Tenants who live in substandard housing and face evictions got a boost from Cook County Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Evans last week, when he issued a new order making it easier for them to gather evidence against their landlords.
The reform is one of several proposals stemming from the Injustice Watch series “The Tenant Trap,” which exposed how gaping inequities and legal loopholes give landlords an unfair advantage in court and often make it nearly impossible for tenants to assert their rights.
Evans’ new order, first promised when he was being interviewed for the five-part series in July, directs the clerk of the circuit court to quickly provide tenants facing evictions with information about unsafe conditions lawsuits against the owners of their buildings.
For decades, Illinois tenants have had a right to withhold rent from landlords who fail to improve unsafe conditions. Injustice Watch found they are rarely successful in asserting this right because of the legal and bureaucratic complexities — and sometimes overt judicial bias — surrounding it. Most tenants facing eviction are not represented by attorneys in court, while most landlords are.
“There’s a question of a balance of capability here,” Evans said during a July 30 interview with Injustice Watch. “I recognize that in many instances, these tenants who are the subject of an eviction case come without any lawyers at all, without any representation at all, and they are at a disadvantage.”
How to get information about your landlord
Here’s what Chief Judge Timothy Evans’ order says about how Cook County tenants facing eviction can request housing court information on their building:
- Email CivilDivServices@cookcountycourt.com.
- In the subject line, include “Code Violation Inquiry” and the property address of the inquiry (for example, “Code Violation Inquiry — 123 Main Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60601”).
- In the body of the email, write that you’re requesting building code violations for the property address.
- (If the property is part of a building that has multiple addresses or an address range, include all known addresses.)
- If you have it, include a property identification number (PIN), or other unique IDs from an eviction case. Include the name of the property owner if you know it, too.
He said the purpose of the order was to connect housing and eviction cases, “so that the problems in these housing cases can provide the basis for an affirmative defense in the eviction case.”
While applauding Evans’ move, some tenant advocates argued it falls short by forcing the clerk’s employees to research lawsuits. Instead, they said, landlords should be forced to disclose their code violation to tenants when they file eviction cases — a more strident measure, which could require new state legislation or changes to the rules of evidence.
Evans’ order does not change the rules of evidence in eviction court or change how eviction court judges weigh such evidence, but it could empower tenants with more information to bolster claims about substandard conditions when they are facing evictions.
Specifically, the order requires the court clerk to provide information on any pending code violations in housing court to anyone involved in an eviction case at the same address. It gives the clerk 48 hours to conduct the research and respond with results via email in cases where the requestor is facing a pending eviction order. The clerk has five days to complete this work when the request is less urgent.
In its yearlong investigation, Injustice Watch uncovered a skewed justice system on either side of the landlord-tenant contract. A range of state and local laws require landlords to provide safe, code-compliant housing in exchange for rents. But the court system tasked with enforcing these laws tends to work against tenants and in favor of landlords.
Injustice Watch found Chicago eviction court proceedings, mostly for unpaid rent, tend to move 10 times faster than code enforcement cases against the same landlords in housing court.
While most eviction cases result in eviction orders or tenants agreeing to move out in exchange for the lawsuit being dropped, housing court cases against landlords can drag on for years. Property owners often receive near-endless opportunities to bring their buildings into compliance, Injustice Watch found.
Though some housing court cases end with hefty fines, building closures, or receivers appointed to run a landlord’s business, housing court judges and other stakeholders say the goal is not punishment but getting properties into compliance with the building code.
Though tenants have legal protections from eviction when they withhold rent because of bad conditions, asserting those rights is difficult and risky, Injustice Watch found.
“The Tenant Trap” identified hundreds of buildings in Chicago where tenants faced eviction at the same time the city was suing their landlords over unsafe conditions. Even tenants who attempt to bring up conditions in their buildings to eviction court judges are often unaware the city is suing over similar issues just three floors down in the same building.
Although all the searches involved in Evans’ order are a matter of public record, tenants often either do not know how to use the clerk’s computerized record-keeping system or are unable to visit the clerk’s office in person to ask for help. Evans’ order creates a new system to make the requests — via email at CivilDivServices@cookcountycourt.com — and requires the clerk to provide the information quickly.
An Odyssey of record keeping
In a recent interview, Carmen Navarro Gercone, the executive clerk of court operations, said the clerk of the circuit court agreed with the intent of Evans’ order, but connecting cases in eviction and housing court presents challenges. Some buildings are so large they have several addresses.
Gercone said searches for complete information on pending housing court cases against any given address is time-consuming, and it is difficult to guarantee a full picture of all the code violation lawsuits at any given property. She advised potential requesters to provide as much information as possible to aid in the search, such as the name of the property owner and all address ranges for a building, especially if it is located on the corner of two streets.
Cook County has paid more than $40 million since 2017 to Tyler Technologies, a Texas-based publicly traded company, for its Odyssey software to store and organize court records. Every court case filed in the county is digitized through Odyssey, yet there’s no simple way to connect housing and eviction court cases in the software, according to Gercone.
“I can enter ‘Carmen Gercone’ and check in Odyssey, and any case against me in any area of law will come up because of my name,” she said. “It will not search that way with just an address.”
When asked whether the software is capable of generating these links, a spokesperson for Tyler Technologies responded the Odyssey system can be configured in a variety of ways “based on the client’s use and need,” but added “we only discuss these technical arrangements with our clients.”
Legal advocates have other ideas
After Injustice Watch first reported Evans’ proposal in August, it caught the attention of tenant advocates. In late September, the Law Center for Better Housing sent the chief judge a letter voicing support for the spirit of Evans’ proposed order but suggesting Evans go further.
Citing the nonprofit firm’s extensive experience representing tenants in eviction court and housing court, legal director Michelle Gilbert told Evans “the easiest solution” would actually be to require landlords to disclose information about any pending housing court cases against them when they file their eviction cases.
Landlords already must include a raft of documents with their eviction filings, including a copy of the lease, an affidavit about the lack of a lease, and copies of advance notices given to tenants that they may face eviction.
Making landlords disclose housing court cases would lessen the workload for the clerk, Gilbert said. She cited precedent for the disclosure of such information in the Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance, which requires landlords to report pending housing court cases to tenants when they renew leases.
In the letter, Gilbert also pitched Evans on a number of additional reforms to bolster tenant inclusion in housing court proceedings.
In an interview with Injustice Watch, Gilbert commended Evans on issuing the new order but said her organization had not heard back from the chief judge.
“As an advocate, generally you gotta knock on the door a lot of times,” she said. “I was excited to see the chief judge’s interest in the topic. … We will continue to advocate for court reform.”
Robert Kahn, a partner at a prominent local firm that represents landlords, said he didn’t think the chief judge could create new requirements for case filing — typically something controlled by the state Legislature.
“In my experience, the vast majority of building court cases are frequently filed for matters that have nothing to do with habitability issues that would affect the tenants,” Kahn wrote in an email. He said such a requirement would also unfairly complicate the eviction court process for landlords who aren’t represented by attorneys.
Cook County eviction data shows some 80% of landlords have attorneys in eviction court, while 80% of tenants do not, according to an analysis by Injustice Watch and the Law Center for Better Housing.
Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of low-income Chicago tenants have gotten access to free attorneys through the Right to Counsel pilot program, but funding for it is currently set to expire in a year.
“Serious conditions issues not only impact the health of tenants, including some of Chicago’s most vulnerable residents, but also lead to more evictions, as tenants will understandably withhold rent when the landlord refuses or is unable to provide necessities, like heat or running water,” Gilbert said. Though tenants could benefit from Evans’ efforts to improve access to information, “what the tenant really needs is to have an advocate.”
HOUSING
The Tenant Trap
A yearlong Injustice Watch investigation found tenants are regularly facing eviction and informal displacement at buildings with histories of serious safety violations, while the court system puts property rights above the rights of the people who live there.
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