TISH Inspection in Minneapolis: What Sellers Pay, Fix, and Sign
What is a TISH inspection and when does a Twin Cities seller need one?
A Truth in Sale of Housing (TISH) inspection is a point-of-sale evaluation required by nine Minnesota cities — Minneapolis, St. Paul, Bloomington, St. Louis Park, Robbinsdale, Maplewood, Crystal, New Hope, and Richfield — before a home can be listed for sale. A city-licensed evaluator inspects the property for health-and-safety conditions, files a report with the city, and the seller must display that report at every showing. Most evaluations cost between $200 and $400 and take about ninety minutes. In Minneapolis, hazardous items flagged in the report must be repaired before closing, or the buyer signs an Acknowledgment of Responsibility and completes the work within ninety days.
By Greg Tracy | May 14, 2026
If your home is in Minneapolis, St. Paul, or seven other Twin Cities suburbs, you can’t even put a sign in the yard until a city-licensed evaluator has walked the property — and most sellers don’t find out until their listing agent breaks the news. The Truth in Sale of Housing ordinance has been on the books for decades, but it catches more sellers off guard than almost any other piece of the Minnesota selling process. The confusion makes sense. You spend ten years selling homes in Edina or Wayzata where TISH doesn’t apply, you move into a Linden Hills bungalow, and suddenly there’s a city-mandated inspection sitting between you and your listing date.
Here’s what every Twin Cities seller needs to understand about TISH — which homes need it, what it costs, what it actually checks, and what happens when the report lands.
Which Twin Cities Homes Need a TISH (and Which Don’t)
TISH is not a Minnesota statewide requirement. It’s a patchwork of municipal ordinances, and the patchwork matters because the line between a TISH city and a non-TISH suburb sometimes runs right down a street you’d never think twice about.
The nine cities that require TISH:
- Minneapolis
- St. Paul
- Bloomington
- St. Louis Park
- Robbinsdale
- Maplewood
- Crystal
- New Hope
- Richfield
The Hammer Home Group market areas where TISH does not apply: Wayzata, Minnetonka, Edina, Excelsior, Orono, Plymouth, Maple Grove, and Eden Prairie. If you’re selling in any of those, you can skip this entire process.
The trap I see most often is the move-up seller crossing the line in the wrong direction. A Wayzata or Edina seller has done this before and assumes nothing has changed — but their next listing is a Linden Hills or Kenwood home inside Minneapolis. Suddenly they need a TISH report on the desk before the first showing. The opposite scenario is just as common: a buyer who’s purchased in Minneapolis assumes the seller’s TISH report is the only inspection they need, and skips their own — which would be a serious mistake. More on that below.
If you’re not sure whether your address requires a TISH evaluation, the simplest test is to check the city’s official website. Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Bloomington each publish a licensed-evaluator list. If your city isn’t on the nine-city list above, your sale doesn’t trigger the requirement.
What a TISH Evaluator Actually Checks (and What They Don’t)
A TISH evaluation is narrower than a full home inspection — and the gap surprises people on both sides of the transaction.
The evaluation runs about ninety minutes. The evaluator looks at the condition of the building inside and out and identifies items that pose health-and-safety risks. They check things like smoke and CO detectors, GFCI outlets in wet locations, handrails, accessible plumbing, visible exterior conditions, and obvious electrical and heating safety issues.
What a TISH evaluator does not do:
- Walk the roof or lean a ladder against the eaves
- Open the electrical panel
- Run moisture meters on walls or floors
- Enter crawl spaces
- Perform any kind of testing on furnaces or HVAC equipment
- Inspect inside attic or finished basement systems beyond what’s visible
This is why TISH does not replace the buyer’s home inspection — the buyer will still hire their own inspector, and that inspector will do everything the TISH evaluator skipped. If you’re a buyer reading this, the TISH report is a starting point for understanding the home’s conditions, not a substitute for due diligence. If you’re a seller, expect a second, much more thorough inspection from the buyer’s side after you accept an offer. Both inspections will happen, and they answer different questions.
The evaluator files the report online with the city. You — the seller — are required to display a copy of the report at every showing, alongside the disclosure paperwork and any other required notices. The city sees it. Your listing agent sees it. Every buyer’s agent who walks through sees it.
The Cost, the Timing, and the 90-Day Repair Clock
Budget for the evaluation as a hard cost of selling. Evaluators set their own pricing, but the working range in Minneapolis is $200 to $400 per evaluation. A re-inspection after you complete repairs runs another $50. You pay both.
The timing is tight. In Minneapolis, the evaluation has to be completed within three days of offering the property for sale, and before any showings. Practically speaking, you want the evaluator on the property a week or two before your target list date — and you want the report cleaned up before pictures, before the sign goes in the yard, and before any open house. The same logic applies in your broader pre-listing prep. The TISH belongs on the same checklist as photos, staging, and the seller’s disclosure.
What happens after the report lands depends on which TISH city you’re in.
Minneapolis (and most cities on the list) use a required-repairs framework. The evaluator flags items that pose a hazard. Those items have to be addressed in one of two ways:
- The seller completes the repairs before closing. The evaluator returns for a re-inspection ($50), and the city issues a Certificate of Approval once everything is cleared.
- The seller does not complete the repairs, and the buyer signs an Acknowledgment of Responsibility at closing. The acknowledgment is filed with the city within one business day of closing, and the buyer has ninety days from closing to finish the work.
In practice, the buyer-acknowledgment path is usually paired with a closing credit — the seller funds the buyer to complete the work, and the buyer takes on the timing and contractor coordination. Both paths are legitimate. Which one makes sense depends on your timeline, your cash position, and how the repair items show up at the inspection table.
St. Paul is the exception. Its TISH program is disclosure-only. The evaluator documents conditions and the report goes to prospective buyers, but the city does not require the seller to fix anything. The negotiation moves into the purchase agreement instead — buyers will read the report and ask for credits or repairs through the normal inspection-response process.
The reason this matters is that a stack of small flagged items can become a much bigger negotiation if you don’t fix them before listing. A few hundred dollars of pre-list repairs almost always saves you from a multi-thousand-dollar credit at closing, especially in a market where buyers are reading every report carefully before deciding how aggressive to be.
Smart Prep Before Your Evaluator Shows Up
Most TISH items are quick, inexpensive fixes. Handling them before the evaluator arrives keeps your report clean, your re-inspection unnecessary, and your buyers reading a one-page document instead of a four-page repair list.
The fixes that show up most often:
- Smoke and CO detectors. Install working smoke detectors on every level and outside every sleeping area. Add CO detectors near sleeping areas. Test the batteries.
- GFCI outlets. Required in bathrooms, kitchens (within six feet of a sink), garages, exterior outlets, and unfinished basements. Swap any standard outlets in those locations.
- Handrails. Anywhere there are four or more risers, you need a handrail. This includes basement stairs, exterior steps, and deck stairs.
- Visible plumbing leaks. Under sinks, around toilet bases, at water-heater connections. A roll of plumber’s tape and a wrench fixes most of them.
- Peeling exterior paint. Particularly relevant on pre-1978 homes. The TISH evaluator notes deteriorated paint as a health hazard.
- Trip hazards. Uneven walkway slabs, broken steps, missing thresholds.
None of this is heavy lifting. You don’t need a contractor for any of it. A weekend of focused work usually clears the most common items before the evaluator shows up.
Whether your home falls inside a TISH city or not, the larger goal is the same: you want a listing that signals readiness from the first day on market. The same energy that gets a home ready for the evaluator also gets it ready for buyers — and that compounds into pricing power. A clean TISH report on the table makes a buyer’s offer cleaner, too, because they’re not pricing in a list of municipal repairs alongside their own inspection findings. If you’re working on the broader listing-readiness picture, how the home presents matters as much as how it inspects.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Twin Cities cities require a TISH inspection?
Nine Minnesota cities require a Truth in Sale of Housing evaluation before listing: Minneapolis, St. Paul, Bloomington, St. Louis Park, Robbinsdale, Maplewood, Crystal, New Hope, and Richfield. Most western suburbs — Wayzata, Minnetonka, Edina, Plymouth, Maple Grove, Eden Prairie, Excelsior, and Orono — do not require it.
How much does a TISH inspection cost in Minneapolis?
Evaluators set their own prices, but most Minneapolis TISH evaluations run $200 to $400. A re-inspection after repairs is typically $50. The seller pays for both.
Does a TISH inspection replace the buyer’s home inspection?
No. The TISH is a narrow, city-mandated health-and-safety evaluation that takes about ninety minutes. The buyer will still hire their own inspector for a full inspection — moisture testing, roof walk, electrical panel, crawl spaces, and everything else the TISH evaluator does not check.
What happens if repairs aren’t done before closing in Minneapolis?
If hazardous items are still open at closing, the buyer signs an Acknowledgment of Responsibility, files it with the city within one business day of closing, and completes the repairs within ninety days. The seller can also negotiate a credit so the buyer is funded to complete the work. Either way, the city follows the property until the work is done.
Is the St. Paul Truth in Sale of Housing program the same as Minneapolis?
Both cities require a licensed evaluator to file a report before the home goes on the market, but the consequences differ. St. Paul’s program is disclosure-only — the evaluator documents conditions and buyers decide what to do with the information. Minneapolis flags specific hazardous items that must be repaired by the seller before closing or completed by the buyer within ninety days after.
The Bottom Line for Twin Cities Sellers
TISH is one of those quiet, jurisdiction-specific pieces of the Minnesota selling process that catches sellers off guard. It’s not a full inspection, it’s not a substitute for the buyer’s inspection, and it’s not optional in the nine cities that require it. Treated right — handled a few weeks before list date, with the easy items addressed before the evaluator arrives — it’s a small step that protects the rest of your sale. Treated as an afterthought, it becomes a list of repair credits at closing.
If you’re thinking through a Minneapolis, St. Paul, or other TISH-city sale and want to know what your home is worth before the prep starts, get a free home valuation from the Hammer Home Group team. We’ll send you a TISH-prep checklist and run real numbers for your address — no pressure, no obligation.
About Greg Tracy
Greg Tracy is a Twin Cities real estate advisor with Hammer Home Group, helping buyers and sellers navigate the Minneapolis–St. Paul market with a calm, data-driven approach. He focuses on luxury and move-up homes across the western suburbs.
