Landlord-Tenant Law: Lease Formation, Tenant Rights, and Landlord Remedies
Forming the lease
Illinois enforces the statute of frauds: a lease longer than one year must be in writing and signed. Month-to-month oral tenancies are valid, and a month-to-month tenancy is terminated with a 30-day notice. Required disclosures and hardware matter in leasing questions: lead-based paint disclosure plus the EPA pamphlet for pre-1978 housing, and working smoke and carbon monoxide detectors where required.
Tenant rights
Illinois recognizes an implied warranty of habitability for residential leases, so the landlord must maintain safe, code-compliant premises regardless of what the lease says. The Retaliatory Eviction Act bars eviction in response to a tenant complaining to a government agency, joining a tenant organization, or exercising legal rights. Entry: no single statewide statute, but reasonableness controls (24–48 hours' notice is the common rule of thumb), with emergencies excepted; in Chicago, two days' written notice for non-emergency entry between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
Landlord remedies
Self-help eviction - changing locks, shutting off utilities, removing belongings, or threatening arrest - is unlawful. The landlord must file a forcible entry and detainer action (735 ILCS 5/9) in circuit court. Pre-suit notices: a 5-day written notice for nonpayment of rent (payment within the period cures it) and a 10-day notice for other lease breaches, with an opportunity to cure. Distress for rent (seizing tenant property) has been abolished.
Traps
Questions conflate the 5-day and 10-day notices, assume a landlord may keep a tenant's possessions as leverage, or treat an oral three-year lease as enforceable.