April 1 proposal seeks to overturn RLTO

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stampactREPEAL IS AN OPTION (April Fools)!

A daring new proposal seeks to repeal the RLTO.  After years of tyranny against landlords, this must end.  “Let justice be done though the heavens should fall” said one legislator.  For years, landlords have faced burdensome regulatory requirements governing security deposits, lease provisions, and disclosure obligations.  The penalties under the ordinance are severe, unfair, and wildly out of proportion to the interests being protected.

“It is time to level the playing field – fair is fair”, one landlords’ rights advocate said. 

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Certified mail service of eviction notices in Cook County?

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postmarkA new case interpreting the Forcible Entry and Detainer Act demonstrates the difference between condominium and landlord evictions

The First District Appellate Court has just published an opinion to Courts of Northbrook Condominium Ass’n v. Bhutani which highlights a major difference between condominium association evictions and traditional tenant eviction cases under the Illinois Forcible Entry and Detainer Act.  The Northbrook case involves a condominium association eviction under the forcible entry and detainer statute.  Landlords might be interested to know that it is not just they who can take advantage of the Forcible Entry and Detainer Statute to recover possession to land.  Condominium associations have a separate right under the FED to file an eviction to collect past due assessments or to obtain possession of real estate owned by a delinquent condominium owner.

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Sheriff working hard to reduce winter backlog

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shervanSheriff’s Deputies processing lots of evictions

Props and kudos to Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart and his Sheriff’s Deputies who are clearly (to me) working their tails off to get eviction orders processed.  The horrible cold has created an unbelievable backlog in the processing of eviction orders, but a quick look at the Sheriff’s website will plainly show that the Sheriff is scheduling many more evictions on a daily basis than in my recent memory. 

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When must a Chicago landlord provide a heating cost disclosure?

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hcdTenants have a right to heating cost disclosures in Chicago

Its still cold out and we are not done with winter yet, so I want to talk about the Chicago heating cost disclosure.  It’s the forgotten attachment in the landlord-tenant world!  The form gets lost among ordinance summaries, security deposit receipts and lead-based paint disclosures.  Why?  Well, because many landlords and their agents are… lazy.  You see, it takes effort to get a heating cost disclosure.  Effort, you say?  How hard is it to get one?  Not hard at all.  The City of Chicago provides the Energy Disclosure Application form on its website (it takes up all of one page) and all a landlord has to do is fill it out and send it in to the energy provider (a landlord can even

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State legislator seeks to ban the Cook County winter eviction moratorium

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bricksIs she right or is she doing damage to landlords?

A news article in the Chicago Sun Times yesterday indicates that state representative Monique Davis (Democrat) introduced a bill this week to “eliminate weather as a factor in enforcement of eviction judgments”.  Readers of this blog are well aware of the current significant delay in eviction order enforcement in Cook County cause, in part, by the winter eviction moratorium and the recent inclement weather.  Apparently Rep. Davis is a landlord herself and is not pleased with how “some of them [tenants] know how to play the game”.

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New CRLTO Opinion released

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Just a heads up that there is a brand new CRLTO case opinion released by the appellate court today.  I haven’t had time to do a full write up but there is some pretty interesting stuff inside on whether or not a lease constitutes a receipt and whether paying interest on the 1st of every … Read more

When Illinois Eviction Judgments Expire

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oldorderWhat do you do when your eviction order gets old?

In case you missed it, the Cook County Sheriff is now warning plaintiffs in Cook County eviction cases that the delays in enforcement as a result of inclement weather could put the plaintiff’s eviction order in jeopardy.  What exactly happens when an eviction order gets “too old”?

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