All Forum Posts by: Julie George

Hi all - I've been using the standard Chicago Realtors Association lease for years and noticed they added a new section in 2023 to the bottom of the first page that now says you need to be a member of CAR or that the transaction must be facilitated by a CAR member. I'm neither and I'm sure most private landlords are neither as well. Is anyone familiar with this new clause ? Will the lease be "invalid" if we continue to use it ? Thank you!

For reference, here is the attachment I found that someone shared on a FB group. 

https://www.facebook.com/group...

 I've been a landlord in Chicago using the standard leases for the years, and it looks like the one you shared is what DOMU puts together. It probably has majority of what is required, but I'd personally rather be safe and use the one that has the Chicago Association of Realtors logo on it. Unfortunately, it's kind of a pain to download and find on the internet. The easy solution would be for one person who has access to it to simply attach it here, rather than individually emailing.

Hi all

I own a property in Chicago w/ tenants currently living there. There was a piece of mail that was delivered to the unit addressed to me from MyHomeRefund . See attached picture that my tenant sent me.  The cover says it's Re: a Property Tax Refund of $1356.    First of all, I am out of state and will require a bit of coordination to get this mail, (which is totally fine) but before I go through this hassle, I am wondering if this is a scam or if anyone has had experience with receiving a similar mail? It looks like this is a business that identifies if property owners have overpaid on taxes and then helps you recover it. Their fee based on the website is 33%.   

Hi all, 

Wondering if you can provide some input into my situation.I had new tenants who moved in on 06/15/22. The unit is 3 bedroom in a college town, so the tenants are 3 college-aged girls. 

Only 1 of the tenants moved in as the other 2 are away for the summer.I was not physically present to coordinate exchange of keys w/ the 1 tenant so I left all 3 sets of keys in a lockbox in front of the building gate. Apparently, the girl only took 1 of the keys and left the lockbox w/ the remaining 2 keys on the gate .

One week later, I followed up w/ her to make sure she had grabbed the physical lockbox from the gate , and apparently, she did not ...so she went back to check and the lockbox is gone! 

So now the 2 extra keys are missing. I have already checked with the HOA and they confirmed they did not have the lockbox cut. So now my tenant is concerned from a safety standpoint about these missing keys, which I don't disagree with!

The unit is in a. building so there are multiple gates, doors, etc that all require keys.I will have the locks changed but , wondering if I Should I charge her for the locks to be replaced ?

thank you~

Hi there,

I am a landlord in Chicago and working to send a new lease out to tenants. I have a few questions:

1. I have set up an LLC for the first time, and I am wondering how I go about signing the lease as the landlord? Do I still type my personal name and sign w/ my personal signature or do I reference something along the lines of "Julie george d/b/a LLC name" ? I assume the latter but just want to confirm the mechanics of actually listing the LLC name.

2. There is a Heating Cost Disclosure segment of the standard Chicago lease ad it's asking about a heating cost disclosure.  I am not local to Chicago . Does anyone know what this expected amount is to put in this line ?  Screenshot below for reference

Hi all!I would like to get some advice regarding landlord/tenant responsibilities. Maybe some of you can shed some light on my situation. Thanks in advance!

I am a landlord in Chicago and own an apartment unit in the basement floor of a 3 story building. A few nights ago, there was some crazy flash flooding that occurred in the city causing the sewages to be backed up and flooding in basements of several neighborhoods. There are two basement apartment units in the building , including mine, both of which became flooded that night.

Since then, the water has all been cleaned up and the unit is certainly livable. I am currently in the process of filing a claim with my insurance company to get the water damages assessed and repaired. During the night of the flooding, my tenant had mentioned to me that she slipped in the water and hurt her knee. No other details were provided regarding the injury. She asked today about my insurance policy and name of my agent so that she can file a claim as well due to the injury. She has been a very gracious tenant and I've really enjoyed having her in my unit and I am choosing to believe that she isn't just trying to gouge me here so I would like to help her in a reasonable manner . Some other details are also that her lease is expiring at the end of this October month and was planning on moving out then.

In my homeowners insurance policy, I do have "Medical payments to others - each person $2500" listed as being covered. I would like to go about filing a claim with my insurance for my tenant's injuries but wondering if there's anything I should know in advance ? I've done some research of my own and don’t believe I would be personally or legally be bound to her injuries as I don’t think there was negligence on my part with this situation, but it does appear that my policy can cover this situation. I have had some experiences in the past where I have tried to leverage my own homeowners insurance policy to file a claim (non-medical) for my neighbor's home due to an incident and my insurance company shot it down due to varying fine print in my policy that they pointed out. Before I try filing a medical claim, any advice from any out there or other things to look into? Thank you!

Hi there,

I am a landlord in Chicago. I own a unit on the 3rd floor of an apartment building that I currently have tenants living in. Last month, I had a leak in the refrigerator water supply line that caused some water damage to the walls/baseboards of my unit. In addition, the water supply line leak also leaked into my neighbors unit (directly below) as well and caused some damage to their cabinets and ceiling. I filed an insurance claim with my own insurance company which included a 1st party claim for the water damages to my own unit, as well as a Liability claim for the damages to my neighbors unit. After several weeks of investigation and adjustors coming out to both units, we received a letter from my insurance company stating they are denying the claim for my neighbors unit, due to the fact that they found no negligence on my behalf (water supply line leak was accidental and corrective action was taken immediately upon notice), and that after careful review of the Condo Association Bylaws, they found language in the Bylaws that requires all insurance carriers to waive their right of subrogation against the association or any unit owner. It was suggested in this letter from my insurance company that my neighbors should file a claim with their own insurance company. A similar letter informing of the claim denial was also provided to my neighbors.

Today, I received a note from my neighbors confirming they received the above mentioned letter and that they will not be filing a claim with their own insurance company and would like to have the Maintenance dept of the Condo Association perform the work to repair the damages and bill me directly.

I would like to resolve this situation in the most respectful way possible and avoid any confrontational or hostile-like situations from arising! I would like to respond by kindly requesting my neighbors to file the claim with their own insurance company (after all, what is the purpose of insurance???) and that I would be happy to write them a check for their deductible amount that they may have to pay.

Would you all agree with my course of action? Any additional insight or advice regarding this? I would like to move forward with a solution that makes sense for both parties, but I also don't want to create any kind of tension with my neighbors.

thanks

Julie

Hello everyone,

I am a fairly new landlord in the state of Illinois. I own a single unit within a building of about 43 or so units that is managed by an HOA. I experienced my first tenant swap this month, and needless to say, I picked up many "learning lessons" during this time. I had my new tenants complete a property condition form, and after detailed review, asked me to fix a couple items. In my opinion, most of the issues they requested were cosmetic in nature and I do not think I am necessarily legally responsible for them. However, I plan to take care of most of them anyway for the sake of tenant-landlord goodwill, and the fact that they are mostly one time fixes that if I take care of will improve the quality of my unit. The one request from them that I am wrestling with is in regards to window screens.

There are a few windows missing screens, and the tenants are asking to have screens replaced so they could open the windows.  I have personally rented and lived in buildings that did not have screens and never thought to ask my landlord to replace them. I could not find any legal language that requires window screens, in particular, as the responsibility of the landlord. 

Since this unit is also part of an HOA, should I be involving my HOA as well on this topic? Can anyone weigh in on this subject?

@Dorothy Wulf That's exactly what I did today! Thank you!

Thanks everyone for your input! I have asked the HOA manager for some relief via email anyway. I figured it was worth asking...If you never ask, the answer will always be no! But I have tapered my expectations on their response. Unfortunately, none of the storage unit info was provided in the legal docs, including the 22.1. I even had my realtor help with this issue immediately after the sale but to no avail. I will look into asking the previous owner if we don't have a resolution soon.

Thanks for everyone's input again!! As a new landlord, I have alot to learn and greatly appreciate all the sound advice and feedback from the BP community.