Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Illinois

When I signed my lease back in May, I was under the impression that my military husband was going to move in with me. After the fact, he decides he wants to get divorced and will remain in arkansas. My landlord has found out that I am no longer a "military family" and flat out told me she wants a military family in the house. Although she says she will not evict me, she has been making my life miserable. First off, I was supposed to move June 7th into the home and she delayed until June 27th and even then I was not legally occupying the house because the home inspection had failed. She only recently (July 31st got the final inspection done) but during that period (of which I was paying rent) she was constantly coming over to the house without any warning. Now she has advised me that the neighbors are telling her everything that I am doing and she plans on doing random inspections without notice. The lease has a lot of things that are against Illinois law (from what I've read) but it has a caveat that the whole lease is not invalid in whole if parts are not enforcable because of local law.

I am tired of having to be "on my toes" because she might randomly just show up at the house. She's even got to the point that she just goes through the garage and doesn't even knock on the door to tell us she's in the house. I believe this is simply in retaliation because she wanted a military family in the house. I didn't push her for the $75/day that was stated in the lease for not being able to occupy the house in a timely manner but I lost my entire deposit on the house I moved out of because I only had 3 days to move and clean - so I wasn't able to clean the house. Now, she just keeps coming over - she even has a car and a lot of belongings in the garage that she promised she'd remove -- this is just another reason for her to be able to come over unannounced.

I would love to get out of the lease because I don't think she, as an inexperienced landlord, will ever treat me with respect or give me privacy but I know it's near impossible for a tenant to find fault with the landlord. Is there anything I can do to fix this, even if it's as simple as having her informed that she is breaking the law.

Thank you for your help!


Asked on 8/06/09, 9:11 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Contact your local military liason or attorney. There is legal concept called constructiuve eviction. You may be able to get out of the lease.

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Answered on 8/11/09, 11:04 pm


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