To file a motion to seal an eviction in Illinois, you submit a Motion to Remove Eviction Court File from Public Record in the same circuit court that handled the original case, and you either invoke one of the mandatory sealing categories under 735 ILCS 5/9-121 or argue that the landlord’s case was substantially without basis in fact or law. Which path you take decides almost everything about how the motion goes.
Figure Out Which Sealing Rule Applies to You
Illinois law splits eviction sealing into two tracks. On one track, the court has no discretion and must seal the file. On the other, you have to persuade a judge. Before drafting anything, identify which one fits your case, because the evidence you gather and the arguments you make are entirely different.
Mandatory Sealing
Under 735 ILCS 5/9-121, the court must seal an eviction file in three situations: the eviction was brought under Section 9-207.5 (certain tenant protections), the eviction stemmed from a foreclosure proceeding under Section 15-1701(h)(6), or the case was dismissed under Section 9-106 because the landlord improperly named a minor as a defendant.1Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 735 ILCS 5/9-121 – Sealing of Court File
The foreclosure category catches many tenants. If you were renting a home that went into foreclosure and the bank or new owner filed to evict you, the file should be sealed automatically. If it wasn’t, you can go to court and point to the mandatory language in the statute.
Discretionary Sealing
Outside those categories, the court may seal the file only if it finds all three of the following: the landlord’s original case was sufficiently without a basis in fact or law (including being filed in the wrong court), sealing is clearly in the interests of justice, and those interests outweigh the public’s interest in the record.2Justia Law. Illinois Code 735 ILCS 5 Article IX – Eviction
This is where many tenants misjudge their chances. The statute is not about how much the record has hurt your housing search or your credit. The focus is on the merit of the landlord’s original filing. Strong facts include a landlord who filed without proper notice, filed in the wrong jurisdiction, filed on plainly untrue facts, or lost because they couldn’t prove their claims. A case you settled or lost on the merits is much harder to seal.
COVID-19 Era Cases
Section 9-122 covers residential evictions filed between March 9, 2020 and March 31, 2022. Those files were required to be sealed automatically at filing, and cases pending when the law took effect were to be sealed by court order.2Justia Law. Illinois Code 735 ILCS 5 Article IX – Eviction The protection is strongest for cases based on nonpayment of rent during the emergency period. If the landlord won judgment in a case that was not about pandemic-era nonpayment, the court may unseal the file.
How to File the Motion
You file in the same circuit court where the original eviction was heard. Use the case number from that original case.
Complete the Statewide Form
Illinois Courts publishes a standardized form, the Motion to Remove Eviction Court File from Public Record.3Illinois Courts. Motion to Remove Eviction Court File from Public Record It asks for the case number, how the case ended, and your reasons for seeking sealing. A separate checkbox flags foreclosure-based cases, which triggers the mandatory sealing analysis.
For discretionary sealing, the form gives you room to explain why removing the case from public view matters. It lists housing difficulty, job difficulty, and credit problems as reasons you can select. Those reasons alone won’t clear the statutory bar, but they help the judge weigh the interests of justice once you’ve shown the landlord’s original case lacked merit.
If you’re filing without a lawyer, Illinois Legal Aid Online has a guided interview that fills out the forms based on your answers.4Illinois Legal Aid Online. Remove Eviction from Public Record (Easy Form)
Handle the Filing Fee
Civil motion filing fees vary by county. If you can’t afford the fee, submit an Application for Waiver of Court Fees with your motion. The Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Access to Justice has approved statewide fee waiver forms that every Illinois court must accept.5Office of the Illinois Courts. Approved Statewide Forms – Fee Waiver for Civil Cases The court decides based on your financial circumstances.
Serve the Landlord
You need to give the landlord notice of the motion. The statute doesn’t spell out a specific method, but practitioners recommend certified mail directly to the landlord rather than to the attorney who handled the original case, since that attorney is not automatically the attorney of record for a new sealing motion. If the landlord had no attorney, use certified mail to their last known address.
What Happens at the Hearing
After filing and service, the court sets a hearing date.
A mandatory sealing hearing is short. Show the court that your case falls into one of the three statutory categories, and the judge orders sealing. The landlord can appear and argue that the case doesn’t actually qualify, but if the facts support mandatory sealing, the court has no discretion to deny it.
A discretionary hearing is more involved. Bring evidence about the original case, not just your life since. Useful material includes the original case file showing a dismissal or a judgment in your favor, records of procedural defects, and anything showing the landlord filed in the wrong court or on facts that couldn’t hold up. The judge then weighs the interests of justice against the public’s interest in access. Tenants who walk in focused only on how hard it has been to find an apartment tend to lose. Tenants who walk in with specifics about why the landlord’s case should never have been filed have a real shot.
What Sealing Actually Does
Sealing limits who can see the court file. It is not expungement. The record still exists in the court system and could be unsealed by future court order, but for practical purposes it should be invisible to landlords and screening companies.
Under federal law, eviction cases can appear on tenant screening reports for up to seven years from the filing date, whether or not you were actually evicted.6Consumer Advice (Federal Trade Commission). Disputing Errors on Your Tenant Background Check Report Sealing is supposed to cut off that reporting by making the underlying record inaccessible.
Sealed records sometimes still surface. Background check companies pull court data at intervals, and a record that was public when scraped can linger in their databases. If a sealed eviction still appears on a screening report, send a written dispute to the background check company. If the file itself is still visible in court records after sealing, notify the clerk’s office in writing and consider filing another motion.7Illinois Legal Aid Online. What Happens If I Have an Eviction on My Record
Limits Worth Knowing
Sealing covers the court file only. It doesn’t erase news coverage, a landlord’s private records, or disclosures you already made on rental applications.
Sealing does not wipe out a money judgment. If the court ordered you to pay back rent or damages, you still owe it, the creditor can still collect, and the debt may still appear on your credit report through separate channels.
If your eviction involved federally assisted housing and drug-related criminal activity, federal regulations may impose a three-year bar on readmission to housing programs regardless of whether the state court file is sealed.8eCFR. 24 CFR 982.553 – Denial of Admission and Termination of Assistance for Criminals and Alcohol Abusers That restriction runs on its own track.