2025 IL App (1st) 241169

Plaintiff filed an eviction action against tenant defendant seeking possession of the subject property when defendant failed to vacate after plaintiff decided not to renew his lease. Defendant argued that since the property received rental assistance funding from the State of Illinois’s rental housing support program, those regulations prevent the plaintiff from refusing to renew the lease unless it has “good cause” to do so. Defendant also argued that the plaintiff waived its right to maintain the eviction proceedings because it accepted rental payments from the defendant after the tenancy was terminated. The trial court found for the plaintiff and entered the eviction order against the defendant. The defendant appealed and the Appellate Court affirmed the trial court’s finding for the plaintiff. The Court analyzed the regulatory language of the rental assistance program and concluded that the program required that eviction decisions be made for good cause, and such requirement does not apply to renewal decisions made under the program. It also found that the ‘good cause’ element was satisfied when defendant failed to leave the property after being timely notified that his lease would not be renewed. The Court also reviewed the facts concerning the defendant’s subsequent rental payments and found “no acts by plaintiff recognizing the continued existence of the lease…”

Takeaways:

The Court noted that the rental assistance program here does not provide for leases of subsidized units to be indefinite and automatically renewable, as the defendant had argued.

Owners and property managers should be cautious about actions they take that might affirm the existence of a lease and recognize the tenant as a continued lessee, when that is not the intent. Certain acts might result in a waiver of the right to terminate the lease.