A covenant is a promise by the landlord, the tenant, or both, to do or to refrain from doing a specific act. The most familiar one is the tenant’s promise to pay rent on a set date. Others you never negotiate at all, because Minnesota writes them into your lease by statute.

Two covenant statutes show the pattern. The landlord alone promises to keep the premises fit for their intended use and in reasonable repair under Minn. Stat. § 504B.161, subd. 1. The landlord and the tenant promise each other that neither will allow the unlawful activities listed in Minn. Stat. § 504B.171, subd. 1. That second one is the anti-crime covenant, and it is the subject of this article.

The Anti-Crime Covenant

The anti-crime covenant applies in “every lease or license of residential premises, whether in writing or parol,” which means it reaches oral leases and written leases that say nothing about crime. Commercial leases are outside the statute. Neither side can contract around it: Minn. Stat. § 504B.171, subd. 3, provides that “[t]he parties to a lease or license of residential premises may not waive or modify the covenant imposed by this section.” A lease clause that drops the covenant or softens it is unenforceable. A clause that goes further than the statute is an ordinary lease term rather than part of the statutory covenant, because subdivision 1 fixes what the covenant contains and subdivision 3 bars waiver or modification of “the covenant imposed by this section.” Subdivision 2a separately limits what any lease term can reach off the premises.

Under Minn. Stat. § 504B.171, subd. 1(a)(1), you and your landlord each promise that neither of you will:

  • allow controlled substances in the premises, or in the common area and curtilage of the premises, in violation of any criminal provision of chapter 152;
  • allow prostitution or prostitution-related activity, as defined in Minn. Stat. § 617.80, subd. 4, to occur on the premises or in the common area and curtilage;
  • allow the unlawful use or possession of a firearm on the premises or in the common area and curtilage, in violation of Minn. Stat. § 609.66, subd. 1a, Minn. Stat. § 609.67, or Minn. Stat. § 624.713; or
  • allow stolen property or property obtained by robbery in the premises or in the common area and curtilage.

Read those items narrowly, because the statute is narrower than the shorthand most people use.

The operative verb is “allow,” not “possess.” You can break the covenant by permitting someone else’s conduct, and the promise binds your landlord exactly as it binds you.

Stolen property and property obtained by robbery are two separate categories joined by “or.” Property taken by ordinary theft, burglary, or shoplifting is inside the covenant; it does not have to have been taken by robbery.

The firearm item does not reach every unlawful firearm use. It reaches only use or possession that violates one of three named sections: Minn. Stat. § 609.66, subd. 1a (felony crimes, suppressors, reckless discharge), Minn. Stat. § 609.67 (machine guns and short-barreled shotguns), and Minn. Stat. § 624.713 (certain persons not to possess firearms).

A fifth promise, added in 2014, runs against the tenant alone. Under Minn. Stat. § 504B.171, subd. 1(b), the tenant or licensee covenants not to commit an act enumerated under Minn. Stat. § 504B.206, subd. 1, paragraph (a), against another tenant, licensee, or authorized occupant. Element lists drawn from the older version of the statute leave this one out.

There is also a separate promise about the shared space. Under Minn. Stat. § 504B.171, subd. 1(a)(2), the common area and curtilage will not be used by the landlord, the tenant, or anyone acting under the control of either “to manufacture, sell, give away, barter, deliver, exchange, distribute, purchase, or possess a controlled substance in violation of any criminal provision of chapter 152.” That clause is written against the common area and curtilage alone. The four promises above cover the dwelling and the shared space alike.

Someone Else’s Drugs Do Not Automatically Break the Covenant

The same subdivision carries the limit that decides most disputes: “The covenant is not violated when a person other than the landlord or licensor or the tenant or licensee possesses or allows controlled substances in the premises, common area, or curtilage, unless the landlord or licensor or the tenant or licensee knew or had reason to know of that activity.” Minn. Stat. § 504B.171, subd. 1(a)(2).

If a guest, a roommate’s visitor, or a stranger brings drugs into the unit, your knowledge is an element the landlord has to prove. Note the boundary: this limit applies to controlled substances only. It does not qualify the prostitution, firearm, or stolen-property items.

The 2023 cannabis act rewrote the drug clause. It changed the covenant from barring a party who would “unlawfully allow controlled substances” to one who allows them “in violation of any criminal provision of chapter 152,” and it added a protection that runs the other direction. Under Minn. Stat. § 504B.171, subd. 1(c), “[a] landlord cannot prohibit a tenant from legally possessing, and a tenant cannot waive the right to legally possess, any cannabis products, lower-potency hemp edibles, or hemp-derived consumer products, or using any cannabinoid product or hemp-derived consumer product, other than consumption by combustion or vaporization of the product and inhalation of smoke, aerosol, or vapor from the product.”

Since August 1, 2023, legally possessing cannabis products, lower-potency hemp edibles, and hemp-derived consumer products has been outside the covenant, and a lease cannot sign that protection away. Your landlord may still restrict smoking and vaping.

Conduct Away From the Property

Since June 1, 2024, a separate limit caps crime-free lease enforcement. Under Minn. Stat. § 504B.171, subd. 2a, a residential landlord may not impose a penalty on a tenant or terminate the tenant’s lease for conduct of the tenant, a household member, or a guest occurring off the premises or curtilage, unless the conduct would constitute a crime of violence against another tenant, the tenant’s guest, the landlord, or the landlord’s employees, whether or not a charge was brought or a conviction obtained, or the conduct results in a conviction of a crime of violence against a person unrelated to the premises. Subdivision 2a borrows the crime-of-violence definition from Minn. Stat. § 624.712, subd. 5, “except that it does not include offenses under chapter 152.” Minn. Stat. § 504B.171, subd. 2a. Drug conduct occurring off the premises and curtilage cannot support a termination.

What a Breach Actually Costs the Tenant

A breach voids the tenant’s right to possession. It does not cancel the lease. Minn. Stat. § 504B.171, subd. 2, says that “[a]ll other provisions of the lease or license, including but not limited to the obligation to pay rent, remain in effect until the lease is terminated by the terms of the lease or operation of law.”

Both sides regularly assume the opposite. Losing possession and being released from the rent obligation are different things.

Evicting a Tenant for Illegal Activity

When the tenant breaches the covenant, the landlord may bring an eviction action, or assign to the county or city attorney for the county or city where the premises are located the right to bring one. That is a right to file a case, not a right to remove the tenant. Eviction is “a summary court proceeding to remove a tenant or occupant from or otherwise recover possession of real property by the process of law set out in this chapter,” Minn. Stat. § 504B.001, subd. 4.

Minn. Stat. § 504B.171 creates no eviction notice the landlord serves on the tenant. If the tenant can be found in the county, the summons and complaint are served “in the manner provided for service of a civil action in district court,” Minn. Stat. § 504B.332, subd. 3(a), which under Minn. R. Civ. P. 4.02 means the sheriff or another person at least 18 years old who is not a party, unless the court orders otherwise. If the tenant cannot be found in the county, subdivision 3(b) allows service by leaving a copy at the tenant’s last usual place of abode with a person of suitable age and discretion residing there, or, if the tenant had no place of abode, at the property described in the complaint with a person of suitable age and discretion occupying the premises, and subdivision 4 allows service by mail and posting if attempts at personal or substitute service are unsuccessful. Service must be at least seven days before the court appearance, Minn. Stat. § 504B.332, subd. 2(a), except in an expedited hearing, where the summons is served within 24 hours of issuance unless the court orders otherwise for good cause, Minn. Stat. § 504B.321, subd. 2(c). The former eviction service section, Minn. Stat. § 504B.331, was repealed in 2024.

If the landlord assigns the case, the assignment must be in writing on a form the county or city attorney provides, and that office decides whether to accept it. If it accepts, the court filing fee that would otherwise apply is waived, and the landlord keeps the remaining rights and duties, including removal of the tenant’s personal property after the writ of recovery of premises and order to vacate issues and reaches the sheriff for execution. Assigning the case does not hand off the whole job.

The filing itself has requirements. Under Minn. Stat. § 504B.321, subd. 3, a complaint alleging a § 504B.171 violation must specify the nature of the conduct constituting the alleged violation and the dates on which it took place, attach the current or most recent written lease and any relevant addenda, and state whether the tenancy carries a federal or state housing subsidy. The court issues the summons. The court must dismiss and expunge the record of any action in which the filer fails to comply with the section, and the file is not accessible to the public until final judgment.

The expedited track is not automatic. Under Minn. Stat. § 504B.321, subd. 2, the landlord must also file an affidavit stating specific facts and instances supporting expedited treatment, which a referee or judge reviews for sufficiency. The hearing is then set not less than five nor more than seven days from issuance of the summons, with service within 24 hours unless the court orders otherwise for good cause. The court may not consolidate an expedited claim with a breach-of-lease, holdover, or nonpayment claim. Effective August 1, 2026, for actions filed on or after that date, the Legislature added conduct that assaults the landlord or the landlord’s employees or contractors as a ground for the expedited hearing, defined “assault” by reference to Minn. Stat. § 609.02, subd. 10, and raised the penalty for seeking an expedited hearing without sufficient basis from $500 to $750.

One point landlords often get backward: the 14-day written notice added in 2023 applies only “[b]efore bringing an eviction action alleging nonpayment of rent or other unpaid financial obligation in violation of the lease,” Minn. Stat. § 504B.321, subd. 1a. It is not a prerequisite to a covenant-breach action.

Nothing requires the landlord to act at all. Subdivision 2 says the landlord “may bring, or assign,” and no statute conditions that choice on police involvement.

If Your Landlord Breaks the Covenant

The covenant binds your landlord too, but Minn. Stat. § 504B.171 gives you no remedy of its own. Its only enforcement provision voids the tenant’s right to possession and authorizes an eviction action against the tenant.

You enforce the covenant against a landlord through the tenant remedies action instead. A breach of chapter 504B, and a breach of the lease the covenant is written into, each count as a “violation” under Minn. Stat. § 504B.001, subd. 14, and a residential tenant of a building where a violation is alleged to exist may bring an action in district court under Minn. Stat. § 504B.395, subd. 1(1). A housing-related neighborhood organization may bring the same action with a tenant’s written permission, so you do not have to be the named plaintiff.

The statute sets conditions. You must inform the landlord in writing of the alleged violation at least 14 days before you start the action, a requirement the Legislature broadened in 2025. The summons may be issued only by a judge or court administrator. The complaint must be verified and must allege material facts showing the violation, state the relief sought, and list the rent due each month from each unit in the building, if known. Venue is the county where the building is located.

The relief is what Minn. Stat. § 504B.425 allows, including an order to remedy the violation, rent abatement, a court-appointed administrator, and attorney fees capped at $500. It is not damages for the underlying crimes, which the state prosecutes.

Drug Crimes: What Changed in 2022

For years a separate statute made a police seizure the operative event for landlords. That procedure is gone, and if you are working from older guidance this is the part to discard.

Under the residential rental forfeiture procedure formerly codified at Minn. Stat. § 609.5317, the prosecuting authority, not the police, had to notify the landlord and the owner’s authorized agent by certified letter, return receipt requested, within 30 days of a seizure of contraband or a controlled substance on residential rental property. The notice had to “state what has been seized and specify the applicable duties and penalties under this subdivision,” and those duties and penalties fell on the landlord, not the tenant. No notice was required during an ongoing investigation, so a landlord could learn of a seizure and still receive nothing.

Within 15 days after notice of the first occurrence, the landlord had to bring an eviction action against the tenant or assign to the prosecuting authority of the county where the property sat, in writing on that office’s form, the right to bring one. An assignment carried only the rights and duties through delivery of the writ to the sheriff, so the landlord kept the rest, including removal of the tenant’s personal property.

Notice of a second occurrence involving the same tenant, on any residential rental property the same landlord owned in the same county, and within one year after notice of the first, exposed the property to forfeiture unless an eviction action had been commenced or assigned. Even then, the section did not reach the real property unless the retail value of the controlled substance was $1,000 or more, or there had been two previous controlled substance seizures involving the same tenant. Below a $100 retail value the entire section did not apply, so no notice, no 15-day duty, and no forfeiture exposure attached.

The section carried defenses on both sides. It was a defense to the eviction proceeding that the tenant had no knowledge or reason to know of the presence of the contraband or controlled substance, or could not prevent its being brought onto the property. It was a defense to the second-occurrence forfeiture proceeding that the landlord made every reasonable attempt to evict the tenant or to assign the prosecuting authority the right to bring an eviction action, or that the landlord did not receive notice of the seizure.

Neither defense was self-executing. Each had to be established in a court case: the tenant’s in the eviction action, where judgment followed the finding of the court or jury under Minn. Stat. § 504B.345, subd. 1, and the landlord’s in the forfeiture case, which proceeded by judicial action on a separate complaint filed against the property under Minn. Stat. § 609.5313.

All of it ended together. Laws 2021, First Special Session, chapter 11, article 5, section 22, repealed Minn. Stat. § 609.5317, and the repealer carries its own effective-date clause: “This section is effective January 1, 2022.” The section remained in force through December 31, 2021. On the controlled-substance covenant, what a tenant has is not a defense to an established breach but the limit inside the covenant itself: under Minn. Stat. § 504B.171, subd. 1(a)(2), the covenant is not violated by another person’s possession unless the tenant knew or had reason to know of that activity.

Forfeiture Risk for a Landlord Today

An arrest at your rental property starts no clock under Minn. Stat. § 504B.171, which conditions the covenant on allowing the listed activity, conditions loss of possession on a breach of that covenant, and names no arrest trigger and no time period. Under Minn. Stat. § 504B.171, subd. 2, the landlord “may bring, or assign” an eviction action, and the section sets no deadline. Where a person other than the landlord or the tenant possesses or allows controlled substances, subdivision 1(a)(2) turns on whether the landlord or the tenant “knew or had reason to know of that activity”; the statute says nothing about what an arrest establishes. What gives you the right to evict is the tenant’s breach of the covenant, which you prove in court.

You can still lose rental real property in a controlled substance case, but under the general forfeiture statute and on narrower conditions. Minn. Stat. § 609.5311, subd. 2(a), reaches property “that is an instrument or represents the proceeds of a controlled substance offense,” and excludes homestead property exempt from seizure under Minn. Stat. § 510.01. Subdivision 3 adds the limits that matter to an owner:

  • “Real property is subject to forfeiture under this section only if the retail value of the controlled substance or contraband is $2,000 or more.”
  • Property is reachable “only if its owner was privy to the use or intended use described in subdivision 2, or the unlawful use or intended use of the property otherwise occurred with the owner’s knowledge or consent.”
  • Property is “not subject to forfeiture based solely on the owner’s or secured party’s knowledge of the unlawful use or intended use of the property if . . . the owner or secured party took reasonable steps to terminate use of the property by the offender.”
  • Under paragraph (e), forfeiture of a conveyance device or real property encumbered by a bona fide security interest “is subject to the interest of the secured party unless the secured party had knowledge of or consented to the act or omission upon which the forfeiture is based.” Under paragraph (g), knowledge alone does not forfeit the property if the secured party “took reasonable steps to terminate use of the property by the offender.”

That third limit is the safe harbor. Where forfeiture would rest solely on the owner’s knowledge, Minn. Stat. § 609.5311, subd. 3(g), takes the property out of forfeiture if the owner “took reasonable steps to terminate use of the property by the offender”; the statute names that standard and prescribes no particular method for meeting it. The exposure now runs the other way from the old rule. The 15-day clock and the second-occurrence forfeiture exposure died with Minn. Stat. § 609.5317, repealed by Laws 2021, First Special Session, chapter 11, article 5, section 22, effective January 1, 2022, and Minn. Stat. § 504B.171, subd. 2, carries no deadline of its own. A landlord who knows of drug activity and takes no reasonable step to end it keeps the knowledge element alive.

One more limit postdates the old procedure. Under Minn. Stat. § 609.531, subd. 6a, an asset is subject to forfeiture by judicial determination under sections 609.5311 to 609.5318 only if a person is convicted of the related criminal offense, or is not charged under chapter 152 because of an agreement to provide information about another person’s criminal activity, and the agency bears the burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that the property is an instrument or represents the proceeds of the underlying offense.

Expungement of a Covenant Eviction

If you are a tenant who was evicted on covenant grounds, ask about expungement. Under Minn. Stat. § 484.014, subd. 3(b), on a tenant’s motion the court must order expungement of an eviction case commenced on the grounds of a violation of section 504B.171, regardless of when the eviction was ordered, if the breach was based solely on possession of marijuana or tetrahydrocannabinols. Expungement is also automatic three years after an eviction was ordered, with no motion required. Minn. Stat. § 484.014, subd. 3(a)(5).

The Practical Picture

You and your landlord promise each other to keep certain criminal activity off the property, and neither of you can bargain that promise away. A breach ends the tenant’s right to stay but not the rent obligation, and the landlord who wants possession has to go to court and spell out the conduct and the dates it took place in the complaint. A guest’s drugs do not count against you unless you knew or had reason to know. Legally possessed cannabis and hemp products cannot be prohibited, though a landlord may still bar smoking or vaping them. Conduct off the premises and curtilage cannot cost you the lease unless it would be a crime of violence against another tenant, your guest, the landlord, or the landlord’s employees, or it results in a conviction of a crime of violence against a person unrelated to the premises.

Evictions involving criminal conduct move fast and leave a record. Contact an experienced landlord-tenant attorney who can advise you on your legal rights and options.