All Forum Posts by: Stewart McMillan

@Ronan M. Utilities were included with rent. Another lesson learned. 

@Andreas W.  @Account Closed, I took your advice and got in touch with an attorney. He said tenants did make procedural errors, but recommended I counter offer and avoid paying him to drag the situation out any further.

I countered at $2k and tenants have to move out on May 31st. Keep in mind renters haven't paid rent in May. Let's see what happens.

Any advice for how to make sure tenants don't try anything on the 31st should everything work out and a settlement is reached? I'm worried I show up on the 31st and they just decide to squat and let the eviction process play out. 

Hey Dmitry, yes, checked all of those boxes. No court records, and called their previous landlord. I've wondered if they're professional tenants, but they've made a few procedural errors over the past few weeks which might save me. After seeing everyone's comments, I'm not optimistic I'll be able to avoid the 2x security deposit shakedown, but just going to play this one by the books, work through an attorney, and treat it as a lesson learned the hard way.

I recently had an issue with the power going out in a Chicago unit of mine. ComEd turned the power off due to non-payment(though ComEd never warned me or tenants which they are required to do by Illinois law), but I had the power back on well within 72 hours (business hours) which is the time limit Chicago gives landlords before tenants can terminate the lease.

After about 24 hours my tenants sent me a notice of intent to vacate 4 months before the end of their lease term, which would be allowed if 72 hours had elapsed, but they hadn't. 

So for some reason they use the power outage to justify not paying rent for the entire month of May. They're now two weeks overdue, and now they've hired one of those Security Deposit chasing attorneys to go after their deposit and the penalty for when landlords don't hold it in a separate account. I've never held it in a separate account because I've always had good relationships with my tenants and wasn't aware of that requirement until recently.

Even worse, now the tenants are saying that they can't move out at the end of the month(like they said they were going to in their Notice of Intent to Vacate) because they can't afford to because of the financial hardship related to the power outage. What?!? They didn't even leave the unit, they had heat, and some of their groceries went bad. I explicitly stated multiple times in emails that I would reimburse them $100/night for the outage plus $150 for groceries, but I would only reimburse them AFTER they paid rent. 

Can a tenant sue for 2x their deposit when they are in clear violation of their lease? I've done everything that I'm obligated to in the city of Chicago and more. The power outage was a screw up on my part but I've been very forthright with my tenants and have offered to pay for damages. 

Does anybody have any advice for how to get these people out of my unit? I've read the horror stories about the Chicago eviction process.

Thanks for any help!

So I made a huge mistake with my ComEd bill and the power was shut off on my tenants.

I tried my best to restore power after the tenants notified me on a Friday morning, but it was an exceptionally busy and important work day for me, hold times were forever with ComEd, and long story short I played phone tag with ComEd all day but was unable to connect with them to turn the power back on. 

The next day, my tenants send me a notice of intent to vacate. They can't do that, but we'll set that aside for now. Eventually on Monday, ComEd finally turns the power back on (they wouldn't set up an account over the weekend). Throughout the ordeal I apologized repeatedly and let my tenants know I would reimburse them for any damages, hotel, food gone bad, etc.

But then things just go completely sideways. Even though the power is back on these tenants are just going berserk and they're making stuff up saying I owe them money because of X and I need to reimburse them for Y. I let them know if they want to move out I am willing to let them do that, but they need to continue paying rent until they move out and they can't use their security deposit for rent.

I could go in so many directions with this post because it's just been a non-stop barrage of irrationalities from my tenants, but I'll limit myself to one simple question that Google hasn't been able to answer:

Do the 72 hours that landlords have to resolve issues related to essential services like water, heat, etc. include weekends? Does the clock stop ticking Friday night and resume on Monday morning?

If so then this slow simmering misery and self-hatred I've been feeling the past 2 weeks dealing with these tenants might just transmogrify into landlord rage the likes of which Chicago's South Loop has never seen.

I'm speaking with an attorney tomorrow, but I just had to vent, and thought the answer might help a few other Chicago people out in the future. Thanks for any help!