Chicago's PRO vs. FAIR Ordinance Fight: What Every Property Owner Needs to Know

If you own any rental housing in Chicago, whether that's a condo you lease out, the upstairs unit of your two-flat, or a six-flat you've held for years, two competing ordinances were dropped into City Council this summer, and one of them is likely to rewrite the rules you operate under. The mayor's Protecting Renters Ordinance (PRO) would bring just-cause eviction, relocation fees of $5,000 or more, and a mandatory citywide rental registry to Chicago. A council bloc answered three weeks later with the FAIR Ordinance, a stripped-down rewrite that keeps the registry and drops most of the rest.

Here is the answer up front, because the headlines are burying it: neither ordinance is law. As of late July 2026, both are pending in City Council, nothing about your obligations has changed, and anyone telling you to panic (or to relax) is ahead of the facts. What you should be doing is understanding exactly what each proposal says, because the differences land hardest on the smallest owners, and the fight between them will get resolved with or without your input.

I'm a Chicago landlord-side attorney. I've read the city's official summary and the reporting so far, and this is the debate minus the spin. One caveat an honest lawyer owes you: the analysis below is based on the city's published summary and press coverage of the introduced ordinances, not final enacted text. Amendments are coming. When the text moves, this page will be updated. And unlike the news coverage, I will tell you where I land: FAIR is the better bill, and even FAIR gives away more than I would. My full position is below.

Watch: PRO vs. FAIR in One Minute

Short on time? Here is the whole fight in 35 seconds. Click the video itself to grab a free consult; the details that matter to your building specifically are below.

The Current State of the Law

Before the proposals, orient yourself. Three columns: what binds you today, and what each ordinance would change if it passes. Only the first column is enforceable right now.

And here is where each proposal actually sits in the process. Both bills are parked at step one:

The politics in one sentence: Mayor Brandon Johnson introduced the PRO on June 29, 2026 as a modernization of the 40-year-old Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance (RLTO); on July 15, sixteen members of the council's Budget Accountability Coalition, the same bloc that rewrote the mayor's budget last December, answered with FAIR, which the mayor describes as his own proposal "copied and pasted" with the key protections removed.

What the Mayor's PRO Would Actually Do

The city's own summary describes five components, and each one touches you differently depending on what you own.

1. Just Cause: the Real Sea Change

Today, Chicago is a "fair notice" city, not a "just cause" city. When a lease ends, you can decline to renew for any lawful, non-retaliatory reason, as long as you give the notice the RLTO requires: 30, 60, or 120 days depending on how long the tenant has been there. The PRO would replace that with a requirement that you have a valid, enumerated reason to end any tenancy, including simple non-renewal at the end of a lease term. That converts every non-renewal decision from a calendar question into a legal-grounds question, and it is the single biggest change in the package.

2. Relocation Fees: Read the Triggers Closely

This is the piece every homeowner with a rental unit should read twice. As reported when the ordinance was introduced, the PRO's relocation fee, five months' rent or $5,000, whichever is greater, is triggered when a tenant must move because of owner move-in, major repairs, demolition, or the sale of the unit. Those are the four ordinary-life reasons small owners end tenancies. Moving your parents into the upstairs unit? Relocation fee. Selling the condo you've been renting out? Potentially a relocation fee. And the fee climbs to $10,000 or ten months' rent where there's proof a landlord raised the rent significantly more on one unit than another, which means your rent ledger across units becomes evidence.

3. A Mandatory Rental Registry

Every non-owner-occupied rental unit in the city would be registered annually, with tiered fees of $20 to $60 per unit depending on building size. The registry is the enforcement engine for everything else: it tells the city who owns what, and it funds the next item.

4. A New Enforcement Bureau, and 5. Guaranteed Tenant Lawyers

The PRO creates a Bureau of Rental Housing Services inside the Department of Housing to process and investigate rental complaints, and it makes the city's "Right to Counsel" eviction-defense pilot permanent. Translate that pairing: more complaints get investigated, and every eviction you file is more likely to be defended by counsel. If your leases and notices are sloppy, that combination finds out. I defend landlords in RLTO disputes today, when enforcement is mostly private lawsuits. A staffed city bureau changes the volume.

Rounding out the package: security deposits capped at one month's rent (today Chicago has no cap, though the deposit-handling rules are already the most dangerous strict-liability trap in the ordinance), application fees capped at $20, and a ban on fees that lack documented underlying costs.

What the FAIR Ordinance Would Do Instead

The coalition's counter-proposal keeps the modernization framing and removes the provisions landlord and realtor groups objected to most:

• No just cause. Non-renewal stays a notice-timing question, as it is today.
• Relocation fees cut way back. As reported, the general $5,000 to $10,000 scheme is out, with a reduced figure of $3,000 or three months' rent surviving only in narrow categories involving nonprofits and owner-occupied buildings of six units or fewer. Tenant advocates describe this as eliminating relocation fees outright; the sponsors describe it as right-sizing them. Until the ordinance text is parsed, both descriptions are campaign slogans.
• Registry, minus the fees. FAIR keeps a citywide rental registry but drops the mandatory per-unit fees and exempts certain owner-occupied, nonprofit, and subsidized properties.
• Fees allowed if honest. Instead of banning "junk fees," FAIR permits fees that are disclosed in writing, itemized, and reasonably related to an actual cost. Application fees cap at $50 instead of $20.
• Lockout fines actually go up. Here's a detail almost nobody has noticed: FAIR sets illegal-lockout fines at $2,500 to $5,000 per violation plus $1,000 a day. That makes $2,500 the floor, where the mayor's version sets $2,500 as the ceiling. Whichever ordinance passes, the era of the casual lock change is over. It already should be: self-help lockouts are the easiest landlord case a tenant's lawyer will ever win.

Ald. Nicole Lee (11th), a FAIR sponsor, put the coalition's case plainly: "I have a big fear right now that the ordinance, as it is introduced, is going to really raise rents." The mayor's response: the sponsors "took 98 percent of essentially of what I proposed, copied and pasted, but took out key components." Both things can be true, which is why this fight is about the handful of provisions above, not the other 98 percent.

My Position: FAIR Should Pass, and Even FAIR Leans Tenant

Neutral explainers are useful, but you hire a lawyer for judgment, so here is mine. Between these two bills, I endorse FAIR. It preserves the notice-based non-renewal system that lets an owner exit a bad tenancy without a courtroom-grade evidentiary showing. It does not charge you five months of rent for the act of selling your own building or moving your family into it. And it does not pair a mandatory registry fee with a new enforcement bureau funded by that same fee. If you own rental property in this city and your alderman asks where you stand, FAIR is the answer.

Now the second half, because my endorsement is not a love letter: FAIR is still a tenant bill. It keeps a citywide registry of rental owners, and a free registry is a fee schedule waiting for the next budget crisis. Its everything-is-allowed-if-disclosed fee rule invites litigation over whether each of your charges is "reasonably related to an actual cost," with your ledger as Exhibit A. Its lockout fines start at $2,500 per violation, which is above the ceiling in the mayor's own bill. And under the reported version, the surviving relocation fee lands on nonprofits and small owner-occupied buildings, the owners least able to absorb it. FAIR is the mayor's ordinance with the sharpest edges filed down. Filed down beats sharp, and that is the most that can honestly be said for it.

So my advice comes in two parts. Support FAIR as the vehicle that stops just cause, because just cause is the provision that changes what it means to own rental property here. Then tell your alderman the registry and the fee-litigation trap need work in committee. One is a fight worth having. The other is a fight worth winning.

The Question Nobody Is Answering Yet: the Owner-Occupied Exemption

If you live in your two-flat, three-flat, or six-flat and rent out the rest, you currently sit inside the RLTO's most important carve-out: owner-occupied buildings of six units or fewer are exempt from most of the ordinance (though the lockout ban and fair-notice rules still reach you). Whether the PRO's "RLTO modernization" preserves, narrows, or eliminates that exemption is not answered in anything the city has published so far. The registry component applies to "non-owner-occupied" units, and FAIR builds several of its exemptions around the same owner-occupied category, so both sides clearly know this group exists. But for the single largest class of small housing providers in Chicago, the most important question in this debate is still an open one. That, more than any headline provision, is what I'm watching for when committee amendments start moving.

What Happens Next, and What Doesn't

Procedurally, both ordinances are sitting in the council process with no committee votes yet. Politically, this is round two of a fight that started when the Budget Accountability Coalition rejected the mayor's budget in December 2025 and passed its own. Sixteen aldermen signed FAIR at introduction; passage takes 26. Nobody has a public majority, which usually means the version that eventually passes looks like neither introduced ordinance. Expect amendments, expect a compromise on relocation-fee amounts and the registry, and expect the just-cause provision to be the hill each side fights on.

What doesn't happen next: any change to your current obligations. Until council votes and an effective date arrives, the law of the land is the RLTO as it stands. That means fair-notice deadlines, the security-deposit strict-liability regime, the lockout ban, and the ordinary Illinois eviction process.

What Smart Owners Are Doing Right Now

Not panicking, and not sleeping. Four moves that make sense no matter which ordinance passes:

• Get your non-compliant tenant out now, under the rules you have, not the rules that are coming. Today, a tenant who will not pay or will not follow the lease can be removed on notices and proof you already have, and a non-renewal requires no stated reason at all, only correct timing. If the PRO passes, that same removal becomes a just-cause case where you carry the burden of proving grounds the city recognizes, in front of a tenant with a free lawyer, possibly with a relocation check stapled to the judgment. Every problem tenancy you are tolerating is cheaper to end under current law than under any version of what is coming. Your reason must be lawful and non-retaliatory and your notice timing must be right, so do it correctly, but do it now. Start with my flat-fee eviction service or the free notice forms in the eviction resource center, and have the case moving before the committee does.
• Book an RLTO compliance audit before the enforcement wave, not after. Every version of this debate ends with more enforcement, more tenant lawyers, and a registry with your name on it. The owners who get hurt in a new-enforcement era are the ones carrying old compliance debt: the missing deposit receipt, the unattached RLTO summary, the lease form last updated when Rahm was mayor. This is exactly what my flat-fee RLTO compliance audit is for: I go through your lease, deposit handling, disclosures, fees, and notice forms against the current ordinance and both pending bills, and you get a punch list instead of a lawsuit. I defend RLTO claims for a living. The audit exists so you never become one.
• Keep your rent increases uniform and documented. The PRO's $10,000 enhanced relocation fee turns on proof that one unit's rent rose "significantly more" than another's. Whatever passes, a clean, consistent, documented rent history across your units is cheap insurance.
• If an owner move-in or a sale is already in your plans, understand the current notice rules and do it correctly. The fair-notice periods (30, 60, or 120 days by length of tenancy) are the law now, and blowing them already costs money.
• Watch the effective date, not the headline. Ordinances phase in. When either version passes, the questions that matter are which provisions apply to existing leases, when the registry opens, and what the first enforcement wave targets. That's when to call your lawyer. Ideally one who was tracking this before it passed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Protecting Renters Ordinance law in Chicago?

No. The PRO was introduced in City Council on June 29, 2026 and is pending. The competing FAIR Ordinance was introduced July 15, 2026 and is also pending. No committee votes have occurred as of this writing, and current RLTO rules remain fully in effect.

Does Chicago have just-cause eviction right now?

No. Under current law a Chicago landlord may decline to renew a lease for any lawful, non-retaliatory reason, provided the RLTO's fair-notice deadlines are met: 30, 60, or 120 days depending on length of tenancy. The PRO would replace that system with a just-cause requirement covering both evictions and non-renewals; the FAIR Ordinance would keep the current system.

Would I really owe a relocation fee for selling my rental unit?

Under the PRO as introduced and reported, yes. The $5,000-or-five-months fee is triggered when a tenant must move due to owner move-in, major repairs, demolition, or sale of the unit, with an enhanced fee up to $10,000 where rents were raised unevenly across units. Under FAIR, relocation fees are sharply narrowed. Under current law, no such general relocation fee exists. The final text, if either passes, controls.

What is the FAIR Ordinance?

The Fair and Accountable Illinois Rental Ordinance is a counter-proposal introduced July 15, 2026 by sixteen members of the City Council's Budget Accountability Coalition. It keeps a citywide rental registry but drops mandatory registry fees, eliminates the just-cause requirement, sharply narrows relocation fees, caps application fees at $50, permits disclosed and itemized fees, and raises illegal-lockout fines above the mayor's proposal.

Which ordinance is better for Chicago landlords?

FAIR, and it is not close. FAIR keeps notice-based non-renewal, strips the broad relocation-fee scheme, and drops mandatory registry fees. I endorse FAIR over the PRO while being candid that FAIR still expands regulation: the registry survives, the disclosed-fee rule invites disputes, and lockout fines go up. Support it, and push for amendments in committee.

What should Chicago landlords do before either ordinance passes?

Use the window. Resolve problem tenancies now, while non-renewal requires only proper notice and evictions run on today's proof standards. Audit your leases and deposit practices for RLTO compliance, document rent increases consistently across units, and track the committee process for amendments and effective dates.