chicago and cook county Tenant Landlord Lawyer
A. The following arrangements are not governed by this Article:
1. Transient occupancy in a hotel or motel;
2. Residence at a public or private medical, extended care facility, geriatric facility, convent, monastery, religious institution, temporary overnight shelter, transitional shelter, educational dormitory, or in a structure operated for the benefit of a social or fraternal organization;
3. Occupancy under a contract sale of a dwelling unit if the occupant is the purchaser;
4. Occupancy in a cooperative apartment by a shareholder of the cooperative;
5. Occupancy by an employee of a landlord whose occupancy is conditional upon employment in or about the premises;
6. Residential buildings in which occupancy is limited to six (6) units or less and which are owner occupied;
7. A residential unit that is a single-family home, including a single condominium unit, provided that:
a. This is the only residential unit leased by the owner,
b. The owner or immediate family member has actually resided at the property for at least one (1) month in the 12 months prior to marketing the property,
c. The owner (not a management company) personally manages the unit, and d. The owner is not a corporation;
8. Dwelling units in hotels, motels, inns, bed-and-breakfast establishments, rooming houses, and boardinghouses, but only until such time as the dwelling unit has been occupied by a tenant for 32 or more continuous days and tenant pays a monthly rent, exclusive of any period of wrongful occupancy contrary to agreement with an owner. No landlord shall bring an action to recover possession of such unit, or avoid renting periodically, in order to avoid the application of this Article. Any willful attempt to avoid application of this Article by an owner may be punishable by criminal or civil actions.
B. If a residence is excluded from coverage by these exclusions, the owner shall make this exclusion known to prospective tenants in marketing materials and shall prominently state the exclusion on any application materials before the owner accepts any application fees, credit check fees, or holding fees.
C. The anti-lockout prohibition contained in section 42-813 applies to all dwelling units in Cook County that are otherwise excluded by paragraphs 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8 of this section. [And this provision took effect February, 2021]
D. A landlord shall not create a rental agreement in the form of an excluded agreement to avoid the application of this Article
“Owner occupied” is now defined by the Cook County RTLO in 42-802(6).
For this exclusion to apply, the owner or immediate family has to have lived at the unit at least one (1) month in the 12 months prior to marketing the unit. Unless the Landlord moves back in after each tenancy, every tenancy after the first will be subject to the RTLO.
Under RTLO Section 42-802(B), even if a Landlord is not covered by Cook County Residential Tenant and Landlord Ordinance, the RTLO still imposes on them – and requires them to disclose in marketing materials – that the prospective tenants are not covered by this RTLO.
