Reduced redemption period
A reduced redemption period is one shorter than the statutory default. Minnesota provides three routes, and they arrive in completely different ways.
Five weeks: abandonment#
Under Minn. Stat. 582.032, where a property is found abandoned and meets the statutory description — ten acres or less, improved with a residential dwelling of fewer than five units that is neither a model home nor under construction, and not used in agricultural production.
Imposed rather than chosen, and requiring a determination rather than an assertion.
Five weeks: postponement#
Under Minn. Stat. 580.07, where an owner-occupant of a homestead with no more than four dwelling units postpones the sale by recording a sworn affidavit at least 15 days beforehand.
The owner gains five months of delay where the period was six, or eleven where it was twelve, and accepts five weeks of redemption in exchange.
Chosen rather than imposed, and it is a real decision with a real trade.
Two months: voluntary foreclosure#
Under Minn. Stat. 582.32, a process the parties enter into on defined terms, carrying a two-month redemption period.
Used rarely, and it requires the borrower's participation. A lender cannot impose it.
The certificate is the authority#
Because the period varies so widely — five weeks, two months, six months, twelve months — the default is not a safe assumption for any particular property.
Minn. Stat. 580.12 requires that a certificate must not contain a time allowed for redemption that is less than the time specified by section 580.23, 582.032 or 582.32, whichever applies. And where a sale has been postponed, the certificate must show the actual sale date and the actual length of the mortgagor's redemption period.
So the sheriff's certificate states it, it cannot understate it, and it is the document to read.
Recording deadlines differ too: a certificate stating a five-week period must be recorded within ten days of the sale, while any other certificate has 20 days.
What is not affected#
The deficiency position, in the abandonment case.
Minn. Stat. 582.30 subdivision 2 bars a deficiency judgment where a foreclosure by advertisement carries a six-month period under 580.23 subd. 1 or a five-week period under 582.032. The shortened period does not expose the borrower to a claim that the longer one would have barred.
Practical consequence#
Anyone tracking a Minnesota foreclosure deadline — an owner, a counsellor, a purchaser, a junior creditor — should take the period from the certificate and count from the sale date.
Assuming six months on a property with a five-week certificate is a four-and-a- half month error in the wrong direction, and there is no mechanism for correcting it after the fact.