Illinois basics in brief
State law supplies the frame: a 5-day demand for rent under 735 ILCS 5/9-209 with the required partial-payment sentence, an eviction complaint under Article IX with the notice and lease attached, a first court date 7 to 40 days after the summons issues, and an eviction order that expires after 120 days unless extended. Our Illinois eviction process guide covers those steps and how Illinois counts days.
Inside city limits, the RLTO, Chicago Municipal Code chapter 5-12, layers on its own remedies. It covers most rentals in Chicago, but not units in owner-occupied buildings with six or fewer units, so any 5+ unit building you don’t live in, and any building over six units, is covered.
The RLTO right to cure
The biggest Chicago difference is in nonpayment cases. Under 5-12-130(a), the tenant has a one-time right to cure at any time before the court enters an order of possession or eviction order. To cure, the tenant pays the unpaid rent owed from the date of your termination notice to the date of payment, plus the filing fees, costs and service of process fees you paid. Your attorney fees are not part of the cure amount.
Once the tenant cures, either side can move to dismiss and the case is dismissed. If your notice didn’t state a total amount due, the tenant has to pay only the rent due from the notice to the date of judgment, so itemize carefully.
The practical effect is that a Chicago nonpayment case can collapse at the last minute, after you’ve paid counsel for every court date. Budget for that possibility, and track whether a tenant has already used the one cure.
Lease violations get a 10-day cure in Chicago
Illinois lets you serve a 10-day notice to quit for a lease breach with no statutory chance to fix it. Chicago doesn’t. Under 5-12-130(b), the notice must specify the acts or omissions that make up the breach and say the lease will end on a date at least ten days after the tenant receives it unless the breach is remedied in that time. If the tenant fixes it, the lease continues.
Disturbance cases follow a two-step path. If a tenant who got that kind of notice disturbs neighbors again within 60 days, 5-12-130(d) lets you seek an injunction or end the lease on ten days’ written notice.
Fair Notice: nonrenewals and rent increases
Under 5-12-130(j), Chicago’s Fair Notice rules set the minimum written notice to end a periodic tenancy, not renew a lease or raise the rent, and the notice gets longer the longer the tenant has lived there. If your notice is missing, late or defective, the tenant can stay up to 60 or 120 days after a proper notice, and you have to wait out that period before filing.
- Tenancy under six months: at least 30 days’ notice.
- Six months to three years: at least 60 days’ notice.
- More than three years: at least 120 days’ notice.
- Jackson Park pilot: for leases starting on or after the pilot took effect in the area bounded by 60th Street, 71st Street, King Drive, South Chicago Avenue and DuSable Lake Shore Drive, 5-12-135 raises those minimums to 90, 120 and 180 days. The pilot ends by January 31, 2029.
Other RLTO limits that show up in eviction cases
- Late fees are capped at $10 a month on the first $500 of rent plus 5% of rent above $500, under 5-12-140(h). On a $1,750 unit, that is $72.50.
- Self-help is an ordinance violation. Changing locks, removing doors, cutting utilities or removing a tenant’s belongings brings a fine of $200 to $500 for each day it continues under 5-12-160, and the tenant can recover two months’ rent or twice actual damages.
- Retaliation gives the tenant a defense to possession and the same two-months-or-double-damages remedy under 5-12-150.
- Lease clauses that waive RLTO rights or require the tenant to pay your attorney fees in a suit are unenforceable, under 5-12-140.
Filing at the Daley Center
Chicago evictions are heard in the Eviction Section, formally the Forcible Entry and Detainer Section, of the Circuit Court of Cook County’s First Municipal District at the Richard J. Daley Center, with the section office in Suite 1404. Courtroom 1302 handles cases in the Early Resolution Program, and other eviction calendars sit in courtrooms on the 14th floor.
The Clerk of the Circuit Court lists the filing packet: a civil action cover sheet, the eviction complaint and summons, the ERP flyer, a Plaintiff’s Certification of Compliance, a tenant declaration form if one applies, your demand or notice with its affidavit of service and any written lease. Most filings are electronic.
First court dates are currently heard remotely by Zoom or phone, and the Zoom details are on the summons.
Decide early whether to file a single action for possession only or a joint action for possession and back rent. The court describes both, and a joint action lets you leave with a money judgment as well as the order. The same section also hears lockout cases brought by tenants, so a self-help shortcut can put you in front of the same judges as a defendant.
The Early Resolution Program and right to counsel
Every unrepresented tenant and landlord who appears on the first court date is referred into the Early Resolution Program, run through Cook County Legal Aid for Housing and Debt. ERP offers free legal aid, mediation, negotiation help and connections to rental assistance, and small landlords without lawyers can use it too.
Chicago adds a Right to Counsel program that provides full representation to eligible tenants inside city limits, generally households at or below 80% of area median income. In practice, expect a represented or coached tenant, a mediation session and often a continuance before any order. Assume any defect in your notice will be spotted.
Getting the order enforced by the Cook County Sheriff
Only the sheriff can evict in Cook County. File the order with the sheriff online, at the eviction office in Room 701 of the Daley Center or at kiosks in the suburban courthouses. The fee is $65 by e-file or $95 for paper filing at the Daley Center, and you also complete an eviction disclosure form.
Evictions are scheduled in order of filing by geographic area, and the sheriff calls one working day ahead with your date and time block. A representative must be on site, deputies remove the people named but not their belongings, and a call-off or no-show means a new $65 or $95 fee.
Weather and the holidays matter here. Under General Order 13-07, evictions are canceled in extreme weather, and the sheriff warns that delays can let an order run past its 120-day limit. In recent years an annual order has also paused sheriff evictions over the holidays; the 2025 order ran from December 19, 2025, through January 5, 2026, and barred evictions on days of 15°F or colder.
Worked example: a $1,750 two-bedroom in Rogers Park
Assume a 24-unit courtyard building in Rogers Park where a two-bedroom rents for $1,750 a month, about $57.53 a day, and the tenant misses rent due November 1, 2026. You serve a 5-day notice on Monday, November 2. It runs through Monday, November 9, because the fifth day is a Saturday, and you file on November 10.
We assume a first Zoom date of November 24, an ERP referral and a three-week continuance to December 15, and an eviction order that day with a 14-day stay. Those are assumptions, since the rules allow a first date anywhere from 7 to 40 days out and stays vary. The stay ends December 29, inside the holiday window if this year’s order matches 2025’s, so we assume the sheriff reaches the unit on January 20, 2027.
That is 80 days without rent, or $4,602.74. Add an assumed $1,500 attorney fee and the $65 sheriff filing fee and the total is $6,167.74. Now suppose the tenant uses the RLTO cure on December 15 instead. You collect $3,500 for November and December plus your filing and service costs, the case is dismissed and the attorney fee stays your cost.
Suburban Cook County and countywide screening rules
If your building is in suburban Cook County rather than Chicago, the Cook County Residential Tenant Landlord Ordinance takes the RLTO’s place, so check which ordinance covers the address before serving a notice. Countywide, including in Chicago, the Just Housing Amendment to the Cook County Human Rights Ordinance governs how you screen the next applicant: you can’t consider criminal history more than three years old, and you must do an individualized assessment before denying for covered history.
Selling a Chicago building with tenants and cases
A Chicago building can be sold mid-case. The buyer becomes the successor landlord under the RLTO, takes the leases and can step into the eviction, so pass along the notices, affidavits of service, the court file, any order and its 120-day clock, and the sheriff filing receipt. Tenant estoppel certificates help the buyer confirm deposits and arrears.
Skyline Capital Investments buys apartment buildings with five or more units in Chicago and across Illinois, occupied and as they are, including buildings with problem tenants or evictions in progress. Send the address and unit count through the form on this page or call (469) 660-2977. We typically respond within 48 hours.
