New CRLTO Summary Available

New Section 5-12-170 Ordinance Summary to be Attached to Leases

As my readers know, the CRLTO was amended recently with the passage Mayor’s Fair Notice law that made significant changes to Section 5-12-130(j) of the Ordinance.  The City has FINALLY release their revised version of the CRLTO summary.  You can find a copy

Read more

Mayor’s Fair Notice Amendment Passes Chicago City Council

For the first time since 2016, the Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance has been amended.  By a vote of 35-15, the City Council passed Mayor’s second draft of the measure.  At the Building’s committee a week earlier upon only a few hours notice, the Mayor presented an amendment to the proposal she originally introduced on May 20, 2020 which contained even more anti-landlord provisions.  That version was

Read more

Chicago Landlords May Be Obligated to Provide Air Conditioning

We missed this one

Lost in all of the hoopla over the passage of the Mayor’s Covid-19 Eviction Protection Ordinance, we missed the proposal of at lease one new ordinance that will affect Chicago Landlords.  Under a sweeping ordinance proposed by 12th Ward Alderman George Cardenas, changes would be made to the Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance requiring landlords to provide

Read more

Details on Mayor’s Proposed Change to 5-12-130(j) Notice of Non-Renewal

Covid-19 Change or Just a Change?

UPDATE: A version of this law has passed the City Council.  Today, May 20, 2020, Mayor Lightfoot has introduced a measure to radically change, dare I say, hundreds of years of common law and forty years of Chicago law with respect to the termination of a lease and/or a tenancy.  These rules may be INSPIRED by Covid-19, but there is no indication that they will be repealed or removed once the threat of the Coronavirus is just a memory.  The proposed ordinance will change the amount of advance notice landlords need to give to tenants to terminate a lease or tenancy and to introduce new requirements that landlords provide relocation assistance (a nice thing to call a payment) to tenants. Let’s take a dive into the proposed law.

Read more

City of Chicago holds line on 2020 Security Deposit Interest Rate to no one’s surprise

The Comptroller of the City of Chicago has released the rate for leases entered into from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020 that are governed by the Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance.  For those rental agreements, the rate to comply with the requirements of Section 5-12-080 of the CRLTO

Read more

Seattle landlords selling their properties – could it happen here?

The University of Washington just released a rental housing study commissioned by the City of Seattle that the Rental Hosing Association of Washington says “supports what landlords have been telling [Seattle] officials for years”.  Among the findings were the following:

  • 89% of survey respondents said that the landlords’ perspective is not considered by Seattle officials
  • 40% of survey respondents said that legislation targeting landlords has led to and is leading to an increase in owners selling rental properties.

That is confirmed by one landlord in Seattle who sold his unit because of Seattle’s laws with respect to security deposits.  Does this sound familiar?  Could it happen here?

Read more