Chicago Landlord Attorney: RLTO Defense, Evictions & Everything the Ordinance Requires

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Chicago Landlord RLTO Quick Reference

These are the numbers you will need to know. I have organized them in two tables so you can look them up without reading the entire ordinance. Bookmark this page.

Notice Periods

Security Deposit and Access Deadlines

Security Deposits Under the RLTO

The security deposit provisions of the RLTO sit at Section 5-12-080, and they are where most Chicago landlords get into trouble. Not because the rules are complicated, but because there are several of them and missing any single one creates liability that stacks. I get frustrated when a landlord calls me about a deposit dispute and I find out they never gave the receipt or the summary, because the rules are clearly written and they have absolutely no exceptions. I have seen a landlord mishandle $20 and end up owing a thousand dollars.

The Receipt

When you collect a security deposit, you must give the tenant a written receipt. Chicago Municipal Code 5-12-080(b). The receipt must include the amount of the deposit, the name and address of the financial institution where the deposit is held, and the rate of interest. If you do not provide this receipt, the tenant is entitled to the immediate return of the entire deposit. Not a partial return. The full amount.

I handle cases where the landlord collected the deposit, held it properly, and then lost in court because they could not produce the receipt. The tenant's attorney does not care that the money was sitting in a bank. The statute requires a receipt. If you do not have one, you owe the money back.

The RLTO Summary

Every Chicago landlord must provide the tenant with the RLTO Summary of Tenant Rights at the time the lease is signed. This is a city-published document that summarizes the tenant's rights under the ordinance. If you fail to provide it, you owe the tenant two months' rent plus $100 in statutory damages. Chicago Municipal Code 5-12-170.

This is one of the most commonly missed requirements. A landlord who forgets this form on a $1,000/month apartment owes $2,100 before anyone even discusses the security deposit. On a $2,000/month apartment, that number is $4,100. I see this violation in almost every tenant counterclaim I defend against.

Interest on Deposits

Security deposits must be held in a federally insured interest-bearing account within the State of Illinois. You must pay the accrued interest to the tenant within 30 days after the end of each 12-month rental period. The interest rate is set annually by the city comptroller and has historically been low, but the penalty for missing it is not. If you fail to pay the interest on time, the tenant is entitled to $100 plus the full unpaid interest amount.

Returning the Deposit

You have 30 days after the tenant vacates to either return the full deposit or provide an itemized statement of deductions. The itemization must be specific. "Cleaning" or "damages" is not sufficient. "Carpet cleaning due to pet stains in the master bedroom, $200; repair of hole in hallway drywall, $150; replacement of damaged window blinds in the living room, $75" is what the court wants to see. If you fail to provide the itemized statement within 30 days, you forfeit the right to withhold any portion and must return the full deposit.

If a court finds that you withheld the deposit in bad faith, you owe twice the deposit plus interest plus the tenant's attorney's fees and court costs.

What a Violation Actually Costs

Here is what this looks like in practice. I sent a demand letter on behalf of a tenant whose landlord collected a $1,492 security deposit and then withheld the entire amount, claiming smoking damage. The landlord had never provided a security deposit receipt. The landlord never gave the tenant the RLTO summary. The landlord's itemization was a single line that said "smoking damages" without specifying a single repair or amount.

I tell this story because it is not unusual. I see this pattern regularly. The landlord thinks they are in the right because the tenant damaged the unit. Maybe they did. But the RLTO does not care about your equitable position if you did not follow the procedural rules. The forms exist. Use them.

Notice Requirements and Proper Service

The notice is the foundation of every eviction case. If the notice is wrong, the case gets dismissed. If the service is wrong, the case gets dismissed. I have seen more eviction cases die at the notice stage than at trial.

Types of Notices

5-Day Notice (Nonpayment). The tenant has five days to pay or you can file suit. 735 ILCS 5/9-209. The notice must state the exact amount of rent owed. It cannot include late fees, utility charges, or future rent. If it does, the notice is defective and the entire case built on it falls apart.

10-Day Notice (Lease Violation). The tenant has ten days to cure the violation. 735 ILCS 5/9-210. This covers everything from unauthorized occupants to excessive noise to keeping animals in a no-pet unit (with the exception of valid assistance animals, which I cover below). If the violation is incurable, you serve a 10-day notice to quit rather than a 10-day notice to cure.

30-Day Notice (Termination). For month-to-month tenancies where the tenant has lived in the unit for less than six months. 735 ILCS 5/9-207. In Chicago, this is only available for tenancies under six months. Longer tenancies require the Fair Notice periods.

60-Day and 120-Day Notices (Fair Notice). Chicago's Fair Notice Ordinance requires 60 days for tenancies of six months to three years, and 120 days for tenancies of three years or more. This applies to both termination of tenancy and rent increases. I cover this in detail below.

How to Serve a Notice in Chicago

This is where cases get thrown out. Illinois law at 735 ILCS 5/9-104 specifies exactly four methods of serving a demand for possession:

1. Personal service. Hand it directly to the tenant. This is the most reliable method and the one I always recommend.

2. Substitute service. Give it to another household member who is at least 13 years old, and then mail a copy to the tenant at the premises address.

3. Certified mail. Send it by certified mail with return receipt requested.

4. Posting. Affix the notice to the front door of the premises. This method is valid only if nobody is in actual possession of the property. If anyone is living there, posting does not count.

That fourth option is the trap door. Landlords and process servers default to posting because it is the easiest. But if your tenant is living in the unit, posting is not valid service. This has been the law in Illinois since 1873. Nixon v. Noble, 70 Ill. 32 (1873). For over 150 years, Illinois courts have consistently held that service of process must be proven in the manner required under statute. Hinterberger v. Weindler, 2 Ill.App. 407 (1879).

When Service Goes Wrong

I got an eviction case dismissed because the landlord's process server posted a five-day notice on the front door while the tenant was living in the unit. The server made five attempts over a single week, all in the afternoon, and then posted. The tenant worked a day shift and was never home during those hours. Not one attempt was made in the morning or evening.

The case was dismissed. The court found that the landlord failed to satisfy its conditions precedent to filing suit. 735 ILCS 5/9-104 does not have a "good faith effort" exception. You either served properly or you did not. The landlord had to start the entire eviction process over from scratch, losing months and paying a second round of filing fees.

Illinois Supreme Court Rule 139 requires that every eviction complaint attach the demand, an affidavit of service, and a copy of the lease. If you do not attach these documents or file an affidavit explaining why they are unavailable, the complaint is deficient on its face. These are not technicalities. They are jurisdictional requirements.

If you are handling your own eviction and you are not certain that your notice was served correctly, do not file the lawsuit. Call an eviction attorney and let them review the service before you spend the filing fee.

The Fair Notice Ordinance

Chicago's Fair Notice Ordinance extends the notice periods for long-term tenants beyond what state law requires. If your tenant has lived in the unit for six months or more, the standard 30-day notice is not enough.

6 months to 3 years: You must give 60 days' written notice to terminate the tenancy or to increase rent.

3 years or more: You must give 120 days' written notice to terminate the tenancy or to increase rent.

This is a Chicago-specific requirement. Suburban Cook County, DuPage, Kane, and the other collar counties do not follow the Fair Notice Ordinance. If your property is outside Chicago city limits, the standard 30-day notice under 735 ILCS 5/9-207 applies regardless of tenancy length.

The mistake I see most often: a landlord sends a 30-day notice to raise rent on a tenant who has been in the unit for four years. The notice is invalid. The tenant ignores it. The landlord tries to evict for nonpayment of the higher rent. The eviction gets dismissed because the underlying notice was deficient. Four months wasted because the landlord did not count to 120.

The notice must be in writing. It must state the new rent amount and the effective date. A verbal conversation is not sufficient. A text message is not sufficient. Send a written notice by personal service or certified mail, keep a copy, and count your days.

Landlord Access: The 48-Hour Rule

You may enter the tenant's unit for repairs, inspections, agreed-upon services, and to show the unit to prospective tenants or buyers. But you must provide at least 48 hours' written notice before entry. Chicago Municipal Code 5-12-050. The entry must be at a reasonable time, which the courts generally interpret as normal business hours.

Emergency exceptions exist. If there is a fire, a burst pipe, a gas leak, or another emergency that threatens the unit or the building, you can enter without notice. But "I want to check on the property" is not an emergency. "The tenant has not responded to my texts" is not an emergency. "I think they have a pet" is not an emergency.

If you enter without proper notice or at an unreasonable time, the tenant has a cause of action for an RLTO access violation. The typical statutory penalty is two months' rent plus attorney's fees. On a $1,500/month apartment, one unauthorized entry costs you $3,000 before the lawyer gets paid.

Give the notice. Put it in writing. Wait the 48 hours. It is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy.

Service Animals and Emotional Support Animals

A no-pets clause in your lease does not override federal law. Under the Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. 3604), tenants with disabilities are entitled to reasonable accommodations, and an emotional support animal is a recognized reasonable accommodation. FHEO Notice 2020-01 is the controlling HUD guidance, and it draws a hard line: assistance animals are not pets.

What You Cannot Do

You cannot refuse a valid emotional support animal request. You cannot charge a pet deposit, a pet fee, or monthly pet rent for the animal. You cannot require that the animal be a specific breed, size, or weight. You cannot require professional training or certification beyond a letter from a licensed healthcare provider establishing the disability-related need. And you cannot use a no-pets clause as the basis for eviction when the animal qualifies as an ESA.

What You Can Do

You can request documentation. A letter from the tenant's licensed healthcare provider (physician, psychiatrist, therapist, licensed clinical social worker) establishing that the tenant has a disability-related need for the animal. You can hold the tenant liable for any damage the animal causes, deducted from the security deposit or pursued as a separate damage claim. And if the animal poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others that cannot be reduced or eliminated by a reasonable accommodation, you can deny the request on that specific basis.

How This Plays Out in Practice

I handled a case where a property management company sent a ten-day notice to cure because they spotted dogs in a unit with a no-pets lease. The dogs belonged to the tenant's disabled mother, who was visiting her son. Both animals had been certified as emotional support animals for five years, with current physician documentation. The lease said no pets. That was irrelevant. Under FHEO-2020-01, assistance animals are not pets.

The ten-day notice was not actionable on any theory, and if the property manager had filed for eviction, they would have exposed themselves to a Fair Housing Act complaint under 42 U.S.C. 3617 with damages that would have made the pet deposit look like a rounding error.

The practical advice: if a tenant tells you they have a service animal or an emotional support animal, ask for the documentation and move on. Trying to enforce a no-pets clause against a valid ESA is a fight you will lose, and the potential downside is severe. The better road is to accept your good tenant who pays rent on time for being a good tenant who pays rent on time.

If you need your lease updated to include a proper accommodation request procedure, we handle that as part of our lease drafting service.

Rent Increases in Chicago

Chicago does not have rent control. You can raise rent to any amount you choose. But the notice requirements are strict, and they scale with the length of the tenancy.

Under 6 months: 30 days' written notice.
6 months to 3 years: 60 days' written notice.
3 years or more: 120 days' written notice.

The notice must state the new rent amount, the effective date, and must be delivered by personal service, substitute service, or certified mail. If the tenant does not agree to the increase, you must follow the full termination notice period before you can file for eviction. You cannot raise the rent on a 30-day notice and then immediately file when the tenant pays the old amount on a tenancy of two years.

I also remind my landlord clients that source of income is now a protected class in Illinois. Since January 1, 2023, under 775 ILCS 5/3-102, you cannot discriminate against tenants who pay with housing choice vouchers (Section 8), SSI, SSDI, child support, alimony, or any other lawful source of income. You cannot advertise "No Section 8." You cannot screen out applicants based on income type. You evaluate the tenant's ability to pay their portion of rent using the same criteria you apply to everyone.

Emergency Evictions for Drug Activity

Illinois allows expedited eviction proceedings when a tenant is engaged in drug-related criminal activity on the premises. Under 740 ILCS 40/11, a landlord may seek an order of eviction on an expedited basis when there is drug activity that threatens the health, safety, or right to peaceful enjoyment of the premises by other tenants or neighbors.

What qualifies: Manufacture, sale, or distribution of controlled substances on the premises. Evidence of dealing activity (traffic patterns, packaging materials, large quantities of cash and narcotics) makes the case. Personal use alone, without evidence of distribution, is a harder case to bring on the expedited track.

What the expedited timeline looks like: A five-day notice under the Drug and Allied Products Act, followed by an expedited court date. This compresses the normal eviction timeline from months to weeks, depending on the court's calendar.

Crime-Free Lease Addenda: Proceed With Caution

Crime-free lease addenda have been a popular tool, and I include them in leases I draft when appropriate. But they are under increasing legal scrutiny. The Department of Justice issued guidance in 2024 flagging the disparate impact of broadly written crime-free addenda on racial minorities, women, and people with disabilities.

If your crime-free addendum sweeps in every criminal violation regardless of severity, you have a potential Fair Housing problem. A parking ticket is not grounds for eviction. A noise ordinance citation is not grounds for eviction. An arrest without a conviction is not grounds for eviction. The addendum should be narrow: drug manufacturing and distribution, weapons offenses, and violent crime that threatens the safety of other occupants.

I review and update crime-free addenda as part of the lease drafting process. If yours is broadly written, call me and we will tighten it up before it creates a problem.

Squatters and Holdover Tenants

Illinois does not grant squatters any special right to remain in your property. Adverse possession, the legal theory behind "squatters rights," requires 20 years of continuous, open, and notorious occupation under a claim of right. That is virtually impossible to achieve in a residential rental context. Nobody is squatting in your apartment for 20 uninterrupted years without you noticing.

However, you still cannot remove a squatter through self-help. Changing the locks, removing their belongings, or shutting off utilities is illegal under Chicago Municipal Code 5-12-160 and carries a penalty of two months' rent plus the tenant's attorney's fees. The word "tenant" in the RLTO is interpreted broadly. Once someone has established occupancy, even without a lease, the formal eviction process is required.

For holdover tenants (those who remain after the lease expires or after a termination notice), the same rules apply. Serve the proper notice, wait the statutory period, file the eviction, and let the sheriff enforce the order. It is slow. It is frustrating. But it is the only legal path, and cutting corners will cost you more in the long run than doing it correctly.

If you have a squatter or a holdover tenant in a Chicago property, read our full Illinois eviction process guide and then call us. We can usually get the notice out the same day.

RLTO Violations That Kill Eviction Cases

The RLTO creates affirmative defenses and counterclaims for tenants. If you are suing a tenant for eviction and you have your own RLTO violations, the tenant's attorney will find them. I have seen a self-help eviction cost a landlord $100,000. I have seen a bad notice set a case back nine months of free rent. I have seen a retaliation lawsuit cost someone $54,000. These are not hypotheticals. These are cases I have worked. Here are the violations that most commonly destroy landlord cases in Cook County:

Missing RLTO Summary. If you never gave the tenant the Summary of Tenant Rights, the tenant has a counterclaim for two months' rent plus $100. Chicago Municipal Code 5-12-170. I see this raised in nearly every eviction defense.

Security deposit violations. No receipt, no interest payment, late return, or a vague itemization. Each violation has its own penalty, and they stack. A landlord can walk into an eviction hearing expecting to collect back rent and walk out owing the tenant $5,000.

Retaliation. Under 5-12-150, a landlord cannot evict in retaliation for a tenant exercising their rights under the RLTO. If the tenant complained to a city inspector about code violations or complained to you about needed repairs, and you filed for eviction within one year of that complaint, there is a rebuttable presumption of retaliation. You will need to prove a legitimate, independent basis for the eviction. The presumption is not easy to overcome.

HB 3564 violations. As of July 1, 2026, any lease containing prohibited fees (modification fees, renewal fees, pre-judgment eviction fees, after-hours maintenance fees, pest control fees for infestations not caused by the tenant, and several others) is noncompliant. If your lease still has these fees, update it before July 1.

Safer Homes Act disclosure. As of January 1, 2026, every new or renewed residential lease must attach the Summary of Rights for Safer Homes as the first page. 765 ILCS 752. Missing this creates liability of up to $2,000 per lease. Download the form from the Illinois Department of Human Rights.

Habitability claims. If the tenant is raising claims about heat, plumbing, or other habitability issues, the claim must be specific. Chicago Municipal Code 14x-8-802.2 requires heating equipment capable of maintaining 68°F in all habitable spaces. A claim that the apartment was "practically freezing" is subjective. Either the unit failed to maintain 68°F or it did not. The ordinance sets the standard, not the tenant's comfort level. If you are defending against a habitability counterclaim, this distinction matters and I will litigate it.

How the Eviction Process Works

The first thing I tell every landlord who calls me panicking is to calm down. I have seen this a hundred times. I know what to do, and I know what is going to happen. The clock starts when you call, not when you think about acting. We prepare the notice the same day you retain us. After the notice period expires, we file the eviction complaint and handle every court appearance through resolution. If the case goes to trial, we try it. If the tenant files a counterclaim, we defend it. Same price.

For a detailed breakdown of the timeline, costs, and procedures for each courthouse, read our complete guide to eviction attorney costs in Illinois.

What We Handle and What It Costs

Every service is a flat fee. No hourly billing. No retainer draw-downs. No invoices for phone calls or emails. The fee is locked from the day you retain us through resolution, regardless of how many hearings, motions, or hours of work your case requires.

Frequently Asked Questions