Free Illinois Roommate Agreement

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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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.

• 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

• 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.

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.

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, headed “Prohibition of waiver or modification”, provides that “the provisions of this Act may not be waived or modified in any lease or separate agreement”. The phrase is unqualified, and a roommate agreement is plainly a separate agreement between parties one of whom is the tenant the Act protects — so nothing written here can cut down its protections.

The protection is narrower than it is usually described. Section 15(a) requires that the tenant was under a credible imminent threat of domestic or sexual violence at the premises at the time of vacating; § 15(b) covers sexual violence actually committed on the premises, with one of the listed forms of evidence and a 60-day freshness window. The tenant vacates and gives the landlord written notice before, or within three days of, doing so — and what that produces is an affirmative defence to a claim for the rent, raised in court if the landlord sues. It is not a self-executing right to terminate, and by its terms it addresses rent rather than releasing every other obligation.

Section 20 lets the tenant require a lock change within 48 hours — but the clock runs from the point the landlord has received the notice and one of the forms of evidence the Act lists, not from the request.

Now the part that matters to everyone else in the flat. The Act contains no reference to remaining tenants or co-tenants at all. It does not release them, does not reduce the rent owed to the landlord, and does not apportion anything. A roommate on a joint lease is exposed for the full amount from the moment the other person leaves. That is not a criticism of the Act, which is aimed at a different problem — it is simply the gap that a roommate agreement is the right place to close, by agreeing in advance who covers a vacant share and for how long.

The lock-change provision has a related wrinkle. Section 20 requires the request to be made by 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 who urgently needs the locks changed may need the co-operation of the others to get it, which is worth discussing before it is needed.

Separately, 735 ILCS 5/9-106.2(c) allows a landlord to evict the perpetrator alone rather than the whole household. That is the landlord’s election rather than the victim’s right, and subsection (d) preserves the landlord’s ability to proceed against everyone where there is an imminent threat.

If you have read anywhere that Illinois deposit protections only apply to buildings with five or more units, that was true and is no longer. Public Act 103-0224 struck the words “containing 5 or more units” from 765 ILCS 710/1, effective 1 January 2024.

The Security Deposit Return Act now reaches every residential rental in the state. A landlord who intends to withhold any part of a deposit for damage must provide a written itemised statement within 30 days, with paid receipts — or, if the cost is not yet known, an estimate, with the receipts to follow within 30 days.

The 45-day figure is not a second step of compliance, and this is worth getting right because it is the demand a roommate household will actually make. If that statement and the receipts are not furnished, the landlord must return the deposit in full within 45 days of the date the tenant vacated. Not the balance — the whole thing.

The penalty is separate again, and it has a higher bar than “the landlord got it wrong”. A court that finds the landlord refused to supply the statement, or supplied it in bad faith, and failed to return the amount due in time, must award twice the deposit plus court costs and attorney’s fees. For a roommate household in a two- or three-flat, none of this protection existed before 2024.

The Security Deposit Interest Act is a different statute and was not changed. It still applies only to landlords with twenty-five or more units in a single building, or in a complex of buildings on contiguous parcels. The two are constantly confused, so it is worth being precise: return protection is now universal, interest is not.

Neither Act divides a deposit between roommates. Across both, “apportion”, “pro rata”, “co-tenant” and “each lessee” all appear zero times, and both key their duties to the lessee vacating rather than to one roommate leaving. The departing roommate has no statutory claim against the landlord, which is the strongest reason to write the deposit shares down before the money is paid.

This document binds the roommates to each other. The landlord is not a party to it and is not bound by the shares in it. Everyone named on the lease can still be pursued for the entire rent — that is what joint and several liability means where the lease imposes it, and no Illinois statute changes it. The single occurrence of “jointly and severally” in the Security Deposit Return Act concerns a landlord selling the building and has nothing to do with tenants. Whether co-tenants are jointly and severally liable as a matter of Illinois common law was not established here, so read what your lease actually says.

A roommate agreement is a private contract, so most of what it does is decided by the roommates rather than by statute. The parts that state law does reach are the ones that involve the landlord — and the biggest of those is the deposit. Our guide to Illinois security deposit laws sets out what the landlord may hold and when it has to come back, which is the money the roommates are dividing between themselves.

The other place state law bites is non-payment. An internal agreement about shares does not change what the landlord may do if the total rent is short, and Illinois eviction notice laws explain the notices and timelines that follow — which reach everyone named on the lease, not only the roommate who fell behind.

For the obligations that run between a landlord and the tenants throughout the tenancy, and the rules that apply to both sides, see Illinois landlord tenant laws.

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