MINNEAPOLIS — Last fall, some University of Minnesota students were left scrambling for housing right before school started.
A new complex called Identity Dinkytown had suddenly announced it wouldn't be done on time, while still collecting the tenant's first month's rent.
Some people filed a lawsuit against the builder, CA Ventures, and lawmakers then heard testimony from several students and experts.
Now, Sen. Omar Fateh is introducing a bill to give renters more legal options in cases like this.
"Identity Dinkytown is only a recent horrifying example," said Sen. Fateh. "There’s plenty of others that probably haven’t been put on public display like this."
Identity Dinkytown eventually opened a month after it all but promised students it would, and that included Kathy McMonagel's daughter. She spent even more money to move in elsewhere for the short term. The building's management offered the impacted students daily gift cards and alternative housing at a local hotel.
"If they did not go back to Identity, they were never going to see that rent money again," said McMonagel. "So it kept us attached to Identity even though our minds wanted us to walk away from them."
McMonagel says only this week did the last of the amenities finally open, including the courtyard.
"It was frustrating," said McMonagel. "There were so many unknowns with this and it never should have happened the way it happened."
Sen. Fateh's bill expands the legal remedies tenants have if they cannot move into a rental unit on the promised move-in date. It includes having to alert a tenant seven days before a lease starts if a unit won't be ready, plus offer the tenant:
- an equivalent unit to rent until the unit is ready;
- an amount equivalent to the rent they would be paying so that the tenant can find other housing; or
- the option to cancel the lease and have any money paid toward the housing returned.
The tenant could sue the landlord if the landlord doesn't comply with the provisions.
"If this does happen, there will be big penalties and we want to put guardrails in place and to discourage them from doing something like this again," said Sen. Fateh.
"We have to get the word out so somebody who knows how to prevent this will step up," said McMonagel. "Thankfully somebody did."
The bill is expected to make its way through the House Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee next. Some Republicans have expressed opposition to it, but Sen. Fateh expects bi-partisan support.
An amendment was offered by Rep. Brian Johnson that would have deleted some of the legal remedies. In a statement to KARE 11 clarifying that, Rep. Johnson wrote, "Remedies for tenants who are left without suitable housing at no fault of their own is widely supported. What my amendment would do is strike the onerous penalties that this bill would impose on housing providers who are in the difficult situation of construction delays and likely cost overruns. Subdivision 5 even states that these are in addition to any damages awarded by the court. Adding even more penalties on top of legal fees and court orders is going to disincentivize builders from taking on any risk and investing in the housing that many parts of the state so desperately need right now."
Watch more local news:
Watch the latest local news from the Twin Cities and across Minnesota in our YouTube playlist: