On January 3, 2018, NBC Channel 5 reported that the City of Chicago Building Department is taking landlords to court during this cold snap. The report indicates that the Department of Buildings has received over 600 heat complaints. City building inspectors are going out in response to 311 calls. For those landlords who are not in compliance with the City’s heat ordinance, the City is bringing court actions to appoint receivers to run the buildings and provide the heat tenants are entitled to receive.
Building Code
Tougher smoke and carbon monoxide detector penalties for Chicago Landlords
Proposed amendment closes detector compliance loophole
Chicago landlords who fail to comply with the City of Chicago smoke detector and carbon monoxide detector ordinances will face much stiffer penalties. A proposed amendment to the municipal code for Chicago which passed out of committee this week will close a loophole that allowed landlords cited for failure to comply with the ordinance’s requirements for smoke and carbon monoxide detectors to avoid penalty by complying with the ordinance after being cited but before the building department hearing.
Sanity from the City of Chicago on Bedbugs
Well, thankfully sanity has prevailed for now on the issue of bedbugs. The Chicago Tribune is reporting that alderman on the City’s housing committee have declined, for now, to pass an ordinance that would declare bedbugs a nuisance and fine landlords up to $2000 a day for renting infested unit. The alderman were smart to step back and reconsider the issue.
Illinois appellate court clarifies penalty for failure to disclose code violations under section 5-12-100
A new Chicago Residential Landlord Tenant Ordinance opinion was just recently issued by the first district Illinois Appellate Court. In the case Ranjha v. BJBP Properties, Inc., a tenant sued a landlord in a class action related to the landlord’s failure to disclose City of Chicago Building Code citations and violations for the twelve months prior to the lease and sought damages equal to one month’s rent or the tenant’s actual damages.
City of Chicago to release some high rise building safety information
The City of Chicago has announced that it will share the Life Safety Evaluation (LSE) status for hundreds of high-rise residential buildings will be made available online. Passed in 2004, the City’s Life Safety ordinance sets fire safety standards for high-rise buildings eight stories or higher.
Update: Heat and water to be restored to Lincoln Park hi-rise tenants
Well, that was fast! According to NBC News, the City of Chicago and the landlord who suggested that tenants use space heaters and ovens to heat their units for three weeks while apartment building repairs left residents without heat and hot water, entered an order providing, among other things, that the heat and hot water … Read more
Get the heat on!
It is fitting that today is a cold day in Chicago. Many Chicago lessors are caught unaware of their obligation to supply a minimum level of heat to their rental units. Today, September 15, is the first day of 2011 that heat requirements are in effect for lessors in the City of Chicago.