Minnesota confines HOA construction-defect prerequisites to post-2017 communities
Minnesota confines HOA construction-defect prerequisites to post-2017 communities
2026-09-12 · Minnesota · Legislation
What happened. Overshadowed by Minnesota's HOA Bill of Rights, a second 2026 act quietly resolved a live question about which associations must clear procedural hurdles before bringing a construction-defect claim.
Laws 2026, ch. 61 (S.F. 3622) was signed on 29 April 2026, having passed the Senate 67–0 and the House 134–0. It carries no effective-date clause, so under Minn. Stat. § 645.02 it took effect 1 August 2026 — it is in force now.12
The applicability provision
A new subsection (k) is added to Minn. Stat. § 515B.1-102:
“Sections 515B.1-103(11a) and (16a), 515B.3-102(d) and (e), 515B.4-113(h), and 515B.4-116(c) apply only to common interest communities created on or after August 1, 2017.”
Those are the provisions Minnesota added in 2017: the definitions of “construction defect claim” and related terms, the pre-suit owner notice, the requirement of a majority owner vote before the association may bring a claim, and the mandatory pre-claim mediation. Chapter 61 also repeats the same limit inline in §§ 515B.3-102(e)–(f) and 515B.4-116(c).
What it means in practice
An association in a community created before 1 August 2017 that is weighing a construction-defect claim is outside the 2017 machinery. No statutory pre-suit notice to owners under those sections, no statutory owner vote, no statutory pre-claim mediation requirement.
That is a meaningful clarification for exactly the buildings most likely to be discovering defects — ones a decade or more old.
Three other fixes in the same act
- Two-unit associations may have two directors. New § 515B.3-103(a): “Notwithstanding the provisions of section 317A.203, if an association is formed under chapter 317A and consists of fewer than three units, the number of directors may be equal to or greater than the number of units.” Minnesota duplex condominiums have been pretending to have three directors for years.
- Amendments may be certified by affidavit. Section 515B.1-116(d) now lets an owner-approval threshold be established of record either by owner signatures or by an affidavit of the president or other authorised officer stating that the required number or percentage approved — for amendments recorded on or after 1 August 2026.
- A nonresidential exemption. New § 515B.1-102(e)(6) exempts real estate restricted entirely to nonresidential uses and subject only to instruments filed primarily to create rights regarding access, utilities, parking, ditches, drainage, irrigation, insurance, or repair after a casualty loss.
The affidavit change removes a real recording obstacle
Of the technical fixes, this is the one that will save the most time. Establishing of record that a declaration amendment carried has traditionally meant collecting owner signatures onto the recorded instrument — a logistical problem that gets worse with community size and absentee ownership, and that has stalled amendments which comfortably passed.
From 1 August 2026 an officer's affidavit that the required number or percentage “have voted in favor of, approved, or consented to” the amendment does the job. Two conditions worth noting: the affidavit must come from the president or another authorised officer, and it applies to amendments recorded on or after 1 August 2026 — so an amendment approved earlier but not yet recorded can use the new route.
Related recording mechanics changed too. Bylaws or bylaw amendments “must be executed by the association” to be eligible for recording on or after 1 August 2026, and any CIC plat recorded on or after that date must comply with Minn. Stat. § 505.021, subd. 1.
What Minnesota's construction-defect landscape actually looks like
Two points of context, because this area attracts more speculation than most.
The statute of repose was not touched. Minn. Stat. § 541.051 was not amended in the 2025 regular session, the 2025 special session, or the 2026 session. Chapter 61's edit was to the definition of “construction defect claim” within MCIOA and to which communities the 2017 prerequisites reach — a cleanup, not a liability reform.
There is no current Minnesota reform push. No bill, no interim study, no commissioned report on condominium defect liability was introduced or published in the biennium. The Legislative Working Group on Common Interest Communities and HOAs expired on 28 February 2025, and the Task Force on Homeowners and Commercial Property Insurance expired on submitting its report in February 2026. Minnesota currently has no live interim body working on association law of any kind.
Builders elsewhere have argued that warranty and repose exposure suppresses condominium construction, and that argument has produced active legislation in other states. It has not, in this biennium, produced a Minnesota bill.
The trap: reading the statute page will give you the wrong dates
Chapters 61 and 82 amend eleven of the same sections of ch. 515B — §§ 515B.1-103, 2-119, 3-102, 3-103, 3-106, 3-107, 3-1151, 3-116, 4-1021, 4-107 and 4-116 — on two different dates. Chapter 61 landed 1 August 2026. Chapter 82 lands 1 January 2027.
Between now and January, the Revisor's codified text of any of those sections shows a merged version whose component parts have different in-force dates, with nothing on the page distinguishing them. For anything turning on what binds an association today, read the session laws.
A second, documented staleness problem
The Revisor's NOTE on § 515B.3-103 currently states that the Laws 2024, ch. 96 amendment is “effective August 1, 2026.” That is no longer right. Sections 40 and 41 of Chapter 61 amended the 2024 act's effective-date sections to read 1 August 2027.
The chain runs: Laws 2024, ch. 96 created Minn. Stat. ch. 308C, the Cooperative Housing Act, effective 1 August 2025 → Laws 2025, ch. 32, art. 4 moved it to 2026 → Laws 2026, ch. 61, §§ 40–41 moved it to 1 August 2027. Section 41 reads: “This article is effective August 1, [2026] 2027.”
Anyone relying on the statute page alone will get that date wrong, and a housing cooperative reorganising on a 2026 assumption would be acting under a chapter that is not in force.
What Chapter 61 means for boards
If the community predates 1 August 2017 and a defect claim is in contemplation, the 2017 prerequisites are not the obstacle. That does not mean there are no obstacles — the declaration may impose its own requirements, and § 541.051 still runs — but the statutory notice-vote-mediation sequence added in 2017 does not reach the community.
If the association is a two-unit condominium, the board composition problem is solved; the bylaws can now say what has always been true in practice.
If an amendment has been sitting unrecorded for want of signatures, the affidavit route is available for recordings from 1 August 2026 onward.
What to watch next
The 94th Legislature adjourned 18 May 2026. The live date to hold is 1 August 2027, when the Cooperative Housing Act finally takes effect — and the bill written to fix its workability problems, S.F. 4944 / H.F. 4816, was introduced six weeks before adjournment and never heard.5 The 95th Legislature convenes 12 January 2027 and must adjourn by mid-May, which gives it one session to act before the chapter arrives.
This describes two enacted statutes. It is not advice about any particular claim or amendment.
Related Minnesota HOA Topics
- Laws 2026, ch. 61 (S.F. 3622), full session-law text — Minnesota Revisor of Statutes ↩
- Minn. Stat. § 645.02 — default effective date for an act that states none ↩
- Minn. Stat. § 515B.1-102 — applicability of MCIOA by community type and creation date ↩
- Minn. Stat. § 541.051 — limitation of action for damages based on services or construction to improve real property ↩
- S.F. 4944 bill status (Cooperative Housing Act rewrite; introduced 7 Apr. 2026, never heard) — Minnesota Revisor of Statutes ↩
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