Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Illinois

Giving notice that you can't pay the rent won't work unless there was a clause in the lease allowing you out in case you and/or your husband lost your jobs. But you've been in touch with the landlord and it sounds like the landlord has been accepting "make work" in lieu of rent AND it sounds like the place will be as good if not better than when you moved in, which would mean you should get your security deposit back. Also, since it's now April it is unlikely the landlord would be able to get you physically evicted before May 1: the landlord must give you a formal notice of at least 5 days, then would have to file suit which could take 2-3 weeks just to get to court, and you may have defenses that could kick it over another week or more, which sounds like May 1 or so. If your lease is supposed to end then anyhow, then what are we talking about. And in many cases even if the landlord got an order for you to be evicted, the judge will give you up to 30 days to actually move before the landlord would be allowed to call on the Sheriff to physically evict you. So there's a fair amount of lee-way, it seems, unless there are additional facts you haven't stated. As to whether the landlord can or can't use the security deposit or a portion of it for rent, you can agree with him to do so. Since the place sounds like it would be in great shape, there doesn't seem to be a reason for him to object. That's called a "settlement". What might be of concern is that he'll keep all the work you did and the security deposit and then you'll have to fight to get it back. Not a good thing. You should seriously consider having an attorney write a letter to the landlord settling this up if the security amount is meaningful in any way to you.