More than two dozen DFL lawmakers are hoping to advance a bill that would require “corporate” landlords to divest some of their single-family homes or else face a $100,000 fine.

HF685 passed on a party-line vote last week in a House committee, where its author said the proposal begins “addressing the trend of corporate and investor owners in the housing market.”

The details of the bill have been scaled back from the original version Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, introduced last year, which would have prohibited any “corporate entity, real estate developer or residential building contractor” from purchasing or building a single-family home and “subsequently [converting] the property into non-homestead residential real estate.”

The version Agbaje presented to the House Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee on Tuesday would prevent “corporate owners” from owning more than 10 single-family homes in Minnesota that they use as rental properties. The penalty for landlords violating that cap would be either to divest those properties or receive a $100,000 fine per excess unit, Agbaje told her colleagues during the April 9 hearing. The proposal would exempt single-family residential units owned by governments and nonprofits.