Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Illinois

Is it illegal for landlords to suppress (hiding) reviews / fake reviews from Google Reviews? We signed our lease due to good reviews and after having multiple issues we noticed the reviews might be fake. I gave the apartment an article from the FTC in regards to the ground rules for reviews. After handing them the document I saw the star rating drop and older 1 star reviews released on Google Reviews. Their reviews went from 55 to 69 (no one recently wrote a review).

At this point, I want my lease to be terminated. There’s been 3 attempts of unknown suspects entering my unit and they were able to turn off our power, homeless people sleeping in the building, and I request via email for the floor to be fixed along with phone calls months ago.

I wish I knew about the reviews before or I wouldn’t have signed. A number of those 1 star reviews are very similar to our situation.


Asked on 3/16/23, 3:20 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Stephen Messutta

If there's actual fraud you'd have to prove it and that it was what induced you to lease the place. Short of that this is a problem in today's world and on-line reviews in fact can be "manipulated" - determining the real from fake, if any, would require significant effort. The better and possibly easier thing would be to take your lease to a local attorney and review the landlord's compliance or non-compliance with its requirements. From your zip code, you're in Chicago, and if the Residential Landlord & Tenant Ordinance applies, there may be 'easy outs'.

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Answered on 4/03/23, 10:42 am


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