Most sellers assume the required inspection is the hard part. Fix what it flags, get a passing grade, then list. In St. Paul, that assumption gets the sequence backward, and for anyone using a pre-market or coming-soon strategy, it can create a compliance problem before a single showing happens.
The city calls it a Truth-in-Sale of Housing report, or TISH. It sounds like a pass/fail inspection. It isn't one. And the moment that triggers it isn't the day you sign a listing agreement. It's the day you do anything that functions as marketing, which under the city's own language includes actions well short of an MLS number.
The Report Checks Everything and Fixes Almost Nothing
A TISH evaluation covers the basement, attic, plumbing, electrical, heating system, roof, garage, and exterior. It reads like a real inspection because a licensed evaluator walks the entire property and documents what they see. But the Saint Paul program is built as disclosure, not enforcement. The report tells a buyer what condition the house was in on the day of the evaluation. It does not obligate the seller to repair most of what it finds.
There is exactly one exception, and it's a specific one: a functioning hard-wired smoke detector near sleeping areas. If the evaluator doesn't find one, or finds one that isn't wired correctly, it gets marked as a hazard, and the seller gets a letter from the city's Senior Electrical Inspector. A licensed electrical contractor has to pull a permit, install the device, and call the inspector to close out the permit before the sale can proceed cleanly. Everything else on the report, cracked tile, an aging water heater, a garage door that doesn't reverse when it hits an object, stays on paper as information for the buyer to weigh. Nothing else forces a repair.
That single-item enforcement model is the whole personality of the program. It's also the detail that trips people up when they compare notes with a friend who sold across the river.
Same Three Letters, Different City, Different Rules
Minneapolis runs a program with the same name and a completely different structure. Where St. Paul's report is disclosure with one enforced exception, Minneapolis requires repairs to be completed, or the responsibility for them explicitly transferred to the buyer, before the city will issue a Certificate of Approval. Minneapolis reports are also valid for two years or one sale, compared to St. Paul's 365 days.
| St. Paul TISH | Minneapolis TISH | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Disclosure only, with one exception | Disclosure plus required repairs |
| Enforced repair | Hard-wired smoke alarm only | Any item the city flags |
| Report validity | 365 days or one sale | Two years or one sale |
| Sign-off needed to sell | None beyond the report itself | Certificate of Approval after repairs (or buyer takes on responsibility) |
If you've sold in Minneapolis before, or you've been coached by someone who has, the instinct is to treat the St. Paul report the same way: brace for a repair list, negotiate it into the price, budget contractor time before listing. That instinct isn't wrong, exactly. It's just solving for the wrong city's rulebook.
The Sentence That Complicates a Coming-Soon Campaign
Here's the part that matters most for anyone planning a quiet pre-market push, a pocket listing, or an exclusive preview before the public listing goes live.
St. Paul's ordinance requires the TISH report to be in place within three calendar days, not of the MLS listing date, but of the property being offered, listed, or posted for sale, or of any other action meant to start the marketing process. Read plainly, that means a "coming soon" sign in the yard, a private preview sent to a short list of buyers, or a social post teasing an address can all start the same three-day clock that a full MLS listing would.
This doesn't kill the pre-market strategy. It just means the report has to be ready before the teaser goes out, not before the open house. For a seller who wants two or three weeks of quiet exposure to gauge interest before going fully public, the TISH evaluation needs to be scheduled at the very front of that timeline, not squeezed in the week before the sign changes from "coming soon" to "for sale." Waiting until the public listing date to book the evaluator is the single most common way sellers in St. Paul end up out of compliance without realizing it.
The Condo Detail That Catches People Off Guard
Condo sellers sometimes assume their building's Certificate of Occupancy covers them. It doesn't, not for TISH purposes. A Certificate of Occupancy applies to common areas. If your unit has its own Parcel Identification Number through Ramsey County, which the vast majority of individually owned condos do, you need a standalone TISH evaluation regardless of what the building holds on file. It's worth checking your unit's PIN status with the county before assuming a building-wide certificate does the job for you.
Buildings with three or more units that don't carry individual PINs, along with commercial and mixed-use properties, fall outside the TISH requirement entirely. Vacant properties have their own separate track: Category 1 vacant buildings need a TISH before sale, while Category 2 and 3 vacant buildings require a full code compliance inspection instead, a different and more involved process.
What Happens If You Skip It
The ordinance has real teeth. Failing to obtain a TISH report, or failing to make it available to prospective buyers, is a misdemeanor under Chapter 189 of the city's Legislative Code, carrying up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $1,000. In practice, this rarely escalates that far, but it explains why the requirement to display the report at every showing isn't treated as optional paperwork by evaluators or by the city.
There's one clean exemption: sales to immediate family don't require a TISH at all. The city defines immediate family narrowly, though, limiting it to a direct line: grandparents, parents, children, and grandchildren, plus siblings. Aunts, uncles, and cousins don't qualify, so a sale to extended family still needs the full report.
Who Can Actually Write the Report, and What It Costs
TISH evaluators are private contractors, not city employees, and the city doesn't set, cap, or recommend pricing. That means cost varies by who you hire, and it's reasonable to call more than one evaluator before booking. What the city does control tightly is licensing. To become a St. Paul TISH evaluator, a candidate must pass a proctored, identity-verified national home inspector exam, such as the NHIE. Non-proctored certifications, including InterNACHI's exam, aren't accepted, and the city doesn't grant reciprocity for licenses held in other jurisdictions. That licensing bar keeps the evaluator pool smaller and more consistent than a general home inspector search would suggest, which is one more reason to book early rather than assume same-week availability.
The program itself is overseen by a TISH Board that meets quarterly, on the second Wednesday of January, April, July, and October, at the city's Department of Safety and Inspections office on Jackson Street. It's not a detail most sellers need to track, but it's a reminder that this is an active regulatory program with a standing body behind it, not a legacy rule nobody enforces anymore.
What This Means If You're Timing a Listing
If you're planning to sell in St. Paul this fall and you're weighing a pre-market push before the public listing date, the sequencing matters more than the paperwork itself. Book the TISH evaluation as though your marketing start date, not your MLS date, is the deadline. If a smoke alarm issue turns up, build in time for the electrical permit and inspector sign-off before that first "coming soon" post goes anywhere public. And if you're selling a condo, confirm your unit's PIN status with the county early, so you're not scrambling to schedule an evaluator the week you meant to be meeting buyers instead.
None of this is legal advice, and specific questions about your property's category or timeline are worth a direct call to the city's Department of Safety and Inspections or to a currently licensed evaluator. But knowing where the clock actually starts, and how differently St. Paul treats this report compared to Minneapolis, is the difference between a pre-market campaign that runs smoothly and one that stalls on a technicality nobody flagged until it was too late.
A Few Questions Worth Asking
Does a TISH report replace a buyer's own home inspection? No. It's a disclosure document based on a visual review, not a substitute for the more detailed inspection a buyer's own inspector would perform before closing.
What happens if my TISH report expires in the middle of a sale? As long as an offer is accepted within the report's 365-day window, a new report typically isn't required even if closing happens after the expiration date.
If my sale falls through, do I need a new report to relist? Not necessarily. The report is valid for one sale within its 365-day window, so if the original sale doesn't close and the report hasn't expired, it can often carry forward to the next buyer.
If you're weighing the timing of a St. Paul listing, especially one you'd like to preview quietly before it goes fully public, David K Wells III Real Estate has handled this exact sequencing for clients across the city. Contact David & Wren to discuss your next move.
