News agencies across the City of Chicago are reporting that Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart is calling for a local property management company to stop serving illegal eviction notices. (This story has a copy of the purported notice which is obviously not a notice from the Sheriff) A number of Chicago aldermen and the Chicago Anti-Eviction campaign are also protesting the company along with Sheriff Dart. The reports indicate that Dart alleges that the property management company is serving notices informing tenants that foreclosure proceedings are underway, that the tenants must vacate immediately, and that the Sheriff will be out soon to evict the tenants.
More on new Cook County jury trial procedures
The courts have now had a little over a week to work out some of the procedural kinks in the wake of the new procedures for Cook County evictions with jury trials. I have heard from a number of sources about some of the interesting “features” of the new system for jury trials in Cook County evictions. Each of the sources I have spoken to has confirmed the rumor that the jury trial judges assigned to eviction cases are not allowing the litigants to conduct discovery as part of the jury trial process. (Discovery is the pre-trial gathering of evidence through legal procedures such as depositions, requests for the production of documents, requests to admit facts, and interrogatories.) Instead,
New procedure for Cook County eviction jury trials
We became aware this week of a “pilot program” being initiated in the first municipal district (Daley Center) of the Circuit Court of Cook County to deal with jury demands in forcible entry and detainer (eviction) cases. On March 7, 2013, the Presiding Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County’s First Municipal District entered General Order 2013-01 establishing the procedure. Positioned as a way to “improve the judicial process and efficiency, and, eliminate a backlog of current and future cases awaiting jury trials”, the order will radically modify the way cases are handled after a jury demand is filed in Cook County evictions.
After the Illinois eviction trial
Hypothetical: A Chicago landlord pays an attorney to draft a 5 day notice. The landlord pays a process server to serve the notice. The tenant does not pay, so the landlord pays an attorney to draft a complaint, pays a filing fee to the Circuit Court, and pays service fees to the Cook County Sheriff. The Sheriff is unsuccessful in delivering the summons, so the landlord pays the attorney to go to court to have a process server appointed and pays a process server to serve a summons on the tenant. The tenant is served and the landlord pays an attorney to go to court for an eviction trial. The landlord prevails at the eviction trial and is granted an order for possession. The landlord tells the attorney “I’m going home to change the locks on the place”.
Illinois property owners still being scammed
It is bold. It is outrageous. It is unbelievable. Back in May of 2011, I wrote about the rise in scams against landlords. Those scams seem not to have abated in the time since then. Based on the phonecalls our office receives, these scams are still occurring in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. The scams target owners with vacant property.
The scam works like this.
Calculating security deposit interest payment on a one year lease per the CRLTO
Calculating the interest due a tenant on a security deposit held by a landlord pursuant to a tenancy governed by the Chicago Residential Landlord Tenant Ordinance should be simple enough, right? It should be, however, because of the “high stakes” involved in the case of an incorrect calculation, landlords need to make sure the calculation is done right.
So, without much further ado, here is an example of how to calculate the interest payable to a tenant with a security deposit on a one year lease subject to CRLTO section 5-12-080(c).
Buffalo Grove enacts new landlord licensing law
As I discussed just a few days back, we will take a closer look at rental regulations in the suburbs of Chicago. The newest addition to the mix is the Village of Buffalo Grove’s Residential Rental Housing Program which was passed near the end of 2012 and is now in effect starting as of January 1, 2013. Established under the auspices of protecting the community’s health, safety, and welfare (that’s the justification given by most “home rule communities” [as defined by Article 7 Section 6 of the Illinois Constitution] that enact these kind of laws), the new program seeks to set minimum housing standards, stabilize residential areas, keep up housing conditions, and maintain property values.
Renting in the ‘Burbs
I devote quite a bit of time on this blog to looking at Chicago and state (Illinois) landlord-tenant issues. However, landlords in the northwest suburbs and Chicagoland in general should not think that they are left out in the cold. Yes, you suburban landlords have it much easier (at least most of you do) than the City of Chicago landlords. But, your care-free days may be coming to a close in this new regulation-heavy era.
Move-out inspections in Illinois and bad faith
“Moving Week” ends today with a final installment about move-out. If you have ever seen me at a speaking engagement on landlord-tenant law, you have probably heard me opine about what I think is a great way to manage risk when a tenant moves out. I think landlords should go out of their way to make sure that they have an opportunity to conduct an in-person move-out inspection walk-through with a tenant. Personal contact is the key. The landlord is there. The tenant is there. Any damage or lack of damage is mostly obvious and it is pretty darn difficult for a tenant to claim that the door is not broken when both the landlord and the tenant are standing in front of the broken door!
What happens when bedbugs move-in?
I was not planning on discussing bedbugs this week, however, in the wake of Orkin’s recent report that Chicago has the worst bedbug problem in the nation, the City Council of Chicago has proposed a new ordinance that would impose a responsibility on Chicago landlords to address bedbug problems and the law is getting quite a bit of press. We’ve been discussing tenant move-in and move-out this week, so let’s talk just a bit about when bedbugs move-in and what, if anything, landlords have to do to move them out. The Chicago Tribune reported that alderman had a hearing this past Tuesday at a joint meeting of the City Council Health and Housing committees on comprehensive new proposed ordinance to deal with these increasingly common pests.