In addition to handling landlord-tenant legal issues for our clients, our firm also handles real estate closings. One interesting trend I have taken notice of recently is the number of my landlord clients who have decided to quit. That’s right, they are quitting the landlording game. During the last week of May, I closed a real estate sale for a client I had helped just a few months before remove an unruly tenant from her condominium unit. Just last week, a client hired me to “handle my eviction and then help me with the sale of this place”. The scenario is getting more and more common. A landlord comes to me to get the tenant out and then to help with the sale of the real estate. It is a trend that I think will continue.
Rent control comes to Chicago. Council passes Keep Chicago Renting
Well, what is done is done. The City Council overwhelmingly passed the “Keep Chicago Renting” law. WBEZ reported that the Aldermen voted 45-4 in favor of the measure (text can be found here). Affected tenants will have rights to rent controlled leases or a bonanza of housing relocation funds. Housing activists are celebrating their “victory” … Read more
City moves forward on “Keep Chicago Renting” Ordinance
The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the Keep Chicago Renting Ordinance has passed out of committee and will be voted on by the City Council on June 5. The text of the ordinance has been changed slightly to reduce the originally proposed relocation payment of $12,000 to $10,600. The aldermen seem to believe that this … Read more
NEW LAW: Cook County landlords cannot discriminate based on Section 8 participation
In a vote being celebrated by Tenant’s rights advocates, the Cook County Board of Commissioners voted yesterday to amend the Cook County Human Rights Ordinance to prohibit landlords from discriminating against tenants who are participating in Section 8 housing choice programs. Like landlords in Chicago before them, Cook County landlords governed by the Human Rights … Read more
UPDATE: Cook County Section 8 amendment
On May 8, 2013, the Cook County Board will once again take up the topic of amending the Human Right’s Ordinance to make it a fair housing violation (for source of income discrimination) for a Cook County landlord to refuse to participate in the Section 8 housing choice voucher program. The Illinois Rental Property Owners … Read more
Chicago renters foreclosure protection law passes housing committee
Yesterday, the City of Chicago Housing Committee passed the Keep Chicago Renting Ordinance which will now go on to the City Council for a full vote. Before that, the committee is “holding” the ordinance to give lenders time to respond.
“Keep Chicago Renting” ordinance comes before Chicago City Council today
In the wake of the report issued by Lawyer’s Committee for Better Housing indicating that crime has increased in vacant lots and buildings, the Housing Committee of the Chicago City Council plans to conduct a hearing and possibly vote on the “Keep Chicago Renting” ordinance today (Mayday). Originally introduced in July of last year, the ordinance has been kicking around for about a year in various forms. In its current form, the City proposes that banks or other entities that take title to foreclosed real estate at a foreclosure auction must pay (yes, you read that right) tenants who are forced to vacate the premises or offer them leases with rent restrictions.
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.
Having tenant troubles? Don’t just “fix the glitch”
The scene is from the movie Office Space:
Bob #1: Uh, Milton Waddams.
Dom: Who’s he?
Bob #2: You know, squirrely looking guy. Mumbles a lot.
Dom: Oh, yeah.
Bob #1: Yeah, we can’t actually find a record of him being a current employee here.
Bob #2: I looked into it more deeply, and I found that apparently what happened is that he was laid off five years ago, and no one ever told him about it. But through some glitch in the payroll department, he still gets a paycheck.
Bob #1: So we just went ahead and fixed the glitch.
Lumbergh: Great.
Dom: So, uh, Milton has been let go.
Bob #1: Well, just a second there, professor. We, uh, we fixed the glitch so he won’t be receiving a paycheck anymore so it’ll just work itself out naturally.
Bob #2: We always like to avoid confrontation whenever possible. The problem is solved from your end.