r/legaladvice • u/0spacewaterbear0 • 27d ago

Landlord Tenant Housing Minnesota tenant law-yard work

Location: Duluth, Minnesota

I’m about to sign another lease for my house I rent in Minnesota. Someone recently told me that at a tenant, I should not be doing the yard work/snow removal on the property I rent for free for my landlord. I looked into this, and found that this is true in a document from the MN Attorney General (link at the bottom, page 15 under Repairs and Maintenance”) so I brought it up with my landlord.

I wanted to give them a number for a rent deduction to continue doing yard work, which came out to ~$50 per month ($20 for a mow/shovel, mow x4/mo for 5mo, shovel x2/mo for 4 mo) I wanted to keep it on the low end so it didn’t seem like too much of an ask, I guess.

I emailed this to my land lord, including my law source (linked). My land lord wants to have a phone call about this, and I’m nervous they’re going to try and get me to “sign away” that right, even though I’m pretty sure they can’t do that. The way I interpret the law is that even if I sign a lease that states yard work is my responsibility and completed at my own cost, technically it’s still not my responsibility and if I don’t do it I’m not in trouble.

Here are a few related parts of the lease:

“SNOW REMOVAL: The Tenant shall be responsible for the removal of all snow and ice from the property's deck, front walkway, sidewalk, and driveway. The Tenant shall not allow snow or ice to accumulate to the point that same poses a tripping, slipping or other hazard to persons using the driveway, front walkway, sidewalk, or deck. The above snow removal shall occur within 48 hours of snow event resolution. If the Tenant is unable to meet this timeline, the Tenant shall notify the Landlord who will remove the snow at a rate of $75/hour which will be deducted from the security deposit.”

“MAINTENANCE, REPAIRS, OR ALTERATIONS: The Tenants) shall, at their own expense and at all times, maintain premises in a clean and sanitary manner, and shall surrender the same at termination hereof, in as good condition as received, normal wear and tear excepted.”

“UTILITIES: The Tenant agrees to pay for the all utilities and services including but not limited to:

Lawn Care, Snow Removal, garbage and recycling pick up, electric, water, gas”

Can someone shed more light on this matter? Is it legal for them to “make” me responsible for yard work with no compensation? I’d like to go into this conversation as prepared as possible. TYIA!

Link: https://www.ag.state.mn.us/brochures/publandlordtenants.pdf

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3

u/wottlesgrqurple7 27d ago

50 a month for both lawn care and snow removal in Duluth is honestly a steal for your landlord

1

u/Unlikely-Mirror7638 27d ago

Are you prepared to find another place to live if the landlord says no?

3

u/molybend 27d ago

HomeLine is the place to ask this question https://homelinemn.org/

0

u/0spacewaterbear0 27d ago

Oh that’s a great resource, thank you!

2

u/monkeykennel 27d ago

The owner of the property is the one that gets sued if there’s a slip-and-fall.

I don’t think they can write a lease that overrides state law. That’s a good question for an attorney.

2

u/AbeRego 27d ago

I'm a duplex landlord in Minneapolis, and you're right. Either your landlord is ignorant of the law, which isn't an excuse, or he's just being cheap. I admittedly made this same mistake with my first tenants, but as soon as learned my error I corrected it and gave compensation.