These days, I am finding more and more work related to the Chicago Residential Landlord Tenant Ordinance (CRLTO) from landlords who have run afoul of the provisions of the Ordinance without knowing that the ordinance exists!
Nearly all of these landlords have called me for reasons not related to their own issues with the ordinance. Instead, these issues are discovered during the course of discussions about tenant evictions, lease reviews or other "bad tenant" related issues and worse yet, when the issue comes up in regard to a real estate transaction!
Most of the folks I speak with are disappointed (and sometimes disbelieving) when I begin to explain the ordinance requirements and the penalties for failure to comply to them. The CRLTO governs most residential real estate tenancies in the City of Chicago (there are a few exceptions to the ordinance, but nearly all landlords must abide by the provisions). The ordinance supercedes any common law of Illinois and any terms of a lease or other agreement between the parties. The CRLTO governs all sorts of issues related to the landlord tenant relationship, from the proper care and feeding of security deposits to invalid, illegal or unenforceable lease terms all the way to the obligation of the landlord to make himself or herself known to a tenant. The penalties for violation of the CRLTO are severe.
After I inform a client of the serious repercussions of violating the CRLTO and, usually, a moment of silence and disbelief, the landlord asks me if I am serious. Unfortunately, I am. The CRLTO exists, it is real, it is slanted in favor of the tenant and Landlords need to comply with it. This has been confirmed time and again by the appellate courts and the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois.
While I don't want to discuss the merits of the CRLTO here, I do think that attorneys need to do a better job informing clients of the obligations under the CRLTO and landlords need to do a better job complying.
I will be writing in this blog regularly about the ordinance, its penalties and how landlords can better comply. I will also lobby herein for some reasonable amendments necessary to make the ordinance more "workable".
4 comments:
The best thing any landlord can do is to talk to the local Alderman. The City of Chicago knows the impact of this law and is aware of how things stand. There are very reasonable modification to the law that could benefit both landlords and tenants.
I have a tenant that is using his lack of a receipt of a copy of the ordinance as an excuse to abandon a lease with almost the full 2 year term remaining. A lawyer is also advising me that is law. It seems incredible to me that lack of receipt of a copy of the ordinance supercedes every other law and common sense. Is this true?
Great work.
The CRLTO is very clear that a tenant in a tenancy covered by the ordinance has a right to terminate the lease if they do not receive a copy of the summary and follow the required procedures to terminate.
Unfortunately, the CRLTO can seem strict and draconian, however, it is the law. There are only two things to do in response: (1) comply with the law; and (2) contact your Alderman to see if you can get the law revised.
By the way, we offer services in drafting leases that comply with the CRLTO. Visit us at http://securitydepositrecovery.com/landlords.html
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