Move-in day comes with a bill. Sometimes that bill carries a line the family is seeing for the first time — a community fee, a monthly service package, a second-person charge — and the contract comes back out of the folder so somebody can hunt for the page where that charge was disclosed.
Chapter 144G is a long chapter. It runs from licensure through staffing, training, medication management, terminations, appeals, and closures, and it includes a bill of rights with twenty-seven subdivisions. It tells an assisted living facility exactly what its contract has to say about money. What it never once says is what a resident gets when the facility doesn’t say it.
I searched the full text of chapter 144G for the ordinary machinery of a private claim. Treble shows up zero times. Attorney fees, zero. Recover damages, zero. Cause of action, zero. Is liable to, zero. The only may bring an action in the chapter belongs to the commissioner of health, at § 144G.20, subd. 21, for an injunction. A family that paid a one-time fee nobody mentioned until moving day gets, from chapter 144G alone, a regulator’s fine paid to the state.
The money remedy isn’t in chapter 144G at all. It comes in through a single sentence near the front of the chapter, and that sentence does more work than anything else in Minnesota senior-housing law.
The sentence the argument turns on
Minn. Stat. § 144G.11 is three clauses long, and it’s titled APPLICABILITY OF OTHER LAWS:
Assisted living facilities:
(1) are subject to and must comply with chapter 504B;
(2) must comply with section 325F.72; and
(3) are not required to obtain a lodging license under chapter 157 and related rules.
Chapter 504B is the landlord-and-tenant chapter. It contains § 504B.120, PROHIBITED FEES, enacted in 2023 and in force since January 1, 2024:
Subdivision 1. Disclosure of fees. A landlord must disclose all nonoptional fees in the lease agreement. The sum total of rent and all nonoptional fees must be described as the Total Monthly Payment and be listed on the first page of the lease. A unit advertised for a residential tenancy must disclose the nonoptional fees included with the total amount for rent in any advertisement or posting. In a lease agreement disclosure or unit advertisement, the landlord must disclose whether utilities are included or not included in the rent.
Subd. 2. Penalties. A landlord who violates this section is liable to the residential tenant for treble damages and the court may award the tenant reasonable attorney fees.
Four duties in eighty-four words, and a multiplier in twenty-five. Clause (1) of § 144G.11 doesn’t say chapter 504B applies to the extent consistent with chapter 144G, and it doesn’t list sections. It says facilities are subject to the chapter and must comply with it.
That statute predates Minnesota’s all-in pricing law at § 325D.44, subd. 1a by a full year, and unlike the junk fee law it carries its own damages remedy right on its face.
What does chapter 144G require a facility to put in the contract?
Chapter 144G isn’t silent on fees. It’s silent on consequences. The contract requirements at § 144G.50, subd. 2(c), demand:
- “a description of all the terms and conditions of the contract, including a description of and any limitations to the housing or assisted living services to be provided for the contracted amount” — clause (2);
- “a delineation of the cost and nature of any other services to be provided for an additional fee” — clause (3);
- “a delineation and description of any additional fees the resident may be required to pay if the resident’s condition changes during the term of the contract” — clause (4); and
- “billing and payment procedures and requirements” — clause (6).
The bill of rights adds a timing rule. Under § 144G.91, subd. 22, “[b]efore services are initiated”, residents have the right to be notified “of all charges for housing and assisted living services” and “what charges the resident may be responsible for paying”.
Put those together and what you’ve got is, in substance, itemization. Nowhere does chapter 144G require a single number. Nowhere does it require that number on the first page. And nowhere does it say what happens if the itemization is incomplete. Section 504B.120 supplies all three.
Is an assisted living resident a “residential tenant”?
This is the question the whole bridge turns on, because § 504B.120’s duty runs to “a landlord” and its remedy runs to “the residential tenant”. Section 144G.11(1) commands compliance with the chapter; it doesn’t separately declare the facility a landlord or the resident a tenant. Those terms carry their chapter 504B definitions, and a resident has to fit them.
Section 504B.001, subd. 12, defines “residential tenant” as “a person who is occupying a dwelling in a residential building under a lease or contract, whether oral or written, that requires the payment of money or exchange of services, all other regular occupants of that dwelling unit, or a resident of a manufactured home park”. Subdivision 8 defines “lease” as “an oral or written agreement creating a tenancy in real property.”
The building and the operator have their own definitions in the same section. Subdivision 11 defines “residential building” to include “a building used in whole or in part as a dwelling”, expressly including “structures containing both dwelling units and units used for nondwelling purposes”. Subdivision 7 defines “landlord” broadly enough to catch an operator that isn’t the fee owner: “an owner of real property, a contract for deed vendee, receiver, executor, trustee, lessee, agent, or other person directly or indirectly in control of rental property.”
Now set chapter 144G’s own description of the arrangement next to those definitions. An “assisted living contract” is “the legal agreement between a resident and an assisted living facility for housing and, if applicable, assisted living services.” § 144G.08, subd. 5. A facility “may not offer or provide housing or assisted living services to any individual unless it has executed a written contract.” § 144G.50, subd. 1(a). The resident occupies a “unit”, and the facility must “allow residents the ability to furnish and decorate the resident’s unit within the terms of the assisted living contract”. § 144G.41, subd. 1(6). The facility must notify the resident “of the resident’s right to have and use a lockable door to the resident’s unit”, with the licensee providing the locks and only staff with a specific need holding keys. § 144G.41, subd. 1(10).
The termination provisions talk the same way. The chapter contemplates “nonpayment of rent” as a ground for terminating housing, separately from “nonpayment for services”. § 144G.52, subd. 3(a). Section 144G.53, subd. 2(a), speaks of declining “to renew a resident’s housing under an assisted living contract”.
A written agreement, for money, conveying occupancy of a lockable unit the occupant may furnish, terminable for nonpayment of rent, in a building used as a dwelling. I read that as a lease creating a tenancy in real property, and the resident as a residential tenant, whatever the contract calls itself. The facility’s duties as a care provider sit on top of that. They don’t replace it.
The legislature has said as much twice more, in passing. Section 144G.42, subd. 5(4), tells a facility at final accounting to “as required under section 504B.178, refund the resident’s security deposit unless it is applied to the first month’s charges” — an operating instruction that presupposes the resident holds a chapter 504B security deposit. (Our guide to Minnesota security deposits under § 504B.178 covers that section in detail.) And § 144G.57, subd. 7, closing out the planned-closure requirements, says flatly: “Nothing in this section affects the rights and remedies available under chapter 504B.”
The one place the legislature took something back tells you even more. Section 144G.54, subd. 7, is captioned “Application of chapter 504B to appeals of terminations”, and it provides: “A resident may not bring an action under chapter 504B to challenge a termination that has occurred and been upheld under this section.” One carve-out, drafted narrowly, aimed at one procedural setting. When this legislature wanted a limit on § 144G.11(1), it wrote one. It wrote no limit on the fee sections.
The best argument against the bridge
There is one. It comes out of the same 2023 act that created § 504B.120, and it’s a real argument.
Section 504B.266 lets a tenant break a lease early on medical infirmity. Its definition of “medical care facility” — the place the tenant is leaving the lease to move into — runs to ten categories, and category six is “a facility providing assisted living, as defined in section 144G.08, subdivision 7”. § 504B.266, subd. 1(d)(6). A facility will argue that chapter 504B itself treats assisted living as a medical destination, not a tenancy, and that calling it a tenancy makes the chapter incoherent. The definitions inside chapter 144G push the same way: an “assisted living facility” is defined as one “that provides sleeping accommodations and assisted living services to one or more adults”. § 144G.08, subd. 7. Sleeping accommodations aren’t, on their face, a dwelling.
Two answers. First, § 504B.266, subd. 1(a), limits the definition by its own terms: “For the purposes of this section, the following terms have the meanings given them.” A definition written for the early-termination section doesn’t travel to § 504B.120. Second, § 504B.266 deals with a tenant somewhere else who needs out of a different lease. It says nothing about the agreement the resident signs on arrival. Our article on breaking a Minnesota lease early walks through that section in full.
I read § 144G.11(1) to carry § 504B.120 into an assisted living contract, and I read the counterargument to fail on the face of § 504B.266, subd. 1(a). I want to emphasize that no Minnesota appellate court has said so, and the section is young enough that none may have had the chance yet.
An opponent will reach for a second cross-reference. Section 144G.50, subd. 1(d), provides: “A contract under this section is a consumer contract under sections 325G.29 to 325G.37.” Those are the plain-language contract sections, and their remedy, at § 325G.33, subd. 1, runs through Minn. Stat. § 8.31, limited as § 325G.34 provides. The argument will be that the legislature picked its consumer remedy for these contracts right there. I read it the other way. Section 325G.31 governs how a contract is written — “in a clear and coherent manner using words with common and everyday meanings” — and says nothing about which fees a contract has to total or where. Nothing in subd. 1(d) makes that reference exclusive, and § 144G.11(1) still says what it says. Two cross-references in one chapter are two obligations.
Which charges are “nonoptional”? I read chapter 144G to draw the line
Reading down a monthly invoice, your instinct is to split the bill into housing on one side and care on the other, and to assume § 504B.120 reaches the first and not the second. That’s the wrong cut, and chapter 144G tells you why.
Section 144G.40, subd. 3, is captioned “Reservation of rights”, and two of its four clauses matter here. Nothing in the chapter:
(1) requires a resident to utilize any service provided by or through, or made available in, a facility;
(2) prevents a facility from requiring, as a condition of the contract, that the resident pay for a package of services even if the resident does not choose to use all or some of the services in the package. For residents who are eligible for home and community-based waiver services under chapter 256S and section 256B.49, payment for services will follow the policies of those programs;
Clause (1) makes services declinable by default. Clause (2) lets the facility make a package a condition of the contract anyway, and it expressly contemplates the resident paying for services the resident doesn’t use.
I read that as the test, handed over by the care statute. A charge the resident has to pay to hold the unit is a nonoptional fee, whether the label says rent, community fee, service package, second-occupant fee, or basic care tier. A charge for something the resident is free to decline, and is billed for only on use, is optional. The line isn’t housing versus care. It’s condition-of-the-contract versus à la carte, and § 144G.40, subd. 3(2), is the legislature telling facilities in so many words that a bundled package can be made mandatory. A mandatory bundle is a nonoptional fee, and under § 504B.120, subd. 1, it belongs in the lease and inside the Total Monthly Payment on page one.
Where the text stops
Four places, and I wouldn’t brief around any of them.
A one-time fee doesn’t fit inside a monthly total. Sentence one of subdivision 1 is unqualified — “A landlord must disclose all nonoptional fees in the lease agreement” — and a community fee or move-in fee charged at signing is a nonoptional fee that has to be disclosed there. Sentence two is different. The “Total Monthly Payment” is defined as “[t]he sum total of rent and all nonoptional fees”, and a charge collected once has no monthly value to add. I read sentence one to cover the one-time fee and sentence two not to require that it be spread across the monthly figure. A resident who was never told about the fee at all has a sentence-one violation without needing sentence two.
A charge that moves with assessed need can’t be a fixed number at signing. Chapter 144G assumes it will change: § 144G.50, subd. 2(c)(4), requires “a delineation and description of any additional fees the resident may be required to pay if the resident’s condition changes during the term of the contract”. Section 504B.120 requires a total. It doesn’t require a facility to predict a care level it hasn’t assessed. As I read it, the Total Monthly Payment has to carry everything fixed at execution, and the escalator has to be delineated under § 144G.50, subd. 2(c)(4). A facility that leaves a fixed monthly charge out of the first-page total doesn’t get to hide behind the fact that some other charge floats.
The advertisement sentence is the softest of the four. It reaches “[a] unit advertised for a residential tenancy”. Senior-living advertising is usually built around care, not units, and the price is usually a starting at monthly figure. Where the ad quotes a monthly price for occupancy of a unit, I read it as a unit advertised for a residential tenancy and the sentence as applying. Where the marketing quotes no price at all, there’s nothing for the sentence to work on. That’s a real gap, and it’s the one most likely to get litigated first.
And there’s a hard date. Section 504B.120 was enacted at 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 52, art. 19, § 84, and the act’s effective-date clause at § 90 of the same article reads: “Sections 83 to 89 are effective January 1, 2024, and apply to leases signed on or after that date.” A contract executed before January 1, 2024 is outside the section. Chapter 144G helps here. Section 144G.50, subd. 1(f), provides that the resident “must agree in writing to any additions or amendments to the contract” and that “a new contract or an addendum to the existing contract must be executed and signed.” I read a contract re-executed on or after January 1, 2024 as a lease signed on or after that date.
The two chapters, side by side
| Chapter 144G | Minn. Stat. § 504B.120 | |
|---|---|---|
| Fee disclosure required | Itemized: cost and nature of additional-fee services, § 144G.50, subd. 2(c)(3); change-in-condition fees, subd. 2(c)(4); all charges before services begin, § 144G.91, subd. 22 | All nonoptional fees in the lease agreement — subd. 1 |
| A single total, on page one | Not required anywhere in the chapter | “Total Monthly Payment”, first page of the lease — subd. 1 |
| Advertising duty | None as to price (the protected-title restriction at § 144G.10, subd. 5, governs the phrase “assisted living”, not the fee) | Nonoptional fees in the advertised total — subd. 1 |
| Utilities stated | Not required | Included or not included, in the lease disclosure or advertisement — subd. 1 |
| Private damages | None in the chapter | Treble damages — subd. 2 |
| Attorney fees | None in the chapter | Discretionary to the tenant — subd. 2 |
| Who enforces | Commissioner of health: license action, fines, injunction, §§ 144G.20, 144G.31 | The residential tenant |
The two are cumulative. You don’t have to pick one. Section 144G.91, subd. 2, says the bill of rights “do[es] not limit any other rights available under law”, and § 144G.57, subd. 7, preserves chapter 504B remedies by name in the closure context.
The concession the statute forces
There’s one senior-housing fee provision in Minnesota law that speaks directly to fee schedules and price changes, and it’s the one a private plaintiff can’t use.
Section 325F.72 governs disclosure by assisted living facilities with dementia care licenses. Its required written disclosure includes “fee schedules for additional services to the residents of the secured dementia care unit” and “a statement that residents will be given a written notice 30 calendar days prior to changes in the fee schedule”. § 325F.72, subd. 2(8), (9). Then subdivision 4:
The attorney general may seek the remedies set forth in section 8.31 for repeated and intentional violations of this section. However, no private right of action may be maintained as provided under section 8.31, subdivision 3a.
A memory-care family can’t sue on a broken fee-schedule promise under that section. The legislature said so in one sentence in 2001, and it’s binding.
I wouldn’t read that sentence past its own section, and I wouldn’t let an operator do it either. Section 325F.72 proves this legislature knows how to switch off the private remedy when it wants to. It didn’t put that sentence in chapter 144G, and it didn’t put it in § 504B.120, which goes the other way and creates a private treble remedy in so many words.
One more provision belongs here, and it’s the easiest one to oversell. Minn. Stat. § 325F.71, subd. 2(a), lets a court impose “an additional civil penalty not to exceed $10,000 for each violation” where deceptive conduct is aimed at a person 62 or older or a disabled person and one or more of the factors in subdivision 2(b) is present, and subd. 4 gives “[a] person injured by a violation of this section” a civil action with damages, investigation costs, and attorney’s fees. That reads like a freestanding senior-fraud claim. It isn’t.
Subdivision 2(a) imposes its penalty only “[i]n addition to any liability for a civil penalty pursuant to” the deceptive trade practices, false advertising, and consumer fraud acts. So the section prohibits nothing on its own, and subdivision 4’s “violation of this section” has to run off an underlying violation of one of those acts. It’s a supplemental count for a senior plaintiff. It isn’t the claim.
I can’t find a Minnesota decision construing either section
I couldn’t find a Minnesota decision applying § 144G.11(1) to § 504B.120, or construing § 504B.120 at all. A full-text search of the CourtListener opinion corpus for “504B.120” returned nothing, and the same search for “144G.11” returned nothing; the control search that proves the method works — “504B.178”, on the same corpus, limited to the same two Minnesota courts — returned a 2016 Court of Appeals decision. I ran the question two more ways, by the statutory phrase and by the sentence a court would write about an assisted living resident’s status under chapter 504B, and turned up no opinion.
A search that comes back empty isn’t a guarantee. The Minnesota Judicial Branch’s own opinion search can’t be reached by script, that corpus has known gaps, § 504B.120 has been in force only since January 1, 2024 — thirty-two months as of this article’s September 1, 2026 date — and an unpublished decision would be easy to miss. Treat every reading above as my reading of the text, and expect a facility to argue the other side of each one.
If your parent is in one of these buildings
Pull the contract and go to the first page. Find the number. If the first page carries a rent figure and the fees live on page nine, or in an addendum, or on a rate sheet handed over at move-in, that’s the § 504B.120, subd. 1, question.
Then do the arithmetic. Take every charge on the monthly invoice, and for each one ask whether declining it was actually possible — not whether the brochure called it a service.
An invented example, to make the shape concrete. A listing quotes $3,850 a month. The contract adds a $395 monthly community services charge every resident pays, and a $250 monthly second-person charge. The invoice runs $4,495. If those two charges are conditions of the contract, the number on page one was wrong by $645 a month, and subdivision 2 multiplies by three.
Keep the marketing. The listing page, the printed rate sheet, the tour brochure, the emailed quote. The advertisement sentence turns on what the family was shown, and nobody keeps those documents unless somebody tells them to.
Watch the date. January 1, 2024 governs, and a contract re-executed after that date is the one to look for.
And don’t wait. A claim that sits gets harder for reasons that have nothing to do with its merits, and the documents that prove what was advertised are the first things to disappear.
Where the charges came out of a resident’s accounts without the resident understanding them, the problem may not be a disclosure problem at all; see our article on financial exploitation of vulnerable adults. Where the failure is care and not billing, nursing home and facility neglect claims run on an entirely different track.
Madgett Law, LLC
Madgett Law, LLC represents Minnesota consumers and families in deceptive-pricing and consumer fraud disputes, landlord-tenant matters including fee and deposit claims under chapter 504B, and debt collection and credit reporting cases, in state and federal court. If a parent’s assisted living bill carries charges that weren’t in the price the family was quoted, we can tell you whether a statute reaches them. Call 612-470-6529 or send us a message.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 325G.31 (consumer contracts to be written in a clear and coherent manner); § 325G.33, subd. 1 (a violation of § 325G.31 is a violation of a law under § 8.31, subd. 1; remedies limited as provided in § 325G.34); Minn. Stat. § 144G.08, subd. 5 (“assisted living contract” — agreement for housing and, if applicable, services), subd. 7 (“assisted living facility” — sleeping accommodations and assisted living services; fifteen exclusions), subd. 9 (assisted living services), subd. 59 (resident); § 144G.10, subd. 5 (protected title; use of the phrase “assisted living” restricted effective January 1, 2027); § 144G.11(1)–(3) (facilities are subject to and must comply with chapter 504B; must comply with § 325F.72; no chapter 157 lodging license); § 144G.20, subd. 1 (commissioner’s license sanctions), subd. 21 (commissioner’s injunctive relief); § 144G.31, subd. 4 (fine amounts by level of violation); § 144G.40, subd. 3(1)–(2) (no resident required to use a service; facility may require payment for a package as a condition of the contract); § 144G.41, subd. 1(6) (furnish and decorate the unit), subd. 1(10) (lockable door; licensee provides the locks); § 144G.42, subd. 5(4) (final accounting; security deposit refund “as required under section 504B.178”); § 144G.50, subd. 1(a) (written contract required before housing or services), subd. 1(d) (a contract under the section is a consumer contract under §§ 325G.29 to 325G.37), subd. 1(f) (additions or amendments executed and signed), subd. 2(c)(2)–(4), (6) (terms and conditions for the contracted amount; cost and nature of additional-fee services; additional fees on change of condition; billing and payment procedures); § 144G.52, subd. 3(a) (termination of housing for nonpayment of rent; termination of services for nonpayment for services); § 144G.53, subd. 2(a) (nonrenewal of housing); § 144G.54, subd. 7 (a resident may not bring a chapter 504B action to challenge a termination upheld under that section); § 144G.57, subd. 7 (“Nothing in this section affects the rights and remedies available under chapter 504B.”); § 144G.91, subd. 2 (rights do not limit other rights available under law), subd. 22 (notice of all charges before services are initiated); Minn. Stat. § 504B.001, subd. 7 (landlord), subd. 8 (lease), subd. 11 (residential building), subd. 12 (residential tenant); § 504B.120, subd. 1 (disclosure of all nonoptional fees in the lease; Total Monthly Payment on the first page; nonoptional fees in any advertisement or posting; utilities statement), subd. 2 (treble damages; discretionary attorney fees); § 504B.266, subd. 1(a) (definitions apply “[f]or the purposes of this section”), subd. 1(d)(6) (assisted living within “medical care facility”); Minn. Stat. § 325F.71, subd. 1 (senior citizen; disabled person), subd. 2(a) (supplemental civil penalty up to $10,000 per violation, in addition to liability under §§ 325D.43–.48, 325F.67, and 325F.68–.70), subd. 4 (private remedies for a violation “of this section”); § 325F.72, subd. 2(8)–(9) (fee schedules for additional services; 30-day written notice of fee schedule changes), subd. 4 (attorney general remedies; “no private right of action may be maintained as provided under section 8.31, subdivision 3a”); Minn. Stat. § 325D.44, subd. 1a (all-in pricing; treated in the linked article); 2023 Minn. Laws ch. 52, art. 19, § 84 (enactment of § 504B.120) and § 90 (“Sections 83 to 89 are effective January 1, 2024, and apply to leases signed on or after that date”); 2026 Minn. Laws ch. 95, art. 3, § 19 (enacting § 144G.505, prohibited condition of admission, effective August 1, 2026 — no 2026 amendment reaches chapter 144G’s fee or contract-price provisions). This article is general legal information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and no particular outcome is promised or implied.