Towed in Minnesota: The Car Is Collateral. Your Belongings Are Not.
Minnesota Chapter 168B lets a lot hold your car until you pay — but not your ID, medicine, or, for many owners, anything else in it. Plus notice, sale, and deficiency rules.
Read →Money, Debt & Credit
Collectors, garnishment, credit reports, identity theft, and guaranties.
Minnesota's Automatic-Renewal Law Tells Sellers Exactly What to Do. It Never Says What Happens If They Don't.
Minn. Stat. §§ 325G.56–.63 govern subscriptions that renew themselves. The sections are unusually specific about conduct and conspicuously silent about damages — and the strongest consumer remedies in them are self-executing.
Read →Minnesota Never Opted Out, So You Get to Choose. The Hard Part Is That the Minnesota Numbers Are Not in the Statute Book.
Minn. Stat. § 550.371, subd. 1 affirmatively makes 11 U.S.C. § 522(d) available here. Three or four line items decide the choice — and one Minnesota subdivision can lock a separately filing spouse out of the other set for three years.
Read →Minnesota's Junk Fee Law Has No Damages Remedy — and That Is by Placement, Not by Accident
Minnesota's all-in pricing law lives in § 325D.44, subd. 1a — inside the one consumer statute whose only remedy is an injunction. Where the money claim actually comes from.
Read →Minnesota Says a Filed Out-of-State Judgment Gets 'the Same Defenses' as a Minnesota One. The Supreme Court Calls That a Misconception.
Minn. Stat. § 548.27 makes a foreign judgment subject to the same procedures and defenses as a Minnesota judgment. Matson v. Matson holds that Rule 60.02 does not apply the same way — the grounds are a closed list, the merits are off the table, and the case was usually won or lost in the rendering state.
Read →Minnesota Bans Gift Card Expiration Dates Outright. The Federal Rule That Allows Them Is the One That Covers Your Emailed Gift Code.
Minn. Stat. § 325G.53 forbids any expiration date or fee on a gift certificate. But it reaches only a 'tangible record,' carves out six categories, and the one appellate case construing it turned on the word 'value.'
Read →Minnesota Gives Student Loan Borrowers $500 Per Violation and Attorney Fees. Sue Without Sending One Certified Letter First and You Get Nothing.
Chapter 58B's private right of action is in § 58B.09, subd. 4 — not where most people look. Its 45-day notice and 30-day cure provisions are conditions on the claim, and they are why the class action is the enforcement vehicle.
Read →Minnesota's Used-Car Warranty Runs Backwards: The Oldest, Cheapest, Highest-Mileage Cars Are the Ones the Statute Protects
Minn. Stat. § 325F.662 gives a car with 150,000 miles a warranty the same car would not get at 60,000 miles — and exempts franchised new-car dealers from the tier that covers it. The warranty also exists whether or not the dealer wrote one.
Read →Minnesota's Medical Debt Law After the Debt Fairness Act: What Actually Changed, and What Is Now in Federal Crosshairs
The 2024 Debt Fairness Act ended spousal liability for medical bills, banned medical debt credit reporting, and created a one-way fee shift for debtors who win. A precise look at ch. 332C — including what 'medical debt' excludes.
Read →Minnesota Has No Total-Loss Threshold. The 80 Percent Rule Governs Your Title, Not Your Settlement.
The 80 percent figure in Minnesota law is a title-branding trigger under ch. 168A. The statute that governs what your insurer must pay for a totaled car is § 72A.201, subd. 6 — and Morris holds you cannot sue to enforce it.
Read →"Never Make a Payment on an Old Debt" Is Good Advice for the Wrong Reason in Minnesota
Minn. Stat. § 541.053, effective August 1, 2013, provides that an expired consumer-debt limitations period "is not revived by the collection of a payment on an account, a discharge in a bankruptcy proceeding, or an oral or written reaffirmation of the debt."
Read →Minnesota's Truth in Repairs Act Used to Stop at $7,500. In 2024 the Legislature Deleted the Ceiling.
Minn. Stat. §§ 325F.56–.66 govern auto, appliance, and dwelling repairs. Laws 2024, ch. 114, art. 3, § 48 struck the upper dollar limit — the big-ticket engine job is now inside the Act, with treble punitive damages available under § 325F.63.
Read →Minnesota's Payday Loan Cap Is 50 Percent APR With Nothing Added. As of August 1, 2026, It Also Reaches the Company That Merely Arranged the Loan.
Minn. Stat. § 47.60 caps a consumer small loan at $350, 30 days, and an APR of 50 percent that includes every fee. A 2026 amendment extended the definition of lender to anyone arranging the loan — and the Revisor's codified display does not yet show it.
Read →A Minnesota Garnishment Does Not Order Anyone to Pay You. Chapter 551 Is How the Money Moves.
Under Minn. Stat. § 571.72, subd. 2, cl. (5), a garnishee retains the debtor's money until a writ of execution is served. Chapter 551 — attorney's summary execution — is the step that converts a freeze into a payment, and it has its own caps, notices, and void-on-failure rules.
Read →When a Door-to-Door Seller Never Gives the Cancellation Notice, Minnesota's Statute Does Not Say the Clock Stops. It Says Something Narrower.
Minn. Stat. §§ 325G.06–.11 give a three-business-day right to cancel a home solicitation sale. The sentence that governs a seller who never gave notice is in § 325G.08, subd. 2, and it is about how the buyer may cancel — not, in terms, about the deadline.
Read →Minnesota Still Allows Confession of Judgment — and § 548.23 Contains the Sentence That Disqualifies Most Cognovit Clauses Before They Are Ever Filed
Minn. Stat. § 548.22 and § 548.23 authorize judgment without an action. Section 548.23 requires the authorizing instrument to be 'distinct from' the instrument evidencing the debt, and 16 C.F.R. § 444.2(a)(1) removes the device entirely from consumer credit.
Read →Minnesota Makes a Judgment Creditor Fail Before It Lets Him Ask Questions
Minn. Stat. § 575.02 gives a creditor an order compelling the debtor to appear and answer under oath — but only after an execution issued to the right sheriff comes back unsatisfied. And chapter 575 does more than ask questions.
Read →A Minnesota Judgment Dies Ten Years After Entry — Not Ten Years After You Docket It
Entry, docketing, and execution are three different acts. Under Minn. Stat. § 548.09, subd. 1, the lien begins at docketing but the judgment survives only ten years from entry — and renewing an ordinary money judgment under § 541.04 means filing a new lawsuit, not a form.
Read →Statutory Damages Under the FCRA Require Willfulness, and Safeco Made That Harder Than It Sounds
Reckless disregard counts as willful — but only where the defendant's reading of the statute was objectively unreasonable. That single word decides whether a case is worth $100 to $1,000 per violation or nothing but proven actual damages.
Read →Disputing Straight to the Creditor Can Cost You the Claim Against It
The FCRA gives consumers a private action against furnishers under § 1681s-2(b) only. Subsection (a) is enforceable by regulators alone — and (b) duties are triggered only by a dispute routed through a credit bureau.
Read →You Already Accepted the Vehicle. Here Is What That One Fact Costs You — and Why the Lemon Law Probably Does Not Rescue It.
Under Minn. Stat. § 336.2-608 a buyer who has accepted goods must prove substantial impairment, not just a defect. And § 325F.665's repair-attempt, out-of-service, and coverage thresholds exclude more buyers than they cover.
Read →In Most Credit Reporting Cases, the Fight Is About Damages — and the Proof Is Built Before Anyone Calls a Lawyer
Section 1681o pays actual damages. Section 1681n adds statutory and punitive damages but requires willfulness. Both shift fees. What separates a provable case from a frustrating one is usually a paper trail created months earlier.
Read →A Reinvestigation That Only Asks the Furnisher Whether the Furnisher Was Right
The FCRA requires a reasonable reinvestigation and procedures assuring maximum possible accuracy. The automated dispute pipeline is built to ask one question — and there are errors it structurally cannot find.
Read →You Signed a Personal Guaranty. Here Is What You Actually Agreed To.
A personal guaranty is a separate contract that survives your company's collapse and its bankruptcy. Minnesota's statute of frauds requires it in writing — and the waivers buried in the boilerplate are usually more dangerous than the guaranty itself.
Read →Forgot to List Your Lawsuit in Bankruptcy? The Supreme Court Says That Is Not Automatically the End of It.
In Keathley v. Buddy Ayers Construction, a unanimous Court threw out a test that killed injury claims based on a debtor's 'motive to conceal.' The Eighth Circuit — which governs Minnesota — has taken the better view since 2006.
Read →Someone Used Your Identity. Minnesota Requires Police to Take the Report — and That Report Unlocks Everything Else.
Under Minn. Stat. § 609.527, a Minnesota law enforcement agency must prepare a police report and give the complainant a copy, and courts must order at least $1,000 in restitution to each direct victim. The report is what makes your federal remedies work.
Read →A Judgment Creditor Is Garnishing You. Minnesota Protects More Than You Think — but Only If You Claim It.
Minn. Stat. § 550.37 exempts a substantial list of property from collection, and § 571.922 caps wage garnishment on a sliding scale. Exemptions are not automatic. Unclaimed, they are waived — and the amounts change every even-numbered year.
Read →They Repossessed the Collateral and Now Want the Difference. In Minnesota, How They Sold It Is the Whole Case.
Under Minn. Stat. § 336.9-610, every aspect of a disposition of collateral must be commercially reasonable. A secured party that sells carelessly, or fails to give proper notice, can lose part or all of its deficiency.
Read →The Credit Bureau 'Verified' the Error Anyway: What to Do When a Credit-Report Mistake Won't Get Fixed
You disputed the error and the bureau closed it as 'verified.' Here's why self-disputes fail, what the FCRA actually requires, and when it becomes a legal claim.
Read →Moving Assets Before the Creditor Arrives: Minnesota's Eleven Badges of Fraud
Minn. Stat. § 513.44 lets a creditor unwind a transfer made with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud — and lists eleven factors courts weigh. Most of them describe things people do without believing they are doing anything wrong.
Read →Minnesota Prices the Same Unpaid Dollar at 4 Percent, 10 Percent, or 18 Percent. That Spread Settles More Cases Than the Merits Do.
Minn. Stat. § 549.09, subd. 1(c) splits judgment interest at a $50,000 hinge — 4% for 2026 versus a flat ten percent. Section 337.10, subd. 3 charges 1-1/2 percent per month on construction payables. Sections 334.01 and 334.011 govern the private note.
Read →Minnesota's Attachment Statute Is Not a Collection Tool. It Is an Accusation.
Prejudgment attachment under Minn. Stat. ch. 570 is Minnesota's rarest creditor remedy because § 570.02 makes the grounds intent-based — and only four of the six can support an ex parte seizure under § 570.025.
Read →Minnesota Lets You Take the Property Back Before Anyone Proves Anything. That Is Why Chapter 565 Is Mostly About Notice.
Minn. Stat. ch. 565 moves possession of personal property before judgment: § 565.23 after notice and hearing, § 565.24 before it, plus bonds, redelivery rights, and the UCC Article 9 problem that sends a secured party to court at all.
Read →Whether Minnesota's Consumer Protection Statutes Pay You Depends on Who You Are. That Is the Whole Case.
Minn. Stat. § 325F.70, subd. 3 gives a consumer a direct damages remedy under the Consumer Fraud Act that the statute itself deems to benefit the public. Everyone else is back in § 8.31 and Ly v. Nystrom. The Deceptive Trade Practices Act pays nobody.
Read →Minnesota's Usury Cap Is 8%. The Reason Almost Nobody Hits It Is a Single Sentence in Minn. Stat. § 334.01.
Minnesota caps interest at $8 on $100 per year — but subd. 2 exempts written credit extensions of $100,000 or more entirely, and § 334.011 gives business and agricultural loans a floating cap. Violate the business cap and the entire interest is forfeited.
Read →Minnesota Makes a Secured Farm Creditor Ask First. The Prohibition Is Not in Chapter 583.
The Farmer-Lender Mediation Act conditions foreclosure, repossession, contract for deed cancellation, garnishment, and levy on a mediation notice — but the operative bars sit in Minn. Stat. §§ 336.9-601(h), 550.365, 559.209, and 582.039. Sections 583.20 to 583.32 expire June 30, 2027.
Read →Minnesota's Homestead Exemption Covers Up to 160 Acres. It Also Has Five Holes in It.
Minn. Stat. § 510.02 protects hundreds of thousands of dollars of homestead value across as much as 160 acres, on an amount that adjusts every even-numbered year. But § 510.05 lists exactly what it does not stop, and § 510.07 will let you abandon it by accident.
Read →Minnesota's Debt Settlement Statute Never Asks Whether the Settlement Worked. It Asks When You Got Paid.
Minn. Stat. ch. 332B registers debt settlement providers and, at § 332B.09, subd. 3, forbids collecting any payment before the services are fully performed. Chapter 332A does the same job differently for debt management. Both carry private rights of action with statutory damages and fees.
Read →Minnesota Has Its Own Debt Collection Statute. It Does Not Pay You — It Takes Their License.
Minn. Stat. §§ 332.31–332.44 license collection agencies and debt buyers and list 24 prohibited practices in § 332.37, including a clause making any FDCPA violation a Minnesota violation. But the private damages remedy lives in the federal statute, 15 U.S.C. § 1692k.
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