State Specific Question About: ILLINOIS (IL)

This is not a state type question. BK is federal and they -- the BK court-- take their job seriously.

THEY CAN NOT BE EVICTED-- until and unless you get the stay lifted. THE STAY means everything prior to eviction is frozen. If you have court scheduled for non pay-- your toast---- you have to contact an atty who can get the BK lifted for the eviction process-- costs about 5K in atty fees-- plus your lost rent. Move forward knowing they're in BK and it will cost you $5K in fines and $5K to get the stay lifted.

6bye of course you are still required to make repairs and maintenance calls-- if you don't you're in violation of LL tenant law and BK. You can't punish the tenant because they file BK.

If tenant owes you money DO NOT CONTACT THEM. The trustee is the contact point-- and not by LL either. They will talk to your atty if he knows his way around the BK court.

Why are you all having a hard time comprehending tenants and BK?

Maybe you all need a tenant in BK to wear you out financially so you'll investigate what BK is really about.

Here's a ploy of a tenant in BK. They don't tell the BK court about you the LL and money owed. you get all the way to court date for eviction and tenant mentions to magistrate judge-- I'm in BK-- it's like the world has stopped spinning. EVERYTHING stops. You have to partition the BK trustee to lift the stay and HERE'S THE GOOD PART-- you have to hope the BK trustee doesn't slap you with the 5K fine for trying to evict. So you say "but I didn't even know" well isn't that to bad-- you should have since it's public knowledge. In the meantime the Tenant who should have told the BK court about you-- gets no scolding at all-- trustee says oh they forgot!!!!! YEA forgot they had a LL? really???

I'm telling you this from experience-- read this twice.

Years ago once the courts had eviction cases filed, legal groups would buy the list and sent letters to tenants, Hire us and never pay rent to your landlord again -- stay as long as six months rent free. Their number 1 tactic was to file a fraudulent bankruptcy.

Thank you myob. I didn't mean to aggravate you. When you said the tenant could not be contacted, I just wanted to clarify that it applied to not contacting them about finances(rent or eviction)and did not mean you could not contact them period. If you are going to continue to inspect the house and make repairs you obviously need to be able to communicate with them about those things. RIGHT?

What happens if you can't get the stay lifted? Then they get to live in your house for free? For how long? Can you ever evict?

Thank you for your time in answering my many questions. I just want to get the details clear in my head.

Six not aggravated at all. Fact is love your questions.

Six yea you can't call and ask about things like "where's my money" or did you get my bill? It kinda aggravates to have to keep maintaining and servicing them when there not paying for sure.

If it's a legit debt-- for rent-- I don't think when filed correctly it will be denied. Hate to say NEVER. It can take 2 months -- keep in mind that's not to evict-- its to proceed with what you had already started.

MYOB,

Great topic! Thanks for the info.

It is my understanding (correct me if Im wrong) that the LL needs to get listed in the BK filing. When the BK judge starts splitting up the tenants monthly income to pay bills, housing is one of the priority items. You may not get full rent but you should get part.

Sounds like a timing game. Get all your eviction filings started, then check for BK just prior to court. IF no BK, out they go. If BK, you can cancel the hearing due to BK, then get the trustee to list you in the BK filing so you are "in line" for $$.

When the BK gets dismissed, you go forward with eviction.

Thank you myob.

Hammer here's the issue. We had a tenant who didn't list us on their filing. Do you think the BK clerk would have asked-- where's your housing expense-- rent or mort? No we're told its not for clerk to ask-- applicant must fill out truthfully. Yea right truthfully.

So guess what Hammer-- since we're not listed by BK tenant-- we don't have any idea tenant is in BK-- why cause the court didn't know to contact us. Are you seeing the picture? So we get to the set out and tenant now tells Sheriff -- oh I'm in BK. STOP STOP STOP EVERYTHING. We can't proceed because tenant is in BK. We didn't know because the tenant didn't list us. So we have to hire an atty- he goes to BK court and gets stay lifted and 6 weeks later she's evicted.

We wanted something done about tenant lying on BK application-- BUT NO-- CLERK SAYS SHE JUST FORGOT????? What forgot? she wasn't living on the street-- you never asked her???