Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Illinois

My landlord is in violation of 75% of our county code, he won't respond to our problems and we just found out he may not be the rightful owner. This information came about by committing my own dumb act. I tried to sublet the property so I can get my family out of this bad situation, and after the prospective new tenants went to the town to check on the utilities, because they are included in rent, they found out he is not the owner of record. In the interim they contacted the police who then came to me and said I was as fault for using a copy of the owners original lease with my named whited out. This was all born out of frustration and lack of compliance by the lessor, and my question is, can I get in trouble since the signature was copied and can I be blamed for fraud?


Asked on 7/31/10, 8:41 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Thomas Moens Moens Law Offices, Chartered

I am not sure exactly what happened here. If you used your landlord's lease to create a new lease agreement between you and the new tenants, I see no problem, provided your lease allows for assignment or sublease. If you took your lease with your landlord and only whited out your name to attempt to create a lease between your landlord and the new tenants, that could be a problem, since I doubt you were authorized by your landlord to enter into a lease on his behalf.

Whether or not he is the "rightful owner" may be irrelevant to you. He might be buying the property on contract, he might be renting the property himself and subleasing the property to you. However, there have been circumstances where criminals pretend to own property which is vacant and collect rent from unsuspecting "tenants."

The landlord is not necessarily required to change the house to comply with the current building code. For example, most counties and municipalities require that there be numerous GFI outlets in the kitchen, but only for new construction and certain remodeling projects. This does not mean every house in the county has to add GFI outlets just because it is in the current building code. On the other hand, if there is no furnace or water service, this could be a problem for your landlord.

You need to discuss the specific facts of your case with an attorney in your area.

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Answered on 8/05/10, 9:33 am


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