2025 IL App (1st) 240948

Ebulon Financial Group, plaintiff, filed an eviction action against tenant Ewa Politanska, defendant, and “unknown occupants” for unpaid rent. After service issues were resolved, Ewa agreed to possession being granted to the plaintiff. The circuit court entered an eviction order that also listed Ewa’s daughter, Kinga Politanska, as someone the sheriff should evict, though she was not a named defendant.

After the eviction order had been entered, Kinga then filed a motion alleging that since she was a long-term occupant, that the plaintiff knew about, then the eviction order was void because she was never named as a party or properly served. The circuit court agreed with Kinga’s argument, vacated the eviction order as to her, and ordered she be given immediate possession of the home.

Plaintiff appealed the circuit court holding. The Appellate Court reversed, holding that Kinga had no written possessory rights to the property, and that service to her, as an unknown occupant, had been proper. It found that the evidence did not establish that the plaintiff knew she lived there and accordingly, she was properly treated as an “unknown occupant” for purposes of the eviction proceedings.  The circuit court erred by granting Kinga possession because she lacked any protectable legal right. Since Kinga’s rights had been lawfully extinguished by the eviction order, she could not meet the legal standard for a preliminary injunction or immediate possession. The Appellate Court held it was an abuse of discretion to award her possession based on the mistaken premise that she was improperly excluded from the earlier proceedings.

Takeaways:

• A person known to the landlord is not automatically a “known occupant” requiring that person to be named as an individual defendant in an eviction action. The court here clarified that unless an occupant has a lease or written right of possession, they are generally treated as unknown occupants under the Eviction Act—even if the landlord is aware of their existence. In this matter, the court noted that Kinga did not provide evidence to establish that she actually possessed property.
• The court took a close look at the record regarding Kinga’s allegations that she was in possession of the property and that the plaintiff was aware of her occupancy.  In this case, the court did not find the evidence persuasive to that argument.
• Service through posting or substitute methods—used several times in this case—was valid as it related to the “unknown occupants” under the Eviction Act.