How to Complete and Deliver the Chicago Heating Cost Disclosure Form

Before you sign a lease or accept any money from a prospective tenant in Chicago, you must give them a completed Chicago Heating Cost Disclosure Form showing the unit’s heating costs for the previous twelve months, whenever the tenant will pay the heating utility directly. The requirement sits in Chapter 5-16 of the Chicago Municipal Code, the form is a free PDF from the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection, and the data on it has to come from the utility company that serves the property. A parallel rule applies to home sales.

When You Have to Provide It

The obligation attaches at a specific moment. For rentals, the completed disclosure must reach the prospective tenant before the owner or agent executes any oral or written lease, accepts application money, or enters a contract to lease a unit where the tenant will pay the heating utility directly.¹ Handing it over at lease signing is too late if you already took an application fee or deposit.

For sales, Section 5-16-050 requires the seller to give the buyer natural gas and electric cost information for the prior twelve months, and that information has to appear in the written sales contract itself.²

Step 1: Request the Heating Data from the Utility

You cannot fill in the dollar figures yourself. Only the utility company (or, in the narrow cases below, a qualified professional) can supply them. Download the combined Heating Cost Disclosure Form from the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection website. The form doubles as the request you send to the utility. Check the box for gas heat or electric heat; you need a separate application for each, and one request form per unit.³

For gas heat, submit the request through your My Account portal on the Peoples Gas website. If you don’t have an online account, email the completed form to hcd@peoplesgasdelivery.com. Only real estate agents or owners with authorized residential accounts can request disclosure data; you cannot pull it for a unit you don’t own or manage.⁴

For electric heat, submit through ComEd’s Energy Disclosure portal at ComEd.com/EnergyDisclosure, or fax the completed form to ComEd’s Central Correspondence Group at 630-684-2692.³ Do not send the form to the Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection. It goes only to the utility.

Step 2: Complete the Disclosure

Once the utility returns the figures, transfer them onto the approved form. The form captures the projected annual cost and the average monthly cost of utility service, based on actual energy consumption during the most recent twelve months of continuous occupancy, current or estimated rates, and normal weather patterns.⁵ Confirm that the property address and unit number match the unit being offered. A disclosure for the wrong unit is no disclosure at all.

For a Rental

The form has to state two things in writing: that the tenant will be directly responsible for paying heating costs, and the annual cost of service based on the previous twelve months of consumption.¹

For a Sale

Sellers have more format flexibility. Instead of the utility-completed form, you can satisfy the requirement with copies of actual utility bills, budget plan bills, payment receipts, or cancelled checks covering the previous twelve months.² Whichever format you use, the cost information must appear in the written sales contract. Also tell the buyer whether the unit was occupied during that twelve-month window and, if so, for how long.

If the building is centrally metered and you are selling a unit inside it, the disclosure must show the total cost and consumption for the whole building plus the amount allocated to the specific unit.⁵

New Construction or No Twelve-Month History

Some units have no usable history. New construction, recently converted heating systems, and long-vacant units all raise the same problem. In those situations, the owner must provide an estimate of the unit’s heating energy consumption instead of actual historical data.⁵

The estimate is not a guess you write in yourself. It must come from a utility company, a registered professional engineer, or an architect, and it must use the “degree day method” from the most current American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Handbook.⁵

Delivering the Form and Keeping Proof

The completed disclosure has to reach the prospective tenant or buyer before any written or verbal agreement to lease and before any money changes hands.⁵

Give the tenant a copy of the completed form and have them sign a Receipt for Disclosure confirming they received it.⁵ Keep your copy of that signed receipt; it is your proof of compliance if the tenant later claims they never saw the numbers. For a sale, the heating cost information embedded in the written contract serves the same documentary purpose.²

When the Form Is Not Required

The ordinance carves out two exceptions for rental transactions under Section 5-16-010(b). Neither depends on building size or whether the owner lives on site.

Renewing tenants: if the tenant already occupies the unit and was directly responsible for paying heating costs during the previous lease term, no new disclosure is needed at renewal.¹
Centrally heated units with shared costs: condominiums, cooperatives, and other units where the primary heat source is provided centrally by the landlord or building management and costs are shared indirectly, based on something like floor space rather than individual metering, are exempt.¹

Parallel exceptions apply to sales: no disclosure is required when the buyer is already a tenant in the unit who pays the utility directly, or when the unit is centrally heated with shared, indirectly billed costs.²

Units where heat is included in rent, or where the tenant is otherwise not directly responsible for a heating utility bill, fall outside the ordinance entirely because the triggering condition is never met.

What Happens If You Skip It

The Chicago Department of Consumer Services enforces the ordinance. If a tenant or buyer files a complaint, the department sends the landlord or seller a letter explaining the obligation and expecting a truthful disclosure to follow. If the owner still does not comply, or provides false information, the city will pursue prosecution. Where a disclosure was made but the tenant finds the costs unsatisfactory, the department will attempt to mediate between the parties.⁵

1
American Legal Publishing. Municipal Code of Chicago 5-16-010 – Lease – Disclosure and Acknowledgment Required – Exceptions
2
American Legal Publishing. Municipal Code of Chicago 5-16-050 – Sale or Transfer – Disclosures Required – Exceptions
3
City of Chicago. Chicago Heating Cost Disclosure Form
4
Peoples Gas. Heating Cost Disclosure
5
City of Chicago. Chicago Heating Cost Disclosure Rules