Q-I have a friend who has been served with a 10-day eviction notice, and she is frantically packing to move before being evicted. Against the manager’s instructions, she informed other tenants that her apartment had been burglarized.
My friend has always paid her rent on time and has been a good tenant in this apartment for more than five years.
While she is hoping to move out of the apartment within the 10-day period before her property is thrown out, I think there has to be another solution. What can she do?
A–In the first place, she should stop her frantic packing efforts. She cannot be evicted from the apartment summarily by the landlord.
Under Illinois law, it is illegal for the landlord to use self-help in evicting a tenant from an apartment. The prohibition against self-help includes not only evictions, but also changing locks, shutting off utilities or otherwise denying services to the tenant that the landlord must furnish as part of the rental agreement.
The only way a tenant can be evicted, whether for non-monetary lease violations, or for non-payment of rent, is by the filing of an eviction case in court. That filing cannot take place until after the expiration of the 10-day period. Once the suit is filed, a judge must hear the case and render a judgment for possession. Even if your friend loses this case, the judge will traditionally give a certain amount of time before the landlord can take the order for possession to the sheriff. It is the sheriff of the county where the apartment is located that must then perform the eviction.
In Cook County, the process takes approximately 45 days from the time the eviction suit is filed before there is an actual eviction, and that assumes that there is no contest of the charges. If a case must be set for trial, the tenant is generally given at least another week to obtain an attorney to defend the case.
The next consideration is the grounds for the eviction. When a landlord serves a 10-day notice for lease violations, the notice must specify the default in sufficient detail so that the tenant has the ability to cure the default during the 10 days, if it can be cured. The notice also requires sufficient detail so that the tenant has the ability to defend himself or herself with regard to the charges. Finally, the matters set forth in the notice must actually constitute violations of the lease. The notice cannot simply be given for arbitrary reasons or grounds that are not, in fact, lease violations.
It is fairly clear why an apartment manager might not want news of burglaries within the apartment building or complex to be publicized. Obviously, news of those crimes at the property will negatively impact upon the reputation of the property, and will make it harder to lease apartments. Also, that negative reputation can have the effect of reducing the rent that the landlord is able to charge for an apartment.
Nevertheless, it is unlikely that your friend’s lease contains any prohibition against communicating with neighbors, whether or not the communications relate to negative aspects of the apartment building or complex. Further, even if there was such a prohibition in the lease, it is unlikely that any judge would enforce such a provision and find a lease violation. It is also unlikely that the landlord cited the negative communications as a ground for termination of the tenancy. It is more likely that the landlord has reviewed the lease, and has found one or more minor violations of the lease that have been cited in the notice. If those violations actually do exist, you friend has to determine whether or not those cited violations may or may not be curable within the 10-day period.
Your friend would be well advised to seek legal assistance immediately, so that a lawyer can make the determination as to whether lease violations do exist, whether they are simply a pretense to retaliate against your friend for her comments and what course of action should be taken in this matter.
It is during the notice period that the strategy for a legal defense should be formulated. Waiting until an eviction suit is actually filed cuts the time during which a defense can be mounted or a strategy determined. Eviction proceedings are handled on an expedited basis, and cases are sent to trial more quickly than in most other types of litigation. The earlier your friend starts to prepare to fight the landlord, the greater the likelihood that her packing efforts will not be needed.
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Robert A. Boron, a Chicago attorney specializing in leasing matters, writes about landlord and tenant questions for the Tribune. Questions to him may be sent to Rental Q & A, Your Place Section, Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, 60611.
