St. Paul Residential Lease Compliance Pre-Signing Checklist

Read This First

What This Checklist Is — and Isn't

I'm a personal injury lawyer, not a housing lawyer. This checklist looks at rental properties through one lens: the physical conditions that put people in emergency rooms — loose railings, bad stairs, missing alarms, untreated ice. Walking a unit with that lens before you sign costs you twenty minutes. Falling down unlit basement stairs in February costs a great deal more.

What this page is not: tenant-rights advice. Deposits, repairs, rent disputes, eviction — those are housing-law questions, and you should take them to a housing attorney or a legal aid organization. This is a safety walkthrough, nothing more.

Step 1

Check the Building's City Safety Record

Saint Paul requires residential rental buildings that aren't owner-occupied to hold a Fire Certificate of Occupancy through the city's Department of Safety and Inspections (DSI) — a document tied to periodic fire-safety inspections. The city publishes lookup tools, including a Certificate of Occupancy map and property-search records on stpaul.gov, where a prospective tenant can check a property's certificate status and inspection history before signing anything. Program names and processes change, so confirm the current details on the city's site, or call DSI at 651-266-8989.

• ✓ Look up the property's Fire Certificate of Occupancy status on stpaul.gov before you sign
• ✓ Review the most recent inspection record the city shows for the address
• ✓ Ask the landlord directly whether there are open correction orders on the building — and note the answer

Step 2

Test the Stairs, Railings, and Walkways

Much of Saint Paul's rental stock is over a century old, and the injuries I see from rental properties start here more than anywhere else. Test with your hands, not your eyes.

• ✓ Handrails on every stairway — present, and tight under a hard pull
• ✓ Steps even in height, no loose treads, no crumbling concrete or brick
• ✓ Deck, balcony, and porch guardrails solid — press hard; probe for soft or rotten wood
• ✓ The walk from parking or sidewalk to the door: even surface, no standing water, lit at night
• ✓ Basement and attic stairs you'll actually use: a light switch at the top AND bottom, and a rail

Step 3

Verify Fire and Carbon Monoxide Basics

Minnesota law is specific about carbon monoxide: under Minn. Stat. § 299F.51, the owner of a rental unit must provide and install an approved, operational CO alarm within ten feet of each room lawfully used for sleeping; after move-in, keeping it maintained falls to the occupant. Smoke alarms are separately required. Check both before you sign, not after your first night.

• ✓ Smoke alarms present on each level and near sleeping rooms — press the test button yourself
• ✓ A CO alarm within ten feet of each sleeping room, working when tested
• ✓ Ask how you'd get out of each sleeping room in a fire — a second way out matters; painted-shut or barred windows are a bad sign worth raising with the landlord
• ✓ Shared hallways and stairwells clear of stored items blocking the path to exits

Step 4

Ask the Winter Questions in July

Ice is Saint Paul's most reliable injury mechanism, and responsibility for it is exactly the kind of thing that's clear in a lease and murky in a hallway conversation. Get answers in writing before you sign.

• ✓ Who shovels and de-ices which walkways, steps, and the parking area — and by when? If it's you, does the lease say so?
• ✓ Look up: downspouts or roof lines that drain across a walkway will refreeze there all winter
• ✓ Exterior lighting over every route you'll walk during the dark months
• ✓ Where does plowed or shoveled snow go — does it pile onto the path you'll actually use?

Step 5

Document the Condition Before You Sign

Whatever you find, freeze it in time. Dated photos taken before you sign protect everyone — and if a hazard is promised fixed, the promise belongs on paper.

• ✓ A photo or video walkthrough, timestamped, covering every item above
• ✓ A written condition report signed by both sides, if one is offered — keep your copy
• ✓ Copies of the lease and anything else you sign, kept somewhere you can find them
• ✓ If something on this list failed the test, ask for the fix in writing — before you sign, not after