Free Illinois Roommate Agreement
Illinois wrote a rule that reaches this exact document. The Safe Homes Act voids terms contrary to it in “any lease or separate agreement” — and a roommate agreement is a separate agreement. You cannot contract around it, so it is worth knowing what it does and, more importantly, what it does not do.
A roommate agreement is a contract between the roommates. The landlord is not a party to it and it does not change the lease. Illinois is unusual in that one statute reaches into this document by name: 765 ILCS 750/30 provides that “the provisions of this Act may not be waived or modified in any lease or separate agreement”. A roommate agreement is a separate agreement. So the Act’s protections cannot be waived here, and the sensible response is to write the agreement around them rather than against them.
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The Act protects the person who leaves, and nobody else
This is the gap a roommate agreement needs to fill. The Safe Homes Act gives a tenant who was under a credible imminent threat of domestic or sexual violence at the premises an affirmative defence to a claim for the rent after they vacate — on written notice to the landlord before or within three days of vacating, under § 15. It is a defence raised if the landlord sues, not a self-executing right to terminate. Section 20 separately requires a lock change within 48 hours, once the landlord has both the notice and one of the forms of evidence the Act lists. What the Act does not contain is any reference to remaining tenants or co-tenants at all. It says nothing about their liability, nothing about apportioning the rent, and nothing to release them. A roommate on a joint lease is therefore fully exposed for the whole rent after a co-tenant leaves under it. Note: the lock-change provision compounds the problem, because § 20 requires the request to come from all tenants who have signed as lessees, excusing only the abuser’s signature, and only where a plenary order grants exclusive possession. So a roommate group may need to act together on something one of them urgently needs.
Watch: Free Illinois Roommate Agreement explained
Illinois roommate agreement at a glance
Safe Homes Act
Voids contrary terms in any separate agreement
Who it protects
Only the person who leaves
Remaining roommates
Not mentioned in the Act at all
Deposit Return Act
Now reaches every residential rental
The five-unit threshold is gone
Most Illinois summaries still say the Security Deposit Return Act applies only to buildings with five or more units. That is no longer true. Public Act 103-0224 struck the words “containing 5 or more units” from 765 ILCS 710/1 with effect from 1 January 2024, and the Act now reaches every residential rental in Illinois: a written itemised statement of damages within 30 days, and — if that statement and its receipts are not furnished — the deposit back in full within 45 days of the date the tenant vacated. Double damages plus costs and fees are a separate remedy, available where a court finds the landlord refused to supply the statement or supplied it in bad faith. The separate Security Deposit Interest Act is unchanged and still applies only to buildings of 25 or more units — counting units in contiguous buildings under common ownership as a single complex, under 765 ILCS 715/1. So a typical roommate household now has return protection but no entitlement to interest — a distinction worth getting right, because the two Acts are constantly conflated.
How to use an Illinois roommate agreement
Do not try to contract around the Safe Homes Act
765 ILCS 750/30 voids contrary terms in any lease or separate agreement, and this is a separate agreement.
Agree who covers the rent if a roommate leaves under the Act
The Act contains no reference to remaining tenants at all, so it does not reduce anyone else’s liability. This is the gap your agreement should close.
Write down the deposit shares before the money is paid
Neither deposit Act contemplates apportionment between roommates, so the split you agree is the only one that exists.
Check the size of the building or complex for the interest question
The Security Deposit Return Act now applies to every residential rental. The Interest Act still applies only where the landlord has twenty-five or more units in a single building or in a complex of buildings on contiguous parcels.
Keep a signed copy each
The agreement is only useful as evidence if every roommate can produce the same version.
About the Illinois roommate agreement
A roommate agreement records what the people living together have agreed about rooms, rent, the deposit, shared costs, guests and leaving. It binds them to each other, not to the landlord. Everyone named on the lease remains liable to the landlord for the whole rent, and no Illinois statute changes that — there is no joint-and-several rule in the landlord-tenant Acts, and the one occurrence of the phrase in the Security Deposit Return Act is about a landlord selling the building, not about tenants. What the agreement gives you is a record of the internal bargain, which is the only thing that will decide who owes whom if someone falls short.
What an Illinois roommate agreement should record
- Who is named on the lease as a lessee, and who is not
- Each roommate’s share of the rent, and who pays the landlord
- Each roommate’s share of the deposit, and how it is divided on return
- That neither deposit Act apportions anything between roommates
- What the roommates will do if one leaves under the Safe Homes Act
- That no term of this agreement is intended to limit the Safe Homes Act
- Guests, quiet hours, smoking, pets and cleaning
- The notice a departing roommate gives the others
- Who finds and approves a replacement, and what the landlord requires
- That the agreement binds the roommates only and does not bind the landlord
Common Illinois mistakes
- Repeating the five-unit threshold. It was struck from the Security Deposit Return Act with effect from 1 January 2024. The Act now reaches every residential rental.
- Confusing the two deposit Acts. Return is now universal; interest still requires twenty-five or more units.
- Assuming the Safe Homes Act helps the roommates who stay. It contains no reference to remaining or co-tenants, and does not reduce their liability.
- Writing a waiver of the Act into this agreement. 765 ILCS 750/30 voids contrary terms in a separate agreement, which is what this is.
- Quoting a Chicago or Cook County figure as state law. Municipal rules can be stricter and are separate; this page states the state position only.
Does Illinois have a roommate law?
No. The word “roommate” appears zero times across the six Acts and articles that would carry such a rule — 765 ILCS 705, 710, 715 and 750, article IX of the Code of Civil Procedure, and article 3 of the Human Rights Act, 179,587 characters in total. There is no statutory right to have a roommate, no process for adding or removing one, and no statewide occupancy limit.
That negative has a boundary worth stating: the Illinois General Assembly’s website offers no full-text search of the compiled statutes, only a search by Act name, so it is scoped to the Acts actually read rather than to the whole of Illinois law. Municipal ordinances were not searched either, and in Illinois they matter — the Human Rights Act itself carries a savings clause at 775 ILCS 5/3-106(D) preserving “reasonable local, State, or federal restrictions regarding the maximum number of occupants”, which confirms that occupancy limits here are a local question.
The Safe Homes Act reaches this agreement by name
Most statutes that constrain a roommate agreement do so indirectly, by governing the lease. Illinois has one that does it directly. 765 ILCS 750/30, hea