There is a citywide referendum in St. Paul. This is the Right to Repair Initiative, which was placed on the ballot by petition. It was organized by the group Safe Homes St. Paul. It was at one point blocked from being on the ballot by the City Council on the grounds that the City Attorney doesn’t think it’s legal/enforceable, but this was overridden by a judge. Here’s the text on the ballot:
CITY QUESTION 1 (St. Paul)
Creating Chapter 34A of the Saint Paul Legislative Code
Should the City adopt the proposed Ordinance pertaining to a tenants right to repair? The ordinance would allow tenants to make repairs to their building after written notice to the landlord and deduct an amount not exceeding $500 or one-half month’s rent to pay for the repair. A “Yes” vote amends the City of Saint Paul’s Legislative Code to adopt the Proposed Ordinance pertaining to a tenant’s right to repair. A “No” vote will result in no changes to the City’s Legislative Code.
You can also find the full text of the proposed ordinance here.
On a fundamental level, I think it’s entirely reasonable to say that if you’re a tenant, and something breaks and your landlord doesn’t fix it, you should be able to just fix it yourself, or call a repair person and get it fixed, and deduct the expense from your rent. That feels entirely reasonable to me. Where I start to have concerns is in the details of how this would be implemented, exactly, and whether it would work the way I want it to work.
The initial concerns I had, along with the answers I got from Cole Hanson (of Safe Homes St. Paul) when I e-mailed:
1. What happens if a tenant tries to fix something, and breaks it worse?
Cole noted that Section 34A.05 says that all repairs must be made in a workmanlike manner, and if required by law, by persons who are licensed to perform the required work. He said that if you’re in doubt you should probably hire a professional. He also pointed out section 34A.07: “Nothing in this section shall abridge the liability of a contractor, servicer, vendor, or any other person who enters the premises to make repairs to the landlord for damage to property under the applicable principles of statutory and common law.” So — basically the answer is, if you’re a tenant doing the repair and you break it worse, you’re potentially on the hook for the cost of additional problems you might have caused.
2. What if landlords use this as an excuse to default on their responsibilities and tell tenants to fix stuff themselves? Repair is labor and for that matter so is scheduling a plumber. It shouldn’t be on tenants to repair things.
In Duluth, where this passed in 2025, the Right to Repair ordinance has apparently not yet been used. Per Cole, this is because the threat of tenants being able to call a repairman themself means that landlords are making repairs more promptly, because they absolutely want to be able to know it’s their own preferred plumber or whatever doing the work. St. Paul skeptics of this ordinance are less convinced that’s the case. I’ll note that there’s a Reddit thread in /r/Duluth looking for people who need help using the ordinance and the replies are mostly not people trying to figure out how to get something fixed.
3. How will it be handled if there’s a conflict between the landlord and the tenant about whether a problem is an actual problem that needs to be fixed, as opposed to something the tenant should just live with (or something the tenant is imagining?)
There’s an answer to this in the text of the ordinance! Section 34A.05, “Tenant contracting repairs; notice; eligible repairs,”(c) If the landlord disputes that a repair is required, they must send written notice to the tenant within 14 days of the tenant’s notice and arrange for the building official to inspect the property. If a landlord does not respond to the tenant’s notice within 14 days, the landlord waives their right to claim that a repair is not required. If the inspection confirms that the repair is required, or if an inspection does not occur within 30 days of the landlord’s written notice of dispute, the tenant retains the right to initiate the repair.“
4. Are there any protections for the tenant in situations where you call for what’s supposed to be a simple, under-the-limit repair, and then as the work is being done it balloons into something much more expensive?
Cole’s response: “What I see here is the classic leaky fixture actually caused by an old old pipe. In that case, a tenant would likely need to file again for the attached or other identified issues. This is why it would be worthwhile to use inclusive language when submitting notice to your landlord in case an issue is greater than anticipated. You can also file simultaneous requests for different violations, and possibly stack them month over month. Again, these are hypotheticals and have not been tested in court in Duluth, from which much of this language originated.” He also highlighted Section 34A.03: If the tenant’s rent is subsidized in whole or in part by a governmental agency, the deduction limitation of one month’s rent shall mean the fair market rent for the dwelling and not the rent that the tenant pays.
5. Is there any protection for the landlord against the following situation: a tenant has a broken doorknob, and after waiting out the 14 days, they hire their buddy Jo, who they then pay the full maximum amount allowed for 5 minutes of work, so their landlord winds up on the hook for $500 to Jo’s Expert Doorknob Repair?
I didn’t ask Cole this question but here’s my understanding: yes, the protection for the landlord is that they get two weeks to fix the doorknob themself. The ordinance requires that repairs be completed “in a workmanlike manner” and I don’t think that covers costs (however, I am not a lawyer.)
Other concerns I’ve heard:
1. The city enforcement infrastructure for this doesn’t exist, and won’t exist until sometime after this gets passed. Worth noting, in the case where a landlord disputes that a repair is needed, the landlord needs to arrange a visit from a building inspector. We do have those in St. Paul but I don’t know how many, and how busy they are. If the inspection does not occur within 30 days, the tenant gets to make the repair, even if the landlord has been trying to get someone to come out and take a look. That said, this has literally not come up at all in Duluth.
2. This could raise rent, because it raises the costs for landlords. I kinda think this is a bogus argument because landlords are supposed to fix stuff. This should already be part of what you’re paying for, even if you’re paying very low rent.
3. There are various additional legal issues with the way the ordinance was written. For example, if work requires a permit, the tenant can’t pull a permit, that still requires the landlord. The permit issue specifically got brought up by the City Attorney who wanted it knocked off the ballot, and it could, in a few cases, be an issue, but given the limits on costs you can charge back to your landlord, I think in general the stuff that requires a permit will still need the landlord’s participation anyway. Average rent in St. Paul is about $1500/month, which would cap costs at $750. Thinking back to the things we’ve done on our house that required a permit, all of them cost significantly more than that.
3. But because parts of the law are unenforceable (according to the City Attorney), the whole thing may just not go on the books until the City Council can revise it, and that won’t happen for a full year (because if something passes in a referendum the City isn’t allowed to tweak it for a year). The City Council could pass their own Right to Repair ordinance that would take effect much more quickly. This is a fair point, but I am concerned that if a Right to Repair ordinance fails, the interpretation will be, “our citizenry opposes this ordinance,” and not, “our citizenry would like us to immediately pass a version of this that has been vetted by our city attorney to cover problems like ‘what about permits that the tenant can’t get.'” It’s a shame that passage may mean it sits in limbo for a year, but I think passing it now makes it more likely that we get some version of it eventually.
Anyway, the upshot is this: there are absolutely issues with this ordinance as written, and I think that is one of the reasons that it has yet to be used in Duluth. (I think the theory by its proponents, that landlords don’t want their tenants hiring Jo’s Expert Doorknob Repair or going at things with a wrench themselves, is also a factor. I think there’s probably a final issue of lack of trust, that people are wary of assuming that if they hire their own plumber, and their landlord pushes back, and it all winds up in court, that this won’t leave them screwed.)
I’m going to vote for this because I do want some version of this to be the law, and I think we’re a lot more likely to get some version of this in the end if we pass it than if we don’t.
This seems like a good year to fundraise for a trans nonprofit, so I’m fundraising this year for TIGERRS. I don’t have a Patreon, and a fundraiser lets me see in a tangible way that people value my work, which is really helpful as a motivator. (This project is a lot of work.) I raised $7,230 during primary season so I’ve raised the goal.
I also have a new book out! Obstetrix is about an obstetrician who gets kidnapped by a cult because they want someone on hand to deliver their babies; it’s a story about enduring, surviving, and not giving up. You can buy it anywhere fine books are sold, and I’ve been doing my best to keep Uncle Hugo’s, Moon Palace, and Dreamhaven Books in signed copies.
