Free Illinois Residential Lease Agreement

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A configurable Illinois residential lease agreement that generates a signable multi-page PDF. Built to the 2024 security deposit rewrite, the unit-count thresholds that decide which Illinois Acts apply, and the three disclosures most Illinois templates leave out.

Illinois 765 ILCS 705 & 710 2024 Deposit Rules Free PDF 2026 Edition

An Illinois residential lease agreement is not governed by a single landlord-tenant act, because Illinois does not have one. It is governed by roughly a dozen separate Acts — the Landlord and Tenant Act at 765 ILCS 705, the Security Deposit Return Act at 765 ILCS 710, the Security Deposit Interest Act at 765 ILCS 715, the Residential Tenants’ Right to Repair Act at 765 ILCS 742, the Safe Homes Act at 765 ILCS 750, the utility Acts at 765 ILCS 735 and 765 ILCS 740, and the Eviction Article at 735 ILCS 5 — and here is the thing that decides everything on this page: most of them carry their own scope test. Some apply to every landlord. One starts at twenty-five units. One stops at six owner-occupied units. One applies only in Cook County. So an Illinois lease cannot state the law until it knows what the landlord owns, which is exactly what the form below asks first.

Complete the fields below to generate an Illinois residential lease agreement as a signable multi-page PDF. Every field you fill is written into the document, and the generated lease cites the controlling Illinois section at each point — including the unit-count answers that decide which Acts bind you. Before handing over keys, run proper tenant screening. Pair the signed lease with an Illinois move-in / move-out checklist, which in this state is your best defence against the double-damages rule: an agreed condition record at move-in is what makes a deduction defensible at move-out.

Yes — since January 1, 2024. Public Act 103-224 amended 765 ILCS 710/1 and removed the words that had limited the Act to a lessor of residential real property “containing 5 or more units.” Read the current section on the General Assembly’s own site and the opening words are simply “a lessor of residential real property who has received a security deposit from a lessee.” There is no unit count anywhere in the Act.

The practical consequence is large and almost entirely unreported. A very great many Illinois landlords own one house, one condominium or a two-flat, and for fifty years they were outside the deposit statute entirely: no statutory deadline, no statutory itemization duty, no statutory penalty. All three now apply to them. A landlord who has been operating on the old understanding — and who reads any of the currently ranking Illinois pages — is exposed to a penalty of twice the deposit that did not exist for them two years ago.

The same Public Act made two other changes worth knowing. It added electronic mail to the permitted delivery methods for the itemized statement, provided the tenant supplied a verified email address. And it added the rule that where a written lease specifies the cost of cleaning, repair or replacement of a building component or amenity that will not be replaced if damaged, the landlord may withhold that specified amount — but the itemized statement must reference it and attach a copy of the relevant part of the lease. That is a drafting instruction: fixed charges have to be in the lease before they can come out of the deposit. See our Illinois security deposit laws guide.

Two deadlines run at once, and they do different jobs. Within 30 days of the later of the date the tenant vacated or the date the tenant’s right of possession ended, the landlord must furnish an itemized statement of the damage allegedly caused and the estimated or actual cost of repairing or replacing each item, with the paid receipts or copies attached. Delivery may be personal, by postmarked mail to the last known address, or by email to a verified address the tenant provided.

If an estimate is given rather than an actual cost, the paid receipts must follow within a further 30 days of the statement. If receipts genuinely cannot be produced through no fault of the landlord, the landlord must instead produce an itemized list of the cost, any other evidence of it, and a verified statement explaining specifically why the receipts are unavailable.

And if no statement and receipts are furnished as the section requires, the landlord must return the deposit in full within 45 days of the date the tenant vacated. That is the second deadline: it is not a grace period on the first one, it is the consequence of missing it. There is one relief valve for landlords — if the tenant fails to give a mailing address or an email address, the landlord is not liable for damages or penalties resulting from that failure. Build the accounting with our Illinois security deposit itemization form and send it with an Illinois deposit return letter.

The penalty is twice the deposit — but only on both limbs. Section 710/1(c) requires a circuit court finding that the lessor refused to supply the itemized statement, or supplied it in bad faith, and failed or refused to return the amount due within the time limits. A landlord who sends a defensible statement a few days late has not met that test. A landlord who sends nothing, or invents damage, has. Court costs and reasonable attorney fees ride on top.

Two more provisions matter when property changes hands. Under 765 ILCS 710/1.1 a transferee of the property becomes liable to the tenant for the deposit and any prepaid rent, and the transferor remains jointly and severally liable alongside them — selling the building does not discharge the old landlord. Under 765 ILCS 710/1.2, on a foreclosure, the certificate or deed holder or purchaser who takes actual possession of the deposits becomes liable for them and must post written notice on the primary entrance of each affected unit within 21 days.

Only those with 25 or more units — and this is the threshold that survived. The Security Deposit Interest Act at 765 ILCS 715/1 applies to a lessor of residential real property containing 25 or more units in either a single building or a complex of buildings located on contiguous parcels of real property, and only to a deposit held for more than six months.

Read the scope wording carefully, because it is not a portfolio test. Twenty-five units scattered across a city in separate buildings do not trigger it; twenty-five units in one building, or in a complex of buildings on contiguous parcels, do. That distinction is the most commonly mis-stated part of the Illinois deposit rules after the five-unit myth itself.

The rate is not a figure any template can print. It is the interest paid by the largest commercial bank, as measured by total assets, having its main banking premises in Illinois, on minimum deposit passbook savings accounts, as of December 31 of the calendar year immediately preceding the inception of the rental agreement. It changes annually and it depends on when the lease started, which is why the form above asks the landlord to enter the verified rate rather than guessing one.

Payment runs on its own clock under 765 ILCS 715/2: within 30 days after the end of each twelve month rental period, the lessor pays any interest that has accumulated to five dollars or more, in cash or as a credit against rent, except while the tenant is in default. All accumulated unpaid interest is payable on termination regardless of amount. A wilful failure or refusal to pay makes the lessor liable for an amount equal to the security deposit — the deposit once, not twice, which is a different and lesser penalty than the Return Act’s. The Interest Act does not apply to deposits made with respect to public housing. Document it with our Illinois deposit interest payment notice.

No to both, at state level, today. We read the Security Deposit Return Act and the Security Deposit Interest Act in full, section by section, on the General Assembly’s site. Neither contains a maximum. There is no other Illinois statute capping a residential security deposit, and no Illinois statute capping a residential late fee or setting a statutory grace period. Illinois regulates what a landlord must do with a deposit, not how large it may be.

That will begin to change. Section 35 of the Landlord and Tenant Act, added by Public Act 104-479, takes effect January 1, 2027 and is the first statewide limit on rental fees Illinois has enacted. From that date every non-optional fee, one-time or recurring, must appear explicitly on the first page of the lease or the tenant is not liable for it; listings must disclose the fees and say whether utilities are included; and a specific list of charges is banned outright, including any fee or fine for modifying or renewing a lease, for an eviction notice or filing before a court grants an order, for after-hours maintenance requests, for contacting the owner or manager, for maintenance travel, for a maintenance hotline, for routine upkeep, for pest abatement the tenant did not cause, and for a move-in or move-out walk-through. It also caps the rental application fee. True to Illinois form, it exempts owner-occupied premises containing six units or fewer. It is not in force yet, and any page telling you it is today is wrong. Our Illinois late fee laws guide and Illinois rent increase laws cover the drafting.

Two rent-collection rules already apply. Under 765 ILCS 705/4 a landlord may not require a tenant to pay by electronic funds transfer, including a recurring automatic debit, and a violation is an unlawful practice under the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act. Under 765 ILCS 705/3.5, where a landlord uses a third-party payment portal that charges a transaction fee, the tenant must be allowed to pay by paper check or cash at the landlord’s business office, or by some other route that carries no fee. And under 735 ILCS 5/9-218, a landlord of 100 or more units in one building or a contiguous complex who runs an on-site office with scheduled hours must accept rent there without penalty, and a conflicting lease clause is void.

None under state law — and that is not an omission on this page. There is no landlord access or entry section anywhere in Illinois statute. Not in the Landlord and Tenant Act, not in the Right to Repair Act, not in the utility Acts, not in the Eviction Article. Illinois sets no notice period before entry, no limit on hours, and no statewide prohibition on abusing the right of access.

Almost every Illinois lease template on the internet nonetheless prints a two-day notice rule. That figure is real, but it is Chicago Municipal Code 5-12-050, a city ordinance, and it binds a landlord in Rockford or Carbondale no more than a Wisconsin statute would. Outside a municipality with its own ordinance, whatever notice an Illinois tenant receives before entry exists only because the lease creates it.

That has a direct drafting consequence: a silent Illinois lease leaves the question to general property principles and to whatever the parties can argue afterwards, which serves neither side. The form above therefore asks you to choose an entry notice period, and the generated lease creates it as an enforceable contractual term with an emergency exception. See Illinois landlord entry laws, and document each visit with a dated Illinois notice to enter form.

One entry-adjacent duty is statutory, and it too has a threshold. Under 765 ILCS 705/15 a lessor must change or rekey the immediate access to a dwelling unit after it is vacated and on or before the day a new lessee takes possession, and is liable for damages from a theft attributable to failing to do so. It applies only in counties with a population of more than 3,000,000 — Cook County alone — and not to an apartment building of four units or less where one unit is owner-occupied, nor to a room let in an owner-occupied home, nor where the lease gives the tenant the right to rekey.

Sometimes — and the exclusions are as important as the rule. The Residential Tenants’ Right to Repair Act at 765 ILCS 742/5 lets a tenant have a repair made and take the cost out of rent, but only within tight limits. The repair must be one required by the lease or by a law, administrative rule, or local ordinance or regulation, and its reasonable cost must not exceed the lesser of five hundred dollars or one-half of the monthly rent.

The procedure is formal. The tenant notifies the landlord in writing by registered or certified mail or another restricted delivery service, at the landlord or agent address shown on the lease or, if none is shown, the last known address, of the tenant’s intention to have the repair made at the landlord’s expense. If the landlord fails to make the repair within 14 days — or more promptly as conditions require in an emergency — the tenant may have it done in a workmanlike manner and deduct a paid bill from a tradesman or supplier unrelated to the tenant, giving the landlord that tradesman’s name, address and telephone number in writing if the bill does not show them. Emergencies are defined: conditions that will cause irreparable harm to the unit or an attached fixture if not immediately repaired, or any condition posing an immediate threat to the health or safety of an occupant or of a common area.

Now the part the rankers skip. Section 765 ILCS 742/10 disapplies the entire Act to public housing, to condominiums, to not-for-profit residential cooperatives, to non-residential tenancies, to units under the Mobile Home Landlord and Tenant Rights Act, and to owner-occupied rental property containing six or fewer dwelling units. A landlord living in one unit of a three-flat is outside it. So is a tenant renting a condominium. And a tenant who does not follow the Act’s requirements — a licensed, insured tradesman, workmanlike compliance with the code — loses the remedy entirely under 765 ILCS 742/15 and may not raise the withholding as a defence to an eviction under 765 ILCS 742/20.

What Illinois does not have is a statewide habitability code. There is no Illinois statute listing general landlord maintenance duties for all rental housing; those come from municipal building and housing codes and from the lease. The one statutory temperature rule, 765 ILCS 705/20, applies only to housing where rental or occupancy is limited to persons 55 years of age or older, and it is regularly misreported as a general Illinois standard. See our Illinois habitability laws guide.

More than the rankers list, and three of them are recent. Illinois requires each of the following in a residential lease:

• Radon hazard disclosure to tenants — 420 ILCS 46/26. Pamphlet, hazard records, and a prescribed form. Covered below.
• Flood hazard and flooding history — 765 ILCS 705/25. Must appear inside the written lease and be signed by both parties. Covered below.
• Summary of Rights for Safer Homes — 765 ILCS 752/20. Attached as the first page of the lease. Covered below.
• Smoke detector and carbon monoxide alarm information — 425 ILCS 60/3 and 430 ILCS 135/10. The owner must give one tenant per unit written information on testing and maintenance, and must ensure the batteries work when the tenant takes possession. Use our Illinois smoke detector disclosure and carbon monoxide detector disclosure.
• Shared or master-metered utility disclosure — 765 ILCS 735/1.2 and 765 ILCS 740/5, where the tenant’s meter also serves common areas or other units, or a master meter is billed as a proportionate share. Any inconsistent lease term is void. Our Illinois shared utilities disclosure handles it.
• Rent concession legend — 765 ILCS 730/3, where a concession is granted. The lease must bear the words “Concession Granted” across its face in letters not less than one-half inch high plus a memorandum of the amount and nature. Exhibiting a non-compliant lease to a purchaser or lender for a sale or loan is a Class A misdemeanor under 765 ILCS 730/6. See the Illinois rent concession disclosure.
• Federal lead-based paint — 42 U.S.C. 4852d, for any dwelling built before 1978. Our Illinois lead paint disclosure form covers it.

What Illinois does not require statewide is equally worth stating, because templates import it: there is no state mold disclosure, no asbestos notice, no methamphetamine contamination disclosure, no ordnance-proximity notice, no demolition notice and no offender-registry notice. Landlord identification, a security deposit receipt and a pest disclosure are Chicago ordinance duties, not Illinois statutory ones — which is why an Illinois-wide template that prints them is quietly assuming you are in Chicago. A bed bug disclosure falls in the same category.

It is the newest Illinois lease requirement, and no competitor template carries it. The Summary of Rights for Safer Homes Act, 765 ILCS 752, was created by Public Act 103-1031 and has been in force since January 1, 2026. Section 752/20 is short and absolute: a landlord or a landlord’s agent shall attach a copy of the summary as the first page of any written residential lease they enter into with a tenant, including for a new rental or a renewal, and shall obtain the signature of each tenant in the acknowledgment of receipt at the bottom of each page of the summary.

The summary itself is prepared by the Director of the Illinois Department of Human Rights under 765 ILCS 752/15, in consultation with Illinois domestic and sexual violence service providers, and it identifies the key rights and remedies of tenants and their household members who are survivors of domestic or sexual violence under six statutes: the Safe Homes Act, the Eviction Article of the Code of Civil Procedure, the Illinois Human Rights Act, Section 8-201.6 of the Public Utilities Act, and the provisions of the Illinois Municipal Code and the Counties Code that bar penalising tenants who call police or emergency services.

No generated document can substitute for it, and this one does not pretend to: the generated lease flags the duty and tells you to obtain the current summary from the Department of Human Rights and physically attach it in front of page one before signing. Our Illinois domestic violence tenant rights summary form is the companion piece.

A written disclosure that must be inside the lease and signed by both parties. Section 25 of the Landlord and Tenant Act, added by Public Act 103-754 and in force since January 1, 2025, requires every landlord to disclose in writing, before the lease is signed, whether the rental property is in the FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area — the hundred-year floodplain — and, where the landlord has actual knowledge that the property or any part of its parking areas has flooded, the frequency of that flooding. The disclosure must also be included in the written lease or renewal lease and signed by both parties, and the statute prescribes substantially the wording.

A second limb applies to a lower-level unit, defined as any garden level, basement level or first floor level unit. For those, the landlord must additionally disclose whether the unit or the property has flooded in the last 10 years and how often. Given how much Illinois rental stock is garden and basement units, this limb reaches a large share of the market.

The remedies are real. If the landlord fails to make the floodplain disclosure and the tenant later becomes aware the property is in the Special Flood Hazard Area, the tenant may terminate by written notice no later than the thirtieth day after becoming aware, and the landlord must return all rent and fees paid in advance no later than the fifteenth day after that notice. If either disclosure is missed and flooding then damages the tenant’s personal property, affects habitability or affects access, the tenant may terminate on the same terms and sue for the personal property lost or damaged. Farm leases, concession leases and property owned or managed by the Department of Natural Resources are exempt. Our Illinois flood zone disclosure form produces the standalone version.

Yes, and the section rankers cite for it no longer exists. Most Illinois pages point to 420 ILCS 46/25. That section was repealed by Public Act 103-298. The same Act created 420 ILCS 46/26, a broader tenant-facing duty, and moved the sale-side disclosure to 420 ILCS 46/10.

Under 420 ILCS 46/26, at the time of a prospective tenant’s application, before a lease is entered into, or at any time during the leasing period on request, the lessor must give the tenant three things: the Illinois Emergency Management Agency pamphlet Radon Guide for Tenants or an approved equivalent; copies of any records or reports of radon concentrations in the unit that indicate a radon hazard; and the prescribed Disclosure of Information on Radon Hazards to Tenants form, on which the lessor initials whether elevated concentrations are known, whether records have been supplied, or whether the lessor has no knowledge.

Then comes the part that gives the duty teeth. The tenant has 90 days from the commencement of the leasing period to conduct their own radon test, and must give the lessor copies of the results within 10 days of receiving them. If the result exceeds the recommended Radon Action Level and the lessor elects not to mitigate, the tenant may terminate the lease. The lessor may dispute a tenant’s test by hiring a licensed radon contractor within 30 days; results are valid for two years absent renovation. Nothing in the section obliges either party to test or to mitigate — but a lessor who never supplied the documents at all gives the tenant the right to test at any point in the term, and, if a hazard is confirmed and the lessor neither disputes nor mitigates, to mitigate at the tenant’s expense with consent or terminate within 60 days. Use our Illinois radon disclosure form for the standalone document.

Illinois runs two very different pre-eviction notices, and the difference between them is routinely blurred.

• 5 days for unpaid rent — 735 ILCS 5/9-209. Any time after rent is due the landlord may demand payment and notify the tenant in writing that unless payment is made within a time stated in the notice, not less than five days after service, the lease will be terminated. This notice is defeated by payment — but a partial payment defeats it only if the notice omits the statutory warning. To survive partial payment the notice must prominently state that only full payment of the rent demanded will waive the landlord’s right to terminate, unless the landlord agrees in writing otherwise. Our Illinois 5-day notice to pay rent or quit carries the language.
• 10 days for any other default — 735 ILCS 5/9-210. When default is made in any of the terms of a lease, no more than ten days’ notice to quit is necessary, and the tenancy may be terminated by giving that notice at any time after the default. Read the section: it gives the tenant no statutory right to cure within those ten days. It is an unconditional notice to quit, not a cure-or-quit notice, and guidance describing it as the latter is describing another state’s statute. Our Illinois 10-day notice covers the form.

A third route exists for serious criminal conduct. Under 765 ILCS 705/5, where a tenant or occupant is charged during the term with an offence committed on the premises constituting a Class X felony, and there is a judicial finding of probable cause or a grand jury indictment, the lease becomes void at the lessor’s option and the lessor may post a written notice requiring the occupant to vacate on or before a date five days after the notice. That section is enforceable only if the parties executed a HUD drug-free housing lease addendum or a substantially similar document — a condition almost every summary omits — and the tenant does not forfeit the security deposit solely because of such an eviction.

Possession itself is recovered only through the court, under Article IX of the Code of Civil Procedure. Self-help — changing locks, removing belongings, cutting off utilities — is not an Illinois remedy, and the utility route in particular carries a rent-abatement penalty described below. See Illinois eviction notice laws and our guide to the Illinois eviction process.

For a tenancy without a fixed term, 735 ILCS 5/9-207 sets the periods: a week-to-week tenancy where the tenant holds over without special agreement may be terminated on 7 days written notice, and a tenancy for any term less than one year other than week to week on 30 days written notice. A tenancy from year to year takes 60 days under 735 ILCS 5/9-205, and that notice may be given at any time within four months preceding the last sixty days of the year. Illinois sets no separate rent-increase notice period, so a rent change on a periodic tenancy runs through the same termination notice and an offer of new terms. Our Illinois 30-day notice, 7-day notice and 60-day notice cover each case.

Three further exits are worth knowing. A tenancy in a property that has gone through foreclosure gets special protection: under 735 ILCS 5/9-207.5 the party who assumes control may terminate a bona fide lease only at the end of its term on no less than 90 days written notice, or, for a bona fide month-to-month or week-to-week tenancy, on the same ninety days — and the same period applies to a purchaser at judicial sale who intends to live there. A service member may terminate under 765 ILCS 705/16 on producing orders for military service exceeding twenty-nine consecutive days, a permanent change of station, or a deployment of not less than ninety days, effective thirty days after notice or after the next rental due date. And a survivor of domestic or sexual violence has the Safe Homes Act protections described below.

Two rules govern the money afterwards. Under 735 ILCS 5/9-202, a tenant who wilfully holds over after the term ends, after written demand for possession, must pay at the rate of double the yearly value of the premises for the time possession is withheld. And under 735 ILCS 5/9-213.1 the landlord has a statutory duty to mitigate damages against a defaulting tenant — a landlord who leaves a unit empty and sues for the whole balance of the term should expect the claim to be cut down. See Illinois lease termination laws and our Illinois breaking-lease guide.

A statute that did not exist two years ago. Illinois retaliation law moved house on January 1, 2025. Public Act 103-831 repealed the old Retaliatory Eviction Act at 765 ILCS 720 — the section most Illinois guides still cite — and replaced it with the Landlord Retaliation Act at 765 ILCS 721, which is far broader.

Under 765 ILCS 721/5 a landlord may not knowingly terminate a tenancy, increase rent, decrease services, bring or threaten to bring a possession lawsuit, or refuse to renew a lease because the tenant has in good faith done any of seven things: complained of code violations to a government agency, an elected representative or an enforcement official; complained of a code violation or an illegal landlord practice to a community organization; sought a community organization’s help to remedy one; complained or asked the landlord to make repairs required by a code, ordinance, regulation or the lease; organised or joined a tenants’ union; testified in a court or administrative proceeding about the condition of the premises; or exercised any right or remedy provided by law. The old Act reached only complaints to government.

Two mechanics make it bite. Section 765 ILCS 721/20 creates a rebuttable presumption of retaliation where, within one year before the alleged act, there is evidence the landlord acted against protected conduct — though not where the protected activity started after the alleged retaliation. And 765 ILCS 721/10 gives the tenant a defence plus termination with return of all security, statutory interest and prepaid rent, recovery of possession where the landlord has dispossessed or threatened to, and damages of the greater of two months’ rent or twice the actual damages, plus reasonable attorney fees. A landlord can still defeat it under 765 ILCS 721/15 by proving a legitimate, non-retaliatory basis, or that the action began before the protected activity.

Illinois has no URLTA-style list of prohibited provisions. What it has is one absolute rule and several targeted ones.

The absolute rule is 765 ILCS 705/1: every covenant, agreement or understanding in, in connection with, or collateral to any lease of real property that exempts the lessor from liability for damages for injuries to person or property caused by the negligence of the lessor or the lessor’s agents, servants or employees in the operation or maintenance of the premises is void as against public policy and wholly unenforceable. The only carve-out is a non-residential lease exempting the lessor from liability for property damage — which has no application to a residential tenancy. An exculpatory or hold-harmless clause in an Illinois residential lease is simply ineffective.

The targeted rules: the Safe Homes Act may not be waived or modified in a lease or any separate agreement (765 ILCS 750/30); a lease term inconsistent with the shared-meter disclosure rules is void and unenforceable (765 ILCS 735/1.2); a lease provision conflicting with the on-site rent office duty is void (735 ILCS 5/9-218); and a home rule unit may not diminish tenant rights under the Right to Repair Act (765 ILCS 742/30).

What Illinois does not regulate is the attorney-fee clause. Unlike states that ban a tenant-pays-landlord fee clause outright, or permit only a reciprocal prevailing-party award, Illinois takes no position: a fee clause is a matter of contract. The optional clause in the form above is nonetheless drafted to run to the prevailing party in both directions, because a one-sided clause is the term a court is most likely to scrutinise. Note separately that Illinois awards fees by statute in a series of tenant-side situations — deposit return, deposit interest, retaliation, Safe Homes lock changes, and utility over-billing — and those arise from the statute, never from the lease.

Illinois regulates rental utilities more heavily than most states, through two Acts, and the remedies are unusually strong. Under 765 ILCS 735/1, where the landlord is required by agreement to pay for water, gas or electrical service, the landlord must pay so the service is available throughout the term and is not interrupted. If the landlord does not, the tenant may either terminate the lease or pay the bill and deduct what they paid from rent, with the total rent diminished accordingly. The utility may not cut off service for the landlord’s non-payment until it has notified all tenants of a building of three or more apartments, on red paper in the type sizes 765 ILCS 735/3 prescribes.

Under 765 ILCS 735/1.4 a landlord may not cause or request that utility service to tenants be interrupted in an occupied building, whether by not paying bills the landlord owes or by tampering with equipment or lines — with narrow exceptions for emergencies such as gas leaks or fire, and, on seven days’ written notice, for building repairs. The penalty in 765 ILCS 735/2.1 is a 100% abatement of the rental obligation for each month, prorated for part of a month, that the service was off, plus consequential damages, and where the landlord acted with deliberate or reckless indifference or bad faith, statutory damages of up to three hundred dollars per tenant or five thousand dollars divided among them, whichever is less.

And where a tenant’s own meter serves common areas or other units, 765 ILCS 735/1.2 requires a package of written pre-lease disclosures — the areas served, twelve months of prior bills, no asking the tenant to collect from neighbours, and any rent reduction offered — and makes any inconsistent lease term void. A landlord in breach is liable under 765 ILCS 735/1.3 for the full amount of bills not attributable to the tenant’s unit, reduced by whatever share the landlord proves was the tenant’s, with the court able to treble the award for a knowing or intentional violation.

This is a state-level form, and in Chicago or suburban Cook County that is not enough on its own. Illinois is a home rule state and the statewide floor described on this page is genuinely low — no entry rule, no deposit cap, no late-fee cap, no general habitability code. Several Illinois municipalities have filled the gap with ordinances that are materially stricter.

The two that matter most are the Chicago Residential Landlord and Tenant Ordinance, Chicago Municipal Code Chapter 5-12, and the Cook County Residential Tenant and Landlord Ordinance covering suburban Cook County. Both regulate entry notice, deposit handling, receipts and interest, required lease attachments and tenant remedies far more tightly than state law, and both require a summary of the ordinance to be attached to the lease. Evanston, Mount Prospect and other municipalities operate their own.

We deliberately do not encode any municipal ordinance in this generator. A form that half-implemented Chicago’s rules would be more dangerous than one that clearly does not implement them: it would look compliant while missing the attachments and the receipt duties that carry the penalties. What the form does instead is ask which ordinance applies and print a prominent warning in the generated lease, so nobody signs it believing a state-level document satisfies a city one. One useful state-law backstop applies everywhere: under 765 ILCS 742/30 a home rule unit may add to a tenant’s repair rights but may not subtract from them.

Illinois has amended its rental statutes heavily since 2023, and this is the main reason so much published Illinois guidance is stale. The changes that affect a lease directly:

• Believing the deposit rules start at five units. P.A. 103-224 removed the threshold on January 1, 2024. Every Illinois landlord is now inside 765 ILCS 710/1.
• Treating the 45-day return as the only deadline. The 30-day itemized statement comes first; the 45-day full return is the consequence of missing it.
• Charging fixed cleaning or repair amounts that are not in the written lease. Since 2024 the itemized statement must reference the specified figure and attach the relevant lease page.
• Applying the 25-unit interest test as a portfolio test. It counts units in a single building or a complex on contiguous parcels, not units owned across a city.
• Printing a two-day entry notice as Illinois law. That is Chicago Municipal Code 5-12-050. Illinois has no entry statute at all.
• Leaving entry out of the lease entirely. With no statutory default, silence means no agreed notice at all.
• Promising repair-and-deduct in a condo or an owner-occupied three-flat. 765 ILCS 742/10 excludes both.
• Calling the 10-day notice a cure-or-quit notice. Section 9-210 gives no statutory right to cure. Only the 5-day rent notice is defeated by payment.
• Omitting the full-payment warning from a 5-day notice. Without it, a partial payment can invalidate the notice.
• Citing 765 ILCS 720 for retaliation. Repealed by P.A. 103-831 and replaced by the Landlord Retaliation Act at 765 ILCS 721.
• Citing 420 ILCS 46/25 for radon. Repealed by P.A. 103-298. The tenant duty is 420 ILCS 46/26.
• Leaving the flood disclosure out of the lease document. It must be in the written lease and signed by both parties, not handed over separately.
• Forgetting the Safer Homes summary. Since January 1, 2026 it must be the first page of every lease and renewal, signed on every page.
• Putting an exculpatory or hold-harmless clause in the lease. Void under 765 ILCS 705/1 and unenforceable.
• Assuming a state-level form satisfies Chicago or Cook County. It does not; both ordinances add duties and attachments.

A well-drafted lease decides who wins a dispute; screening decides whether there is one. Illinois deserves particular care because the deposit penalty is a multiplier and now reaches every landlord in the state, so the cost of a messy move-out is higher than it used to be for a small owner. Verifiable income, a clean payment history, and no prior eviction filings remain the strongest predictors of a quiet tenancy. Our tenant screening report covers credit, eviction filings, criminal background, and employment verification, and our Illinois tenant screening laws guide covers what you may and may not ask — including the reusable screening report rule at 765 ILCS 705/30, which bars an application fee where the applicant supplies a qualifying report. Screen first, then paper the tenancy with this lease.

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