As more and more of my clients are buying foreclosed properties, the question of who is responsible for paying unpaid condo assessments keeps coming up. Buyers feel that it should not be their problem; after all, they didn’t own the property when the assessments became due. Associations, on the other hand, want their money; they don’t particularly care where it comes from. Because homeowners’ associations require payment of assessments by all unit owners in order to meet their budget and keep their property in good repair, the Illinois legislature has sided with them on this issue. The Illinois Condominium Property Act states that if you buy foreclosed property from the bank, you are responsible for assessments for the six months immediately prior to when the association instituted legal action to collect the assessment, assuming that such assessment is still unpaid. Take note: if the homeowner did not pay assessment for… read more →
The law states that if the seller of residential property in Illinois fails or refuses to provide the Illinois Residential Real Property Disclosure prior to the sale of the property, the buyer has the right to terminate the contract (765 ILCS 77/55). This is bad news for sellers — what if they simply forgot to provide the disclosure? The law doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter why the seller didn’t provide the Residential Real Property Disclosure or whether he was acting in good or bad faith. As long as the seller did not give the disclosure to the buyer, the buyer can opt out of the transaction. While this issue is not litigated often, it did come up just recently. In Muir v. Merano, 378 Ill.App.3d 1103 (5th Dist. 2008), the buyer repeatedly asked the seller for the disclosure statement, but the seller never delivered it. The buyer then terminated the… read more →
Typically, even when you buy property “as-is”, the seller has a duty to disclose latent material defects. Furthermore, if the seller misrepresents facts to the buyer, the buyer has the right to sue after closing. But buyers beware, a recent Illinois case has held that if you agree to buy property as-is, you are really buying it as-is, and if you learn something about the condition of the property after closing and decide to go after the seller for failing to tell you about it, you may very well lose. Kopley Group V, LP v. Sheridan Edgewater Properties, Ltd., 376 Ill.App.3d 1006 (1st Dist. 2007) illustrates this point. In Kopley, the buyer purchased a large residential/commercial building as-is. The contract allowed the buyer time to inspect the property, and if the buyer was not satisfied after his inspections, he could cancel the contract and receive a full refund of his… read more →
Because of the severe storms, flooding and tornadoes in the midwest, the IRS is providing extensions to people or entities attempting a 1031 exchange in certain affected counties in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin. These extensions will allow people to search for or close on appropriate exchange properties without missing the strict IRS deadlines (45 days from the date of your original sale to identify exchange property, and 180 days from the date of your original sale to close — for more general information on the 1031 exchange process, click here). So who is eligible for these extensions? Well, first of all, you must be an affected potential exchangor. An affected potential exchangor is anyone (a) who lives in or has its primary place of business in one of the affected counties (see the list below) or (b) who keeps his books or records in an affected county, or… read more →