The Legal Hotline has entertained many questions over the last two months. The three most common topics were, Contracts to Purchase at #1, Lease Issues at #2 and Fair Housing Questions at #3.

‘I had a buyer’s agent tell me that it was illegal to shop her client’s offer. Is this true?’

Not necessarily. If you represent the seller in a transaction and you have received an offer on your listing, in the interest of serving your seller’s best interests, you might justifiably call those buyer agents or other prospects that have shown an interest in this property. Of course, you would want to confer with your seller client before taking this action. The downside risk would be that if the initial buyer became aware of this, the buyer might withdraw the offer. While you would not want to disclose the amount of the offer (because you don’t want to establish any sort of false ceiling above which other interested buyers would not go), you might have helped your seller client by creating a market for the property.

An exception to this general rule is where the parties entered a confidentiality agreement prior to the offer being made where seller agrees not to disclose buyer has made an offer or any of the terms.

What property disclosures are required for residential lease transactions?

The lead-based paint disclosure form and pamphlet would be required for those residential units built before 1978 each time there is a new tenant in the unit. A radon disclosure form would only be required in situations where someone has conducted a radon test that shows a radon hazard in a unit on the second floor and below and there has been no subsequent test showing no hazard, or there has been no remediation.

In a residential lease transaction, is it appropriate for a landlord to refuse to rent to tenants who are recipients of the federal Housing Choice Voucher (HCV)/Section 8 voucher program?

IMPORTANT NOTE: Source of Income will become a protected class under the Illinois Human Rights Act effective Jan. 1, 2023. This addition will change the answer to the question because a Housing Choice Voucher will very likely be considered a source of income for a tenant applicant. In other words, housing providers will not be allowed to deny or limit housing to applicants based solely on their participation in the federal HCV.

Check back often for additional information on this important topic. Click below to read this recent Source of Income article from our September magazine.