Illinois REALTORS® talks with Mike Scobey, director of local advocacy, who explains the background to a lawsuit filed by a property owner in Sauk Village. The suburban Cook County municipality has outsourced inspections, creating a process that the plaintiffs in the lawsuit says is unfair and not legal. Learn why Sauk Village’s actions infringe on private property rights, and what residents there are facing when it comes to pre-sale inspections.

Full transcript:

Jon Broadbooks:

Illinois REALTORS® is engaged in advocacy on behalf of property owners and practitioners throughout the state. Often, this means the association is working in communities, large and small. One of these communities is the Cook County suburb of Sauk Village which has just more than 10,500 residents and right now, Illinois REALTORS® is closely monitoring a lawsuit which has been filed in that community, which pertains to private property rights. Joining me is Mike Scobey, director of local advocacy for Illinois REALTORS®.

Mike, tell me what’s going on here.

Mike Scobey:

Well, Jon, last year, the village of Sauk Village, which, as you said, is in South Cook County, they made some really drastic negative changes in the way that they do their inspection program. The Village for several years had been doing a Point-of-Sale Home Inspection Ordinance, and they also did rental inspections.

We don’t think that the Village actually has the appropriate authority to be doing these inspections. First of all, they had no real ordinance on the books. They actually didn’t write anything down about how they were going to be doing these inspections and specifically, the changes that they were making. When they were asked to produce an actual authorizing ordinance, they produced an ordinance from 1975, and so we didn’t think, and we looked at it and said, “This doesn’t really apply to the changes that they made.”

Jon Broadbooks:

What were some of the changes they were looking at making?

Mike Scobey:

Well, the first one that they instituted was they don’t hire their own inspector. They delegated this function to an outside inspection company. Now not only does this violate state law, but it kind of makes it impossible to know exactly the scope of these inspections. Because typically, with a municipal inspection program, they provide information about what they’re going to be looking for, but Sauk Village delegated this authority to this company and we have no idea what the nature or the scope of the inspections is.

Also, it’s worth noting that Sauk Village is not home rule, so they have to follow the state law, and that requires them to hire their own inspector. One other big change is that with the delegation to this outside company, they instituted higher inspection fees for sellers. Now another problem with how they’re doing this now in Sauk Village is there’s no real due process with this program. As an example of that, there’s no owner consent provision, no process by which they ask for consent from the owner. And this is a constitutional issue that we talk about a lot, that you have to, at a minimum, be getting consent from the owner before you inspect their property.

Now as a result of all these changes, we were hearing from REALTORS® who work in Sauk Village that some sales are actually being held up, particularly in the point-of-sale area. Inspections were taking longer and, again, there was a lack of clarity in what they’re going to be looking for and what they were requiring, so this meant delays in the transaction process.

Mike Scobey:

This is a major focus of a lot of our advocacy at the local level and, that is, restrictions on the transferability of property. If there’s going to be an inspection program, you should be least restrictive as possible and have reasonable fees. With all these changes and all of these problems in Sauk Village, it’s pretty clear that they violated everything that we hold dear as it relates to property rights.

Jon Broadbooks:

You mentioned that there was a lawsuit that had been filed. Can you tell me a little bit about the lawsuit and what is that lawsuit seeking?

Mike Scobey:

Yeah. Shortly after the first of the year, there was a lawsuit initiated by a plaintiff, and this is a person who’s actually an owner of affected properties and was aggrieved with these new changes in Sauk Village. The lawsuit is intending to get Sauk Village to change its practices, to reform its process and have clearer standards and a clearer idea of what the Village is going to be inspecting and they use municipal inspectors. Hopefully, through the lawsuit, the Village Board will institute a clear and better ordinance on its inspection procedures.*

Jon Broadbooks:

When you talk to people in Sauk Village, I’m betting a lot of them had no clue this policy was even being enacted.

Mike Scobey:

Yeah, that’s right. We tried to make homeowners more aware of these changes and that they should speak up to their elected officials in that town. Last fall, the Illinois REALTORS® and the Mainstreet Organization of REALTORS®, we did a mailer to homeowners and we were urging them to do just that, to speak up and say that this process of inspections was not working very well and trampling all over property rights.

Mike Scobey:

We also did a Call for Action to our members. We noticed that this did get some attention from the local officials there, but I think they were hoping that after a while, owners and REALTORS® would just forget about it and calm down and just accept these changes.

Jon Broadbooks:

We’ve been talking with Mike Scobey, director of local advocacy for Illinois REALTORS®. Mike is updating us on a lawsuit which we are monitoring and which has been filed by a plaintiff who owns property and manages property in Sauk Village.

Thanks for joining us, Mike.