Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Illinois

1. Landlord must serve 5-day notice.

2. 5 days must lapse and you don't pay the rent demanded. Even if you pay a portion of it, the landlord can still sue to evict you.

3. Landlord then files for eviction. If you can be served in short order, the first court date may be 14 days later. If it takes more time to serve you, then it would be later.

4. If you do not contest that you owe rent, or if you have no valid defenses to payment of rent, then at the first trial date the judge can give the landlord an order of possession.

5. Usually, but not always, the order is "stayed" 30 days, meaning you have 30 days to move, and the landlord can't call the sheriff out on you during that period.

6. After any "stay", if you haven't moved, the landlord can then have the sheriff come out and physically remove you.

7. You can call the Sheriff for your judicial district and get an idea of how far behind they are running today, or how quickly the Sheriff might just come out....

8. If you have defenses to payment of rent, and/or demand a jury, then the case may be transferred to a jury calendar, and then it depends on how clogged the court calendar is and how much pre-trial procedures you and/or the landlord might want to go through....