Free tool · Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI
What does a squatter cost you in Minnesota?
Change the numbers to match your property. The rent is Minnesota's own, from HUD; how long it drags on is your call; everything else is yours to overwrite.
Minnesota estimate
$36,292
Your numbers.
These are national starting points, not claims about your property. The one figure that drives the total — how long it drags on — is yours to set. Nobody can source it, so we do not pretend to.
How long before you get it back?
6 months
Your assumption, not ours — courts do not publish how long this takes. A contested removal runs in months, not weeks, almost everywhere; how it goes in Minnesota is in the guide.
How many bedrooms?
Sets the rent from HUD’s published Fair Market Rent for Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI — $2,262/mo.
Mortgage / loan payment — per month
$
Only you know this one. The placeholder is roughly a $300k loan at current rates.
Lost rent or delayed sale — per month
$
HUD's Fair Market Rent for this metro, at the bedroom count you picked. It is the 40th percentile of recent-mover rents, so on a renovated or market-rate property it is a floor, not a valuation.
Attorney fees — one-off
$
No public data exists. Our estimate — nothing published backs it. No state bar and no court in any of these markets publishes fee data for an ejectment. Get a written quote and put it here.
Property taxes — per month
$
Your bill, divided by twelve. The placeholder is roughly a $250k property at Philadelphia's 1.3998% — Newark runs 1.845%, Los Angeles 1.187%.
Insurance — per month
$
No public data exists. Our estimate. Vacant cover genuinely does cost more, but the published figures for how much more disagree by a factor of five — anywhere from +25% to 5x. Use your own premium.
Utilities — per month
$
A national placeholder, unless your state overrides it below — Philadelphia's is the Water Department's own published bill. Whoever is inside, you are the ratepayer of record.
Damage and clean-out — one-off
$
No public data exists. Our estimate, and we want to be blunt: NO government body in the United States publishes squatter-damage data. Every figure you have seen quoted traces to one news story or to a lobby survey that counted houses, not dollars. We are not going to launder a number we cannot stand behind — put yours here.
If it happens in Minnesota
$36,292
at 6 months— and every extra month adds $4,632.
Against a $0–$120k range, so the bar means something as you drag.
Carrying it, empty ($4,632/mo × 6 mo)
$27,792
One-off costs (attorney, damage)
$8,500
What ruins you is the carry — the months. On top of this you will pay to file, for the sheriff to serve and remove, and for a lawyer. Those are set locally and we do not print a number we cannot cite — but next to the months, they are a sliver.
Can you get any of it back? NO — you eat your own lawyer's bill. You recover the court's costs if you win, but not attorney fees.. Minnesota's attorney-fee statute is written entirely around a residential LEASE, and it runs to the tenant — a person who was never your tenant never signed one, so there is no owner recovery. What you do get is costs: § 504B.345, subd. 1(a) says the court 'shall tax the costs against the defendant.' Costs are not fees. No dollar figure for filing or sheriff service is published inside Chapter 504B.
Why Minnesota costs what it does
Minnesota puts a squatter through the same summary eviction case a landlord uses — there is no faster track and no slower ejectment detour. You file, the statute sets the first hearing seven to fourteen days out, and if you win the court signs a removal order (a writ of recovery of premises) that same day. An officer, not the owner, then carries it out and gives the occupant twenty-four hours to leave. The catch is the same one everywhere: the court still has to be satisfied you own the building, and nothing in the chapter tells anyone how to check that.
How you must remove them
summary
“A person may be evicted if the person has unlawfully or forcibly occupied or taken possession of real property or unlawfully detains or retains possession of real property.”
Minnesota's summary eviction track expressly reaches a non-tenant: § 504B.001, subd. 4 defines 'evict' as 'a summary court proceeding to remove a tenant OR OCCUPANT.' Unlike Pennsylvania, Minnesota does not close the fast track to a squatter. But it is still a court action — a judge signs the writ (§ 504B.345), so the verification gap remains.
The statute
Minn. Stat. ch. 504B (Landlord and Tenant); § 504B.301 (eviction for unlawful detention); § 504B.001, subd. 4 (eviction is a summary proceeding reaching an 'occupant')
A Minnesota squatter case runs on the Chapter 504B eviction track rather than a separate squatter statute. Minnesota has no sentence declaring that a trespasser is not a tenant; the reach comes from the eviction definition and § 504B.301.
Rent, by bedroom
1 bed $1,405 · 2 bed $1,709 · 3 bed $2,262 · 4 bed $2,531
FY2026, effective 2025-10-01
All four figures are the FY2026 FMR for the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI metro (Studio $1,242 / 1BR $1,405 / 2BR $1,709 / 3BR $2,262 / 4BR $2,531), a consistent increase over the FY2025 figures for the same metro (1,381/1,685/2,244/2,513). This is the widest metro in the state — Hennepin County sits inside it.
Do you get your legal fees back?
NO — you eat your own lawyer's bill. You recover the court's costs if you win, but not attorney fees.
“If a residential lease specifies an action, circumstances, or an extent to which a landlord, directly, or through additional rent, may recover attorney fees in an action between the landlord and tenant, the tenant is entitled to attorney fees if the tenant prevails in the same type of action, under the same circumstances, or is entitled to costs under section 549.02, and to the same extent as specified in the lease for the landlord.”
Minnesota's attorney-fee statute is written entirely around a residential LEASE, and it runs to the tenant — a person who was never your tenant never signed one, so there is no owner recovery. What you do get is costs: § 504B.345, subd. 1(a) says the court 'shall tax the costs against the defendant.' Costs are not fees. No dollar figure for filing or sheriff service is published inside Chapter 504B.
Is there a fast sheriff route?
No — Minnesota has no sheriff-removes-on-affidavit statute. The removal order comes out of a court on a judgment, and only then does an officer execute it.
The writ issues from the court on a judgment (§ 504B.345) and only an officer may execute it (§ 504B.365); there is no affidavit-to-sheriff bypass of the kind Florida, Texas and Georgia enacted since 2024.
This is the bill for finding out too late.
Nothing on this page will get an occupant out, and be wary of anyone who says otherwise. What DeedProof does is earlier and duller: it verifies you own the property, structures the statement you swear before a notary, and files it — so that if someone does break in, the officer at the door has something to work from instead of a lease they cannot check.
The decision still belongs to the officer. Our job is to make it an easy one.
This page is the money. The law behind it is on Minnesota’s guide — whether police can arrest, whether a sheriff can act on your affidavit alone, and how long occupation takes to become a claim. Every answer quoted from the statute.