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Your Guide to Landlord-Tenant Law

Landlord-Tenant Law

Eventually throughout their lives most people will be included with the leasing of property, either as proprietor or tenant. Laws that affect landlords and occupants can vary considerably from city to city. This pamphlet supplies basic info about being a tenant in Illinois. You should seek advice from a lawyer or your town or county as they might offer you with higher defense under the law.

Tenancy Agreement

The relationship in between landlord and renter develops from an agreement, composed or oral, by which one party inhabits the realty of another with the owner's approval in return for the payment of certain amount as rent.

Written Agreement: Most occupancies are in composing and are called a lease. No specific words are necessary to create a lease, however usually the terms of a lease consist of a description of the realty, the length of the arrangement, the amount of the lease, and the time of payment. TIP: You should put your arrangement in writing to prevent future misconceptions.

Provisions in a lease contract that secure a landlord from liability for damages to persons or residential or commercial property caused by the neglect of the proprietor are considered as being against public policy and are therefore unenforceable. Certain municipalities and counties have other limitations and prohibition on specific lease terms, so you ought to speak with a lawyer or your municipality or county.

Oral Agreement: If an occupancy arrangement is not in writing, the regard to the agreement will, normally, be considered a month-to-month occupancy. The period is usually determined by the frequency of the rental payments. For instance: week to week, month to month, or year to year. Although the terms of an oral lease might be tough to determine, a party may be bound to the terms of an oral contract simply as much as a composed one.

Termination of the Lease or Tenancy Agreement

If a lease is not for a specific term, it may be terminated by either party with correct notification.

- For year-to-year occupancies, other than a lease of farmland, either party may end the lease by giving 60 days of composed notification at any time within the 4 months preceding the last 60 days of the lease.
A week-to-week occupancy might be ended by either celebration by providing seven days of composed notification to the other party.
Farm leases usually run for one year. Customarily, they begin and end in March of each year. Notice to terminate should be given a minimum of 4 months before the end of the term.
In all other for a period of less than one year, a celebration should offer 30 days of composed notification. Any notification offered must require termination on the last day of that rental duration.
The lease might also have actually specified requirements and timeframe for termination of the lease.
In certain towns and counties, landlords are required to offer more than the above mentioned notice period for termination. You need to consult with an attorney or your town or county.

If the lease does mention a particular expiration or termination date, no termination notification is required. Know that your lease might also require notification of termination in a specific type or a greater notice duration than the minimum needed by law, if any. Landlords ought to keep in mind that no matter what the lease requires or mentions, you may be required to offer more than the notice duration specified in the lease for termination and in writing. You ought to consult with a lawyer or your municipality or county.

Termination of a month-to-month occupancy normally only requires one month of notice by tenant and a property manager is needed to serve a written notification of termination of tenancy on the renter (see Service on Demand area below). In certain towns and counties, landlords are required to provide more than 1 month of notice, so you must talk to speak with an attorney or your municipality or county.

Renewal of the Lease or Tenancy Agreement, Rental Increases

Generally, a lease may be renewed at any time by oral or written agreement of the celebrations. If a lease term ends and the property owner accepts rent following the expiration of the term, the lease term automatically becomes month-to-month based on the very same terms stated in the lease.

The lease may require a specific notification and timeframe for restoring the lease. You should examine your lease to verify such requirements. Landlords and renters should keep in mind that no matter what the lease needs or states, landlords may likewise have constraints on how early they can require renewal of a lease by a renter and are needed to put such in composing. You must talk to a lawyer or your municipality or county.

Month-to-month occupancies immediately restore from month to month up until ended by either proprietor or tenant.

Unless there is a written lease, a property manager can raise the rent by any amount by offering the occupant notice: Seven days of notice for a week-to-week tenancy, one month of notification for a month-to-month occupancy, and 90 days of notification for mobile home parks. In particular towns and counties, property managers are required to provide more than 7 or thirty days of notification of a rental increase, so you ought to speak with speak with a lawyer or your municipality or county.

Eviction, Termination of Tenants Right to Possession

In Illinois, a landlord does not have a right to self-help and must file an expulsion to eliminate an occupant or resident from the properties.

Five-Day Notice. The most typical breach of a lease is for non-payment of lease. In this case the proprietor need to serve a five-day notice upon the delinquent renter unless the lease requires more than five days of notice. Five days after such notification is served, the proprietor might begin expulsion procedures against the tenant. If, however, the tenant pays the full quantity of rent required in the five-day notification within those five days, the property manager may not continue with an expulsion. The property manager is not needed, nevertheless, to accept rent that is less than the exact amount due. If the proprietor accepts a tender of a lesser amount of lease, it might impact the rights to continue under the notice.

10-Day Notice. If a proprietor wishes to end a lease since of an infraction of the lease agreement by the renter, other than for non-payment of rent, he or she should serve 10 days of written notice upon the tenant before eviction procedures can start, unless the lease requires more than 10 days of notification. Acceptance of rent after such notification is a waiver by the property manager of the right to terminate the lease unless the breach suffered is a continuing breach.

Holdover. If a tenant stays beyond the lease expiration date, usually, a property owner may submit an expulsion without needing to first serve a notification on the occupant. However, the terms of the lease or in specific municipalities or counties, a landlord is required to provide a notification of non-renewal to the renter, so you ought to seek advice from an attorney or your town or county.

Service on Demand Notice

The five-day, 10-day, or termination of month-to-month tenancy notifications might be served upon tenant by providing a composed or printed copy to the tenant, leaving the same with some individual above the age of 13 years who lives at the party's home, or sending a copy of the notification to the celebration by licensed or signed up mail with a return invoice from the addressee. If no one is in the real ownership of the properties, then publishing notification on the properties is sufficient.

Subletting or Assigning the Lease

Often, composed leases forbid the renter from subletting the properties without the written permission of the property manager. Such approval can not be unreasonably withheld, however the prohibition is enforceable under the law. If there is no such restriction, then an occupant may sublease or assign their lease to another. In such cases, however, the tenant will remain accountable to the property manager unless the property manager launches the original occupant. A breach of the sublease will not alter the preliminary relationship between the property manager and occupant.

Breach by Landlord, Tenant Remedies

If the proprietor has breached the lease by stopping working to fulfill their responsibilities under the lease, specific treatments occur in favor of the tenant:

- The renter might sue the proprietor for damages sustained as an outcome of the breach.
If a proprietor fails to maintain a leased residence in a livable condition, the tenant might have the ability to leave the premises and end the lease under the theory of "useful expulsion."
The failure of a landlord to keep a leased home in a livable condition or comply substantially with regional housing codes might be a breach of the property manager's "implied warranty of habitability" (independent of any composed lease arrangements or oral pledges), which the renter might assert as a defense to an eviction based upon the non-payment of lease or a claim for decrease in the rental value of the premises. However, breach by landlord does not automatically entitle an occupant to withhold lease or a decrease in the rental worth. The commitment to pay rent continues as long as the renter stays in the rented properties and to assert this defense successfully, the occupant will have to reveal that their damages resulting from proprietor's breach of this "implied warranty" equal or exceed the rent declared due.

A property owner's breach and renter's damages may be challenging to show. Because of the limited and technical nature of these rules, renters must be exceptionally careful in keeping lease and must probably do so just after speaking with an attorney.

Please note that specific municipalities or counties offer particular commitments and requirements that the proprietor must perform. If a property owner stops working to adhere to such responsibilities or requirements, the occupant may have extra remedies for such failure. You should consult with an attorney or your town or county.

Breach by the Tenant, Landlord Remedies

In addition to termination for certain breaches by occupant, a proprietor likewise has the following remedies:

If rent is not paid, the property owner may: (1) sue for the lease due or to end up being due in the future and (2) end the lease and gather any previous rent due. Under certain situations in the occasion of non-payment of lease the property manager might hold the furnishings and personal residential or commercial property of the occupant up until past rent is paid by the tenant.

If an occupant stops working to abandon the leased premise at the end of the lease term, the renter might end up being liable for double rent for the duration of holdover if the holdover is deemed to be willful. The occupant can also be forced out.

If the renter harms the facilities, the landlord might take legal action against for the repair work of such damages.

Please note that certain towns or counties offer certain obligations and requirements that the tenant should fulfill. If a tenant stops working to adhere to such commitments or requirements, the landlord might have extra remedies for such failure. You should seek advice from with a lawyer or your town or county.

Discrimination

Under the federal Fair Housing Act and Illinois law, it is unlawful for a property manager to discriminate in the leasing of a home home, flat, or apartment or condo against prospective tenants who have children under the age of 14. It is also unlawful for a landlord to discriminate against a renter on the basis of race, faith, sex, national origin, income, sexual origination, gender identity, or disability.

Down Payment, Move-in Fee

Security Deposit. A renter can be required to deposit with the proprietor a sum of cash prior to inhabiting the residential or commercial property. This is normally referred to as a down payment. This money is deemed to be security for any damage to the premises or non-payment of lease. The security deposit does not alleviate the occupant of the duty to pay the last month's rent or for damage triggered to the premises. It must be gone back to the occupant upon vacating the properties if no damage has been done beyond regular wear and tear and the rent is totally paid.

If a proprietor stops working to return the security deposit without delay, the tenant can take legal action against to recuperate the part of the security deposit to which the tenant is entitled. In some municipalities or counties and certain circumstances under state law, when a proprietor wrongfully withholds a renter's down payment the tenant may be able to recover extra damages and attorneys' fees. You need to consult with an attorney.

Generally, a proprietor who gets a down payment may not withhold any part of that deposit as payment for residential or commercial property damage unless he provides to the occupant, within thirty days of the date the occupant abandons, a statement of damage allegedly triggered by the tenant and the approximated or real cost of fixing or replacing each product on that declaration. If no such statement is furnished within 30 days, the property owner must return the down payment in complete within 45 days of the date the renter left.

If a structure includes 25 or more residential systems, the property owner must likewise pay interest on the deposit from the date it was paid, if held more than 67 months. Interest is calculated at the rate paid by the largest bank in Illinois, as determined by overall possessions, on a passbook security account.

The above declarations relating to down payment are based on state law. However, some towns or counties may enforce additional responsibilities. For example, Cook County, Evanston, Chicago, and Oak Park all have additional requirements that a proprietor must comply with when taking down payment and provide steep charges when a property manager stops working to comply.

Move-in Fee. In addition to or as an option to a security deposit, a proprietor might charge a move-in cost. Generally, there are no particular restrictions on the quantity of a move-in charge, however, certain municipalities or counties do provide constraints. TIP: A move-in charge should be nonrefundable, otherwise it could be deemed to be a down payment.

Landlord and renter matters can become complex. Both landlord and occupant need to consult an attorney for help with specific problems. For more details about your rights and obligations as a tenant, including particular landlord-tenant laws in your municipality or county, call your local bar association, or go to the Illinois Tenants Union at www.tenant.org.

Additional Resources

- Illinois Lawyer Finder: isba.org/public/illinoislawyerfinder
Illinois Legal Aid Online (ILAO): illinoislegalaid.org
Illinois Standardized Court Forms: illinoiscourts.gov/ approved-forms.
Illinois Court Help: ilcourthelp.gov.
Illinois Free Legal Answers: il.freelegalanswers.org
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Prepared by the Illinois State Bar Association's Real Estate Law Section (2024 )

This handout is ready and published by the Illinois State Bar Association as a civil service. Every effort has been made to supply precise information at the time of publication.