Illinois Condominium Property Act: Owner Rights, Assessments, Liens

The Illinois Condominium Property Act, found at 765 ILCS 605, is the state statute that controls how condominiums are created, governed, financed, and enforced in Illinois. It tells developers how to record a condominium into existence, tells boards how to budget and levy assessments, tells owners what records and notices they are entitled to receive, and tells everyone what happens when an owner stops paying. If you own a unit, sit on a board, or are about to buy in, almost every recurring question about condo life traces back to a provision of this Act.¹

What the Act Covers

The statute is organized around the life cycle of a condominium. It governs the recorded declaration that creates the property, the percentage of ownership interest attached to each unit, the powers of the board of managers, the annual budget process, insurance minimums, resale disclosures, and the association’s lien rights when owners fall behind. It also sets procedural floors: notice periods, voting thresholds, and petition rights that unit owners can use to push back on board decisions.

Rights You Have as a Unit Owner

Access to Association Records

Section 19 requires the association to keep its books at its principal office, with financial records preserved for 10 fiscal years and meeting minutes for 7 years. You can submit a written request to inspect these records, and the board has 10 business days to comply. If nothing arrives in that window, the law treats the silence as a denial, and you can go to court to force disclosure.²

The provision has teeth because of fee-shifting. If you win an enforcement action to compel access to most categories of records, the association must pay your reasonable attorney fees and costs. For voting records specifically, fees are recoverable only if the court finds the board acted in bad faith.²

Notice of Meetings and Assessment Votes

Bylaws must provide for an annual meeting where owners elect the board. You must also get notice of any board meeting where the board plans to adopt the annual budget, set regular assessments, or approve a special assessment, using the same procedures required for general membership meetings.³

The 115 Percent Rule

If the total of all regular and special assessments for the current fiscal year would exceed 115 percent of the prior year’s total assessments, the board has to expose that increase to unit-owner review. Owners holding 20 percent of the votes can call a meeting, and the increase stands unless a majority of the total votes of all owners reject it. This is the built-in brake on runaway assessment hikes.³

Petition Rights on Big Spending and New Rules

Before adopting new rules and regulations, the board must call a unit-owner meeting to discuss the proposal, and the meeting notice must include the full text. Owners don’t get a veto, but the board has to hear from them first.⁴

A separate guardrail applies to discretionary capital spending. If the board approves a common-element improvement that is not a legally mandated fix or an emergency repair, and it exceeds 5 percent of the annual budget, owners holding 20 percent of the votes can petition within 21 days to force a membership vote. The expenditure goes forward unless a majority of all unit owners reject it.⁴

The Board of Managers

The board handles day-to-day operations. Members must be unit owners, and if multiple people co-own a single unit, only one of them may serve at a time. Every seat is elected at large, so all owners vote on all seats.³

No term can exceed two years, and at least one-third of the seats must be up for election every year. There is no limit on consecutive terms. If a seat opens mid-term, the remaining members can fill it by a two-thirds vote, but owners holding 20 percent of the votes can petition for a special election instead.⁵

Section 18.4 gives the board authority to operate and maintain the common elements, prepare and adopt the annual budget, levy and collect assessments, hire and fire staff or a management company, adopt rules governing use of the property, and buy, sell, or lease units the association acquires.⁴

The Budget and How Assessments Are Divided

Every unit owner must receive a copy of the proposed annual budget at least 25 days before the board adopts it. The budget must show what goes to reserves, capital expenditures, repairs, and real estate taxes. After the fiscal year closes, the board must send owners an itemized accounting of actual expenses against budget, showing any surplus or deficit.³

Common expenses are split among owners in proportion to the percentage of ownership interest set in the declaration. Regular assessments cover routine costs; special assessments cover unexpected repairs or capital projects. The 115 percent rule above applies to the combined total.⁶

The Act requires the budget to identify amounts set aside for reserves, but it does not fix a minimum reserve level. That is left to the association.

Falling Behind: Liens and Foreclosure

When an owner stops paying assessments or fines, the unpaid balance, plus interest, late charges, attorney fees, and collection costs, automatically becomes a lien on the unit. Under Section 9, that lien has priority over almost every other claim against the property, except government tax liens and first mortgages or trust deeds recorded before the delinquency.⁶

The association can record a notice of lien and then foreclose on the unit the same way a mortgage lender would. Before starting legal action, it must give at least 30 days’ written notice stating the amount owed, the due date, and the payment deadline. The association can also pursue eviction through the courts.⁶

If a unit is sold at a judicial foreclosure sale to someone other than the foreclosing lender, the buyer must pay the unit’s proportionate share of common expenses for the six months right before the foreclosure action, to the extent those charges remain unpaid.⁶

Insurance the Association Must Carry

Section 12 sets mandatory minimums. No insurance policy can be issued or renewed to an association unless it meets them:

Property insurance covering the common elements, units (including bare walls, floors, and ceilings unless the board decides otherwise), and limited common elements. The policy must provide special-form coverage at full insurable replacement cost, including enough to rebuild in compliance with current building codes. Demolition and increased construction costs must be covered, with a combined minimum of 10 percent of each insured building’s value or $500,000, whichever is less.
Commercial general liability insurance of at least $1,000,000 for claims arising from the ownership, use, or management of the property, covering the board, the association, and the management agent.

The declaration can require additional coverage, such as workers’ compensation, employment practices liability, or equipment breakdown insurance.⁷

The association’s policy must name each owner as an insured with respect to liability arising from the common elements, and the insurer must waive subrogation against unit owners and the association. If the insurer pays a claim, it cannot turn around and sue individual owners for reimbursement.⁷

The master policy does not cover the interior of your unit, your personal property, or your personal liability. That is what a separate HO-6 condo policy is for, and loss assessment coverage can help pay your share when a special assessment follows a loss that exceeds the master policy’s limits or falls within its deductible.

Resale Disclosures When You’re Buying or Selling

Section 22.1 requires the seller of a resale unit (not a developer selling a new unit) to obtain specific information from the board and make it available to the buyer on request. The board has 10 business days to produce it. The required disclosures include:

Copies of the declaration, bylaws, rules, and regulations.
A statement of any unpaid assessments or liens on the unit, the most recent financial statement, and any capital expenditures the board expects in the current or next two fiscal years.
The amount in the replacement reserve fund and whether any portion is earmarked for a specific project.
The status of any pending lawsuits or judgments involving the association.
A summary of the association’s insurance coverage.
A good-faith statement that improvements to the unit or its limited common elements comply with the condominium instruments.

li>The name and mailing address of the association’s principal officer or designated agent for notices.

The reserve balance and pending-litigation disclosures deserve close reading before closing. A thin reserve fund often precedes special assessments, and open litigation can turn into shared cost.⁸

How a Condominium Is Created and Amended

A condominium comes into legal existence when the property owner records a declaration, together with a plat prepared by a registered Illinois land surveyor, with the county recorder. Section 3 requires this before any units can be sold. Section 4 spells out what the declaration must contain: a legal description of the property, each unit’s percentage of ownership interest in the common elements (calculated based on the unit’s value relative to the whole and fixed unless every owner agrees to change it), and a description of the common and limited common elements.¹

Amending the declaration or bylaws requires a two-thirds vote of those voting at a properly noticed meeting, or whatever higher threshold the condominium instruments specify, capped at three-fourths of all unit owners. No declaration can demand unanimous consent for ordinary amendments.⁹

If mortgagees or lienholders must approve an amendment under the condominium instruments, they get 60 days after a certified-mail request to respond, and silence counts as approval. For scrivener’s errors or math inconsistencies in percentage interests, the board can correct the document with a two-thirds board vote, but owners holding 20 percent of the votes can petition within 30 days to bring the correction to a membership meeting.⁹

Buildings Still Under Developer Control

Until the first unit-owner-controlled board is elected, the developer holds all the powers the Act assigns to the board. Section 18.2 sets a deadline for handing over control: the election of the first unit-owner board must happen no later than 60 days after the developer has conveyed 75 percent of the units, or three years after recording the declaration, whichever comes first.¹

The developer must give at least 21 days’ notice of the election meeting. If the developer misses the deadline, owners holding 20 percent of the votes can call the meeting themselves. Within 60 days after the first unit-owner board is elected, the developer must turn over all original documents, including the declaration, bylaws, articles of incorporation, financial records, contracts, insurance policies, and association funds.¹

If you are buying into a new development still under developer control, look hard at whether assessments are set to cover the building’s actual operating costs, and read any long-term contracts (management, laundry, cable) the developer has signed, because the new board will inherit them.

A Note on Disputes and Fair Housing

The Act does not prescribe a single method for resolving disputes. Conflicts can be handled internally, through mediation or arbitration if the parties agree, or in court. The fee-shifting provisions in Sections 9 and 19 are the practical lever for individual owners: they let a records or assessment fight actually pay for itself if the owner is right.

Federal law also sits on top of the Act. Under the Fair Housing Act, associations must grant reasonable accommodations for residents with disabilities, most commonly a request for an assistance animal (including an emotional support animal) as an exception to a no-pets rule. The association generally must allow the accommodation unless it would impose an undue burden or the specific animal poses a direct safety threat, and it cannot charge a pet deposit or fee for an assistance animal.¹⁰

1
Illinois General Assembly. Condominium Property Act – Illinois Compiled Statutes
2
Illinois General Assembly. 765 ILCS 605/19 – Records of the Association
3
Illinois General Assembly. 765 ILCS 605/18 – Contents of Bylaws
4
Illinois General Assembly. 765 ILCS 605/18.4 – Powers and Duties of Board of Managers
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Illinois General Assembly. 765 ILCS 605/18 – Contents of Bylaws
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Illinois General Assembly. 765 ILCS 605/9 – Sharing of Expenses
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Illinois General Assembly. 765 ILCS 605/12 – Insurance
8
Illinois General Assembly. 765 ILCS 605/22.1 – Resale Disclosures
9
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Compiled Statutes 765 ILCS 605/27 – Condominium Property Act
10
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Assistance Animals