Need Legal Help?
Legal Information
Judicial Information
Civics Education
- Site Search

Your Guide to Landlord-Tenant Law

Landlord-Tenant Law

Eventually during their lives a lot of people will be involved with the rental of property, either as property owner or renter. Laws that affect proprietors and occupants can differ substantially from city to city. This handout offers basic info about being a tenant in Illinois. You need to speak with an attorney or your town or county as they might supply you with greater security under the law.

Tenancy Agreement

The relationship in between landlord and renter develops from a contract, composed or oral, by which one party occupies the property of another with the owner's permission in return for the payment of certain quantity as rent.

Written Agreement: Most occupancies remain in writing and are called a lease. No particular words are required to produce a lease, however usually the terms of a lease include a description of the property, the length of the agreement, the quantity of the rent, and the time of payment. TIP: You need to put your agreement in writing to prevent future misunderstandings.

Provisions in a lease agreement that safeguard a landlord from liability for damages to individuals or residential or commercial property triggered by the carelessness of the property owner are viewed as protesting public policy and are for that reason unenforceable. Certain towns and counties have other constraints and restriction on certain lease terms, so you ought to talk to an attorney or your town or county.

Oral Agreement: If a tenancy agreement is not in writing, the term of the arrangement will, usually, be considered a month-to-month tenancy. The duration is usually identified by the frequency of the rental payments. For example: week to week, month to month, or year to year. Although the regards to an oral lease may be difficult to determine, a party might be bound to the regards to an oral contract just as much as a composed one.

Termination of the Lease or Tenancy Agreement

If a lease is not for a particular term, it may be terminated by either celebration with proper notice.

- For year-to-year occupancies, other than a lease of farmland, either party may end the lease by offering 60 days of written notice at any time within the 4 months preceding the last 60 days of the lease.
- A week-to-week tenancy might be ended by either party by offering 7 days of written notice to the other party.
- Farm leases typically run for one year. Customarily, they start and end in March of each year. Notice to end must be provided at least four months before completion of the term.
- In all other lease contracts for a period of less than one year, a party must offer 30 days of composed notice. Any notice provided need to require termination on the last day of that rental duration.
- The lease may also have actually stated requirements and timeframe for termination of the lease.
- In particular municipalities and counties, property owners are needed to offer more than the above specified notice duration for termination. You must seek advice from an attorney or your town or county.

If the lease does state a particular expiration or termination date, no termination notification is needed. Be conscious that your lease may also need notification of termination in a particular form or a higher notification duration than the minimum needed by law, if any. Landlords ought to keep in mind that no matter what the lease requires or specifies, you might be needed to provide more than the notification period specified in the lease for termination and in composing. You should speak with a lawyer or your municipality or county.

Termination of a month-to-month tenancy generally only needs 30 days of notification by tenant and a proprietor is required to serve a composed notice of termination of occupancy on the tenant (see Service as needed section below). In certain towns and counties, landlords are required to give more than 1 month of notification, so you must seek advice from with consult with a lawyer 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 contract of the parties. If a lease term ends and the property owner accepts rent following the expiration of the term, the lease term immediately ends up being month-to-month based upon the exact same terms stated in the lease.

The lease might require a specific notification and timeframe for restoring the lease. You ought to examine your lease to confirm such requirements. Landlords and occupants ought to keep in mind that no matter what the lease needs or specifies, property owners might likewise have limitations on how early they can require renewal of a lease by a tenant and are required to put such in writing. You should consult with an attorney or your town or county.

Month-to-month occupancies immediately renew from month to month until ended by either property manager or renter.

Unless there is a composed lease, a property manager can raise the rent by any quantity by providing the tenant notice: Seven days of notice for a week-to-week occupancy, one month of notification for a month-to-month tenancy, and 90 days of notice for mobile home parks. In certain municipalities and counties, property managers are needed to offer more than seven or 1 month of notification of a rental increase, so you need to talk to seek advice from a lawyer or your town or county.

Eviction, Termination of Tenants Right to Possession

In Illinois, a proprietor does not have a right to self-help and need to file an expulsion to eliminate an occupant or occupant from the premises.

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

10-Day Notice. If a proprietor wants to end a lease due to the fact that of an infraction of the lease arrangement by the renter, besides for non-payment of lease, she or he need to serve 10 days of written notice upon the renter before expulsion procedures can begin, unless the lease requires more than 10 days of notice. Acceptance of lease after such notice is a waiver by the proprietor of the right to end the lease unless the breach suffered is a continuing breach.

Holdover. If a renter remains beyond the lease expiration date, generally, a proprietor might file an expulsion without needing to very first serve a notice on the tenant. However, the terms of the lease or in specific municipalities or counties, a property owner is required to offer a notification of non-renewal to the renter, so you ought to speak with a lawyer or your municipality or county.

Service as needed Notice

The five-day, 10-day, or termination of month-to-month occupancy notifications might be served upon renter by delivering a written or printed copy to the tenant, leaving the exact same with some person above the age of 13 years who lives at the party's residence, or sending out a copy of the notice to the celebration by accredited or registered mail with a return invoice from the addressee. If nobody remains in the real ownership of the premises, then posting notification on the properties is enough.

Subletting or Assigning the Lease

Often, composed leases forbid the tenant from subletting the facilities without the written approval of the property manager. Such authorization can not be unreasonably kept, however the restriction is enforceable under the law. If there is no such prohibition, then a tenant may sublease or designate their lease to another. In such cases, however, the occupant will remain responsible to the property manager unless the property manager releases the original renter. A breach of the sublease will not change the preliminary relationship in between the landlord and tenant.

Breach by Landlord, Tenant Remedies

If the landlord has breached the lease by stopping working to meet their tasks under the lease, specific solutions occur in favor of the tenant:

- The tenant may sue the property owner for damages sustained as a result of the breach.
- If a property owner fails to maintain a leased residence in a habitable condition, the occupant might have the ability to leave the premises and end the lease under the theory of "constructive expulsion."
- The failure of a property manager to keep a leased house in a livable condition or comply significantly with regional housing codes might be a breach of the property owner's "suggested guarantee of habitability" (independent of any written lease provisions or oral pledges), which the tenant may assert as a defense to an eviction based upon the non-payment of lease or a claim for reduction in the rental worth of the properties. However, breach by property owner does not immediately entitle an occupant to keep lease or a reduction in the rental worth. The commitment to pay lease continues as long as the tenant stays in the leased premises and to assert this defense successfully, the tenant will have to show that their damages arising from proprietor's breach of this "implied warranty" equal or surpass the rent declared due.

A property manager's breach and tenant's damages may be hard to prove. Because of the restricted and technical nature of these guidelines, tenants need to be exceptionally cautious in keeping rent and ought to probably do so only after seeking advice from a lawyer.

Please note that certain municipalities or counties attend to certain responsibilities and requirements that the property manager should carry out. If a proprietor fails to abide by such commitments or requirements, the renter may have additional solutions for such failure. You should speak with a lawyer or your town or county.

Breach by the Tenant, Landlord Remedies

In addition to termination for specific breaches by tenant, a property manager also has the following remedies:

If rent is not paid, the property manager might: (1) demand the rent due or to become due in the future and (2) terminate the lease and collect any past lease due. Under particular scenarios in the occasion of non-payment of rent the property manager might hold the furniture and personal residential or commercial property of the occupant up until past rent is paid by the occupant.

If a tenant fails to leave the leased facility at the end of the lease term, the tenant may end up being accountable for double lease for the period of holdover if the holdover is deemed to be willful. The renter can likewise be evicted.

If the renter harms the facilities, the proprietor might sue for the repair work of such damages.

Please note that certain towns or counties supply for particular obligations and requirements that the renter should satisfy. If a renter fails to comply with such obligations or requirements, the proprietor may have additional remedies for such failure. You must seek advice from a lawyer or your town or county.

Discrimination

Under the federal Fair Housing Act and Illinois law, it is illegal for a property owner to discriminate in the leasing of a residence house, flat, or house against prospective occupants who have children under the age of 14. It is also unlawful for a property manager to discriminate versus an occupant on the basis of race, religion, sex, nationwide origin, income source, sexual origination, gender identity, or impairment.

Security Deposits, Move-in Fee

Security Deposit. An occupant can be needed to deposit with the landlord a sum of money prior to occupying the residential or commercial property. This is generally described as a down payment. This money is considered to be security for any damage to the properties or non-payment of rent. The security deposit does not relieve the occupant of the duty to pay the last month's rent or for damage triggered to the properties. It should be returned to the tenant upon abandoning the premises if no damage has actually been done beyond typical wear and tear and the rent is totally paid.

If a property manager fails to return the security deposit quickly, the tenant can take legal action against to recuperate the part of the down payment to which the occupant is entitled. In some towns or counties and specific situations under state law, when a landlord wrongfully withholds an occupant's security deposit the renter may have the ability to recover additional damages and attorneys' costs. You need to seek advice from with a lawyer.

Generally, a proprietor who gets a down payment may not withhold any part of that deposit as settlement for residential or commercial property damage unless he furnishes to the occupant, within 1 month of the date the tenant vacates, a statement of damage apparently brought on by the renter and the approximated or real expense of fixing or replacing each item on that declaration. If no such declaration is provided within one month, the property manager should return the security deposit in full within 45 days of the date the tenant abandoned.

If a structure includes 25 or more domestic units, the landlord needs to 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 municipalities or counties may enforce extra commitments. For example, Cook County, Evanston, Chicago, and Oak Park all have additional requirements that a property manager must adhere to when taking security deposits and supply high penalties when a property owner fails to comply.

Move-in Fee. In addition to or as an option to a down payment, a proprietor may charge a move-in charge. Generally, there are no particular restrictions on the quantity of a move-in fee, nevertheless, specific towns or counties do supply constraints. TIP: A move-in fee ought to be nonrefundable, otherwise it could be considered to be a security deposit.

Landlord and occupant matters can end up being complex. Both proprietor and occupant need to speak with a lawyer for support with particular problems. To find out more about your rights and responsibilities as an occupant, including specific landlord-tenant laws in your municipality or county, call your regional bar association, or visit 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

Prepared by the Illinois State Bar Association's Real Estate Law Section (2024 )

This handout is ready and released by the Illinois State Bar Association as a civil service. Every effort has actually been made to offer precise info at the time of publication.