenant now in Minnesota. Yep. And I have the self-repair option. Well, first, a lot of it is going to just be around what is most convenient for me, right? Timing, easiest person to get a whole. of easiest person to come do the work. There's less of an emphasis on the actual mitigation, less of an emphasis on the triage.

What is the actual problem? And then as a tenant, I'm not going to call three different service providers and get three different bids, right? I'm just going to get whatever bid, or I'm just going to take the first bid I get that fits within this $500 or half a rent that I can deduct.

Yeah, right? Because at the end of the day, it's not really money out of my pocket. it, right? So I don't care. And then the last piece, I think, is just on equipment selection, right? What is actually being put in there? What is the method with which they're actually doing the repair? Is it up to the quality that I want as a landlord? Right. I'm not considering that because I don't know it, you know? And so I think that's the big difference, right? It's kind of night in day as to how a landlord is going to approach these things and how a tenant will approach them

in self-repair mode. Yeah. So let's talk about that. So obviously, the maintenance process you have or the one you kind of put together ad hoc if you only get two or three a year, right? If you're one property is built to both achieve good outcomes for the tenant, but also protect your wallet and protect your asset in the property. How do you avoid getting to a place where the tenant who does not have any of those incentives goes out and does it? What are some new things in your playbook you might need to introduce or just some things you need to be on top of? Yeah. So if you're a landlord in Duluth right now, your lease agreement has to say, how you want to receive maintenance requests. That's perfectly legal, right?

And so my lease agreements, I'll say as a TurboTenant user, right, all maintenance requests have to be submitted through TurboTenet, and that coordination and messaging will happen through TurboTenet around that, right? That gives me the ability to control that situation so that I get that notice. It doesn't get lost in a voicemail, an email, spam folder, right?

It doesn't get just lost in text messages. Yeah. And that also, that notification of a maintenance request also starts that 14 day clock. Yeah, okay. There's a timestamp now. Exactly. So that comes in, boom, I know exactly when I have to go back and forth. I message back and forth with the tenant right in TurboTenant so that I have those timestamps, right?

Hey, I address this quickly. And then the other piece that happens automatically through the TurboTenant system. And if you're not using TurboTenant, I'd suggest, well, use TurboTenet. But I'd suggest making sure you also have a follow-up after the repair is done, where they have to confirm that the repair was successful. Yeah. And it's not a lingering issue. Because I also think that laws like this are ripe with a situation of I put in a request for a repair. It gets fixed.

I'm unsatisfied as the tenant with the level from which it was fixed. Yeah. And the clock keeps running. right the law doesn't specify that a new maintenance request has to come in in that situation right right so though that's you know that in my mind is a very easy way with which this 14 days could expire even though as a landlord you've been doing the right things if you're able to contain all the communication in one spot and a you know disinterested third party can review that review the photos that come out of the actual work review the photos on the maintenance request and say yep looks like the work got done that was agreed to

you're probably safe. Yeah, and I would directly go to the tenant and say, did the work get done as you would have expected? Yeah. Is this maintenance request closed? You know, when you think of it that way, and, you know, two weeks is a long time, actually responding quickly and taking the actions required to get a repair

just like you would in your own house with a leaky pipe or something, sounds pretty reasonable. It just requires staying on top of it, documentation, all in one place, folder of activity. Absolutely. And what I don't understand right now and maybe more guidance will come out. But like, let's say repair request is sent in a month ago via an email and a spam folder, right? Yeah. Is that already expired? So today as a tenant, I start making those self-repairs and they all get deducted from my rent, right? Sounds great. The other thing that's not specified is what if I

DIY it for those self-repairs. Oh, yeah. Right? I decide that I want. I'm worth $400 an hour. Yes. Either my hourly rate, right, or I decide that I want to drastically upgrade the mirror over the vanity or some element like that. There's a little shelf that's loose. And instead of putting in a new solid anchor, I decide to buy Entertainment Center. Right? And then that just gets deducted out of rent. Yeah, exactly. So I think this is rife with opportunities for a lot of tension between landlords and tenants. It's also requires that. huge degree of interpretation on both sides as to what is within each person's power control. So it'll be interesting to see how it plays out and whether this is the kind of policy

that we see start spreading. I would imagine we do see it start spreading. That 69% approval rating probably sounds like music to the years of city council members the world over. So it'll be interesting to see where it spreads to and the kind of fallout we get to observe.

We'll probably have shows about it. Yeah, and like so many things that we end up talking about, it does represent this kind of sliding where a landlord doesn't own the property. Yeah. Things can happen to it, right? Outside of their control, I won't say outside of their control, but I would say outside of their approval maybe. Yeah. And it does kind of represent this, I would say, this loosening in the hold landlords have on their own property. and generally that's

going to face a lot of and should face a lot of pushback from landlords. Agreed. Cool. Well, thanks, everybody. I appreciate you hopping into another landlord lens with us as we talk about these right to repair law. If you like the content, like and subscribe.

If you have any tenants that have done a self-repair that turned into a nightmare. Oh, yeah. Please share those in the comments because I'm sure some of our audience right now is thinking about the self-repairs that they've seen and the amount of work that created for them. TurboTenant is the all-in-one platform for landlords to manage their rental properties.

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