Electricians & Code Violations

[Nico Howard]

Hey All,

Hope you're all doing well.

In a few words, here's my story. I recently purchased a three-flat on the near west side of Chicago. Our inspection uncovered that the smoke detectors were battery powered. After taking a spin through the housing code, here is what I found: 1) houses built after 1987 have to be hardwired; and 2) houses built after 2011 have to be hardwired, and have a battery backup. My house was built in 1998, so it does look like we are in contravention of the code.

To make matters worse, we are getting ready to renew one of the tenants next month. From what I understand, best practice in Chicago (which has an extremely pro-tenant system of laws) is to have the tenant sign an acknowledgement saying that the Lessor has disclosed any code violations. Accordingly, it's my understanding that we'd have to tell the tenant about the smoke alarms. Now, I don't think they would care. However, if anything ever happened involving a fire, and there was property damage or injury, we would be on the written record stating that we were aware of a problem, and chose to do nothing about it. So, it seems to me that most logical thing to do in this position is to bite the bullet and pay to have the work done right.

This leads me to the purpose of this post. I would love to get some feedback from more experienced landlords. Specifically, I would like to know: 1) is my assessment of the code accurate; 2) should I replace and hardwire the smoke alarms; 3) am I required to disclose code violations to the renewing (or existing) tenants; and 4) can you recommend someone to do the work? Even if you can't point to a  specific person, it would be helpful to know who may be qualified to do the work (electrician versus handyman).

Thanks, and I look forward to speaking with you guys.

Best,

Nico