What can a landlord do with a tenant’s belongings left behind in Minnesota?

In Minnesota, a landlord who takes possession of property a tenant leaves in abandoned premises must store and care for it, and may sell or otherwise dispose of it 28 days after the landlord receives actual notice of the abandonment or 28 days after it reasonably appears the tenant has abandoned the premises, whichever is later. Before a sale, the landlord must make reasonable efforts to notify the tenant at least 14 days in advance, by personal service in writing or by first class and certified mail to the tenant’s last known address or usual place of abode if known, and must post notice of the sale in a conspicuous place on the premises at least two weeks before it. The landlord has a claim against the tenant for the reasonable costs of removing, storing and caring for the property, may apply a reasonable amount of the sale proceeds to those costs or to claims the security deposit law allows, and must pay any remaining proceeds to the tenant on written demand. A landlord who does not let the tenant retake the property within 24 hours after a written demand, or within 48 hours excluding weekends and holidays when the property has been stored somewhere other than the premises, owes punitive damages of up to twice the actual damages or $1,000, whichever is greater, plus actual damages and reasonable attorney’s fees. A lease provision waiving these rules is void. This is Minn. Stat. § 504B.271.

WhatMinnesota
Belongings left behindStore 28 days; 14 days’ notice before a sale
What the statute requires firstNotice, a waiting period or storage before disposal

What the statute says

“The landlord may sell or otherwise dispose of the property 28 days after the landlord receives actual notice of the abandonment, or 28 days after it reasonably appears to the landlord that the tenant has abandoned the premises, whichever occurs last.”

Quoted word for word from the section’s text.

Source

Minn. Stat. § 504B.271

Read the statute in the Minnesota Statutes (Office of the Revisor of Statutes): revisor.mn.gov.

Checked against the statute on November 15, 2026.

This is a summary of a published statute, not legal advice. Rules change, local ordinances can add to them, and the terms of a specific lease may differ. Check the citation and speak to a lawyer before acting.

How Seayora uses this rule

Seayora keeps a lease’s end date and every notice sent through it, with the date it went out, in the lease record — so the dates a rule like this one counts from are on file rather than remembered.

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