Saint Paul, MN Rental Property Rules: Repairs & Habitability (2026)

Saint Paul Legislative Code Chapter 34, Minimum Property Maintenance Standards for All Structures and Premises, applies to every residential structure and its premises citywide under Sec. 03, regardless of when the building was constructed. Sec. 11(6) sets the core heat mandate: heating facilities must be able to safely and adequately heat every habitable room, bathroom, and toilet room to at least sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit even when it's minus twenty degrees outside, and the owner must actually maintain a minimum sixty-eight degree room temperature, not just install equipment capable of it.

Sec. 11(5) requires water heating facilities capable of delivering hot water between one hundred ten and one hundred twenty degrees Fahrenheit to every kitchen sink, hand sink, bathtub and shower. Sec. 11(1)-(4) separately require a private toilet and hand sink, a bathtub or shower, a kitchen sink apart from the hand sink, and connection of every fixture to the water and sewer system. Space standards sit in Sec. 13: a dwelling unit needs at least one hundred fifty square feet of habitable floor area for the first occupant and at least one hundred more for each additional occupant, sleeping rooms need at least seventy square feet for one occupant or fifty square feet per occupant for two or more, and every sleeping room needs an emergency escape opening that's operable from the inside.

Sec. 15(3) layers on a Chapter 39 smoke and carbon monoxide alarm requirement. Owners who fail to meet these standards face the enforcement track in Sec. 23, inspection, a written notice to correct, and, for serious hazards, condemnation as unfit for occupancy. A violation of Chapter 34 is a misdemeanor under Sec. 18.