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The Chicago Heights City Council has amended and repealed part of an ordinance that required a permit and fee to place real estate For Sale signs.
Tom Joseph, a governmental affairs director for IAR, reports the action on Monday came after work by the association and the Mainstreet Organization of REALTORS® to get the rules changed.
The fees had been in place for decades and were a byproduct of home rule authority. The ordinance called for a $50 sticker that had to be obtained to place a For Sale sign in front of a residence. The sticker was good for just six months.
To get a sticker, a REALTOR® had to adhere to a 16-point list of guidelines which at one time required an agent to take the sign to the city to be measured for compliance. The rules were widely seen as restricting real estate sales.
The antiquated ordinance was believed to have raised only $7,000 to $7,500 annually.
In the case of a property that was a bank-owned property, sales could take much longer than six months. The result was that many REALTORS® doing business in Chicago Heights opted to forgo putting any signs up at all.
After hearing from REALTORS®, the Chicago Heights City Council under the leadership of their first-term Mayor David Gonzalez, worked with IAR/MORe government affairs and repealed the required permit and fee. The mayor wants REALTORS® to promote the community as a place to live.
For more information on this, contact IAR Governmental Affairs Director Tom Joseph at [email protected].
