Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Illinois

Sorry to hear; these are difficult times.

1. If your point in bringing up 2/19 is that this is a consumer transaction, the general rule is a 72-hour rescission period. Otherwise your child is not a minor under Illinois law for general contracting purposes and therefore can not reject the contract (absent some other disqualification):

(755 ILCS 5/11‑1) (from Ch. 110 1/2, par. 11‑1)

Sec. 11‑1. Minor defined.) A minor is a person who has not attained the age of 18 years. A person who has attained the age of 18 years is of legal age for all purposes except as otherwise provided in the Illinois Uniform Transfers to Minors Act.

2. If you are divorced the answer may be different; you'd have to look at the divorce decree.

3. Therefore as it stands without more information, your child, not you, has a legal obligation to fulfill the terms of the lease.

4. To see if it can be cancelled, you would need to look at the lease first. Assuming the lease does not grant such a right*, it may point to some other documents for support: school certification as student housing, rental rules, etc. If it does but none of those documents help, then you must contact the landlord**. It may be early enough for the landlord to understand your situation and/or be willing to work something out with you. If the landlord is not certified housing it may be having as much difficulty in the present economic climate as you are having -- this could work for or against you. The deposit falls with the lease terms.

*The lease may have a right of assignment or sublease, which would normally be your responsibility to handle but the landlord may be willing to release your child on finding another student to take your child's place but you may have to cover the "reletting" costs -- an ad, minor administrative costs, or you child may have a friend at the school who would be interested in substituting into the lease but then you'd want a release. There are clearing houses for these kinds of things on many campuses and certainly there are several months to go. Also if your student is only 1 of a few students on the lease, you may be able to get help from the other students or their parents.

** At the present time, the landlord may be able to consider you n "anticipatory" default -- that's where you believe you will wind up in default if the lease goes forward based on today's situation even though anything could happen between now and August including winning $1MM dollars. But once you let the landlord know you believe you both now have and will then have issues, and depending again on what the lease and any related documents may say, the landlord may have the right to consider the possibility and if you are unable to provide some means of giving the landlord some "assurance" you can rectify the situation the landlord may be able to consider it a "real" default and avail it self of its leasehold remedies. Assurance may include your willingness to undertake the finding of a substitute student tenant.

5. If things get nasty, you may want to consider a lawyer -- the school may have information on local lawyers who help students as opposed to landlords..... etc.

GOOD LUCK.

PS: since your child signed the lease, you may want to substitute the words "your child" for you in many of the above points -- and let your child take something of the lead here while you all consider your options:

a. Depending on the location, there are usually a fair amount of part time jobs during the school year -- our child delivered for a local restaurant for example and made good tips too.

b. with a change in income, you should consider applying on FAFSA to determine eligibility for a student loan that your child can take out and pay back at a later date. Things happen and hopefully your child will pitch in to help if it's that important.

c. is the apartment large enough for 2 people and can your child find a roommate to share; could you or your child then handle it.