Rent Increase Provisions for 2020?

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New Residential Lease Concepts?

As 2020 begins, Illinois landlords are finding a business landscape that is not hospitable.  There are new regulations (Just Housing Amendment) and threats of new regulations (just cause for eviction and rent control).  They are facing a looming triennial reasessment by Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi who is clearly targeting multi-unit residential properties.  They face higher taxes, higher fees, and higher utility charges.  What’s to be done?

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What’s New in the 2020 Chicago Association of Realtors Lease?

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New Lease Form Released

Late last week, the City of Chicago finally released its separate summary of security deposit interest rates for the new year.  Once the summary was made available, the Chicago Association of Realtors (CAR) could finally go live with the 2020 version of their residential Chicago lease for properties governed by the Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance.  Based on my own experience, the CAR form seems to be the most widely used lease in the City of Chicago.  In fact, when I draft leases for my clients, I use the CAR form as the base lease and then add a rider that goes a bit deeper than the main form.  It’s my favorite starting point for Chicago leases.  While the content of the form has not changed too much this year, there are some new changes in formatting that make the lease easier and smarter to use.  Let’s take a look at those:

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IDFPR releases Illinois Security Deposit Interest Rate for 2020

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Better Late Than Never

Well, I guess January 6, 2020 is as good a day as any for the IDFPR to finally announce the Security Deposit Interest rate for security deposits governed by the Illinois Security Deposit Interest Act.  That law applies to lessors “of residential real property, containing 25 or more units in either a single building or a complex of buildings located on contiguous parcels of real property”. 

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Chicago releases separate interest rate summary

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Compliance with 5-12-170 of the CRLTO

On December 31, 2019, the City of Chicago released the new interest rate for 2020 security deposits for those rental agreements governed by the Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance but it was not until today that they released the separate summary that must be attached to a lease to be in compliance with 5-12-170 of the ordinance. 

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Cook County Just Housing Ordinance Goes Live 1/1/2020

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Are you ready for this?

I have discussed, at length, on this page, the criminal background check rules contained in the Cook County Just Housing Amendment to the Cook County Human Rights Ordinance and why they are flawed and fairly ridiculous.  Cook County has passed their final set of rules and they will go into effect at midnight on December 31, 2019.  That means that landlords throughout Cook County need to be aware of and in compliance with these rules beginning then if they want to do a criminal background check.

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City of Chicago holds line on 2020 Security Deposit Interest Rate to no one’s surprise

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The Comptroller of the City of Chicago has released the rate for leases entered into from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020 that are governed by the Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance.  For those rental agreements, the rate to comply with the requirements of Section 5-12-080 of the CRLTO

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Enforcement of Just Housing Ordinance Delayed

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Cook County Delays JHO Rules As the January 1, 2020 deadline for implementation of the new law looms, the Cook County Human Rights Commission remains unprepared to handle the questions or to provide the resources necessary regarding the new rules adopted to enforce the Just Housing Amendment (JHO) to the Cook County Housing Ordinance.  In … Read more

2019-2020 Cook County Eviction Stoppage

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Cook County Court Halts Evictions

On November 25, 2019, Circuit Court of Cook County Judge E. Kennth Wrights, Jr. issued the expected General Order 2019-01 which sets out the annual eviction moratorium for the enforcement of Cook County eviction orders for December 2019 and January 2020.  As usual, the order applies to residential (not commercial) eviction in Cook County.

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Cook County Issues Yet Another Set of Just Housing Rules

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Cook County Landlord Rules for Criminal Background Checks

The Cook County Board of Commissioners released a new set of rules on October 23, 2019 to implement the Just Housing Amendment to the Cook County Housing Ordinance.  This set of rules is basically a rejection of a number of landlord suggested modifications.  The County went with a pro-tenant version.  Distilled down to its essence, under the Just Housing Amendment, a landlord cannot run a criminal background check until after following a number of procedural steps. 

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