Illinois HOA laws & resources.

Laws & regulations impacting Illinois associations.

Illinois has two community-association statutes, and they do not overlap: a property is a condominium or it is a common interest community, never both. Around them sit a general nonprofit corporation code, one of the broadest state fair housing Acts in the country, an Act on assistance animals, an Act on rooftop solar, a dispute-resolution office and a licensing regime for managers — together with the federal laws that apply nationwide. Two of the eight Acts are scheduled to expire, on different dates and by different mechanisms. HOPB hosts the full text of every one of these Illinois Acts, each with a plain-language guide.

Illinois HOA law guideAll eight Illinois Acts that govern community associations, indexed by the decision you are making — and the two scope limits that almost every summary of Illinois law leaves out.

Six things are worth knowing about how Illinois HOA law works:

• Which statute governs your community — and it is genuinely one or the other. A common interest community is defined as “real estate other than a condominium or cooperative” (§ 160/1-5), so the two Acts cannot both reach you. The Condominium Property Act dates from 1963, applies “to all condominiums in this State” and has no size exemption at all (§ 605/2.1). The Common Interest Community Association Act dates from 2010 and does exempt some small associations — but § 160/1-75(a) exempts only an association organized under the General Not For Profit Corporation Act of 1986 that also has 10 units or less or annual budgeted assessments of $100,000 or less (§ 160/1-75). An unincorporated common interest community can never take that full exemption, at any size, and the measure is budgeted assessments rather than revenue. Subsection (b) is a different thing: it requires no incorporation, and reaches an association of 10 units or less, one with annual budgeted assessments of $50,000 or less, or one whose governing documents bar it from using the courts or arbitration to collect — switching off § 1-30(a), § 1-40(a) and (b), and § 1-55, while still requiring notice of meetings.
• Your governing documents lose to the statute — and twice the statute writes the missing term in for you. Section 605/2.1 voids any provision of a condominium instrument inconsistent with the Act — that reaches the bylaws and the plat, not only the declaration — “as against public policy and ineffective”. On board powers (§ 605/18.4) and on records (§ 605/19) it goes further: an instrument that fails to contain the required provisions “shall be deemed to incorporate” them “by operation of law”. So a silent declaration does not create a gap. In a common interest community the equivalent is § 160/1-60, which lets the board correct a non-conforming instrument by a two-thirds board vote without a membership vote — and where what is corrected is a scrivener’s error, members with 20% of the votes may petition within 30 days to put the board’s action to a meeting.
• Your association is also a corporation, and the corporate code reaches you two different ways. The General Not For Profit Corporation Act of 1986 is not an HOA statute — it is Illinois’s general nonprofit corporation code. A condominium association gets its powers from it “whether or not it is incorporated”, so far as they are not inconsistent with the Condominium Property Act or the instruments (§ 605/18.3); a common interest community association gets it by actually incorporating — which is also the gateway to the exemption above. Its defaults are not the ones people assume: the member quorum is one-tenth of the votes entitled to be cast (§ 105/107.60), a proxy dies after 11 months (§ 105/107.50), a board is three or more directors (§ 105/108.10), and removal takes two-thirds of the votes present and voted on notice naming the director (§ 105/108.35). Its records right runs on a proper-purpose demand whose burden of proof switches — the member must prove it for books of account, the corporation must disprove it for minutes (§ 105/107.75).
• Illinois fair housing law goes well beyond the federal Act. The Illinois Human Rights Act protects a real estate transaction against “unlawful discrimination, familial status, immigration status, source of income, or an arrest record” (§ 5/3-102), and “unlawful discrimination” itself covers a person’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, sex, marital status, order of protection status, disability, military status, sexual orientation, pregnancy, reproductive health decisions and unfavorable military discharge. That is nineteen bases — many of them, source of income, immigration status, arrest record and reproductive health decisions among them, with no counterpart in the federal list. A restrictive covenant limiting occupancy by race, color, religion or national origin is void, and inserting one is itself a violation (§ 5/3-105). An extra charge on a blind, hearing-impaired or physically disabled person because they have a guide, hearing or support dog is a civil rights violation by name — “other than for actual damage done to the premises by the dog” (§ 5/3-104.1). The broader accommodation duty, the one an emotional-support animal runs on, is § 5/3-102.1(C)(2). Housing charges run on Articles 7B and 8B, not the 7A/8A route employment summaries describe.
• Two Acts limit what a board may do about animals and about solar — and one of them may not apply to you at all. The Assistance Animal Integrity Act names a condominium board, condominium association and cooperative as housing providers, and lets documentation be required only if the disability or the disability-related need “is not readily apparent or known” — with no pet deposit, pet fee, pet assessment or special liability insurance, “even if the housing provider allows pets”. The Homeowners’ Energy Policy Statement Act is strong where it applies — no policy that prohibits or has the effect of prohibiting a solar installation, and no configuration requirement that cuts production by more than 10% — but read § 165/45 first: the Act does not apply to a building over 60 feet, or to one with a shared roof subject to an association. That is most condominiums and most attached townhomes.
• Both Illinois oversight regimes are on a clock, and neither is a route to court. The Ombudsperson Act requires every association except a CICAA-exempt one (§ 615/35(b)) to adopt a written complaint policy and issue a final determination in writing within 180 days, marked “final” — but the Ombudsperson “shall assist only opposing parties who mutually agree to participate”, and “This Act is repealed on January 1, 2029” (§ 615/70). The Community Association Manager Licensing and Disciplinary Act licenses managers — though no license is needed for an association of 10 units or less, or for an unpaid director or officer — and 44 of its 50 sections are marked scheduled for repeal on January 1, 2027 — a date that appears nowhere in the Act’s own text. It comes from § 4.37 of the Regulatory Sunset Act (5 ILCS 80), which names this Act among those repealed that day, where the Ombudsperson Act carries its own repealer in § 615/70. Section 427/162 bars a private right of action “[e]xcept as otherwise expressly provided for in this Act”, and the one place it does is § 427/90(b), an injunction against unlicensed practice. The Ombudsperson Act contains no such provision either way — it simply creates no cause of action, and your rights under the two community Acts are untouched. Where the two oversight Acts meet, the Ombudsperson is barred from taking manager disputes at all.
• Around the edges. The three records regimes and their three different fee rules, the provisions that void a governing document and the four that deem the missing term written in, the 115% budget rule running on two different clocks, fidelity cover at three standards, and the myths that survive longest in Illinois — are collected on the related-laws page.

Find HOA contact information & documents.

• The Illinois Homeowners’ Association Directory — visit HOPB’s HOA Directory and select Illinois to reach the state’s corporate registry, the Illinois business entity search↗, where you can search by community or subdivision name to find an association’s contact information, officers and corporate documents including its articles of incorporation.
• Association records — Illinois runs three regimes, and which one you are in changes the deadline, the grounds and who pays.
  • In a condominium. Ten categories of record. Records (1)–(6), (9) and (10) come on a written request; records (7) and (8) — the membership list and ballots — only for a purpose related to the association, and the board may require a written no-commercial-use certification. Either way, failure to make them available within 10 business days is deemed a denial, and five classes of sensitive document need not be produced at all (§ 605/19(e), (g)). The fee rule then splits by category: a member who prevails shall recover reasonable attorney’s fees and costs for records (1)–(6), (9) and (10), but for records (7) and (8) only if the court finds the board acted in bad faith (§ 605/19). A condominium instrument that omits these provisions is deemed to incorporate them by operation of law.
  • In a common interest community. The parallel right is deemed denied after 30 days, not ten business days — and a prevailing member recovers fees only where the court also finds the failure was due to the acts or omissions of the board (§ 160/1-30).
  • Under the corporate code. Books and records of account and minutes — on a written demand by a voting member stating the records sought and the purpose with particularity, and only for a proper purpose. The burden of proof switches: the member must establish a proper purpose for books of account, the corporation must establish the absence of one for minutes (§ 105/107.75). The corporation must also keep a record of its voting members’ names and addresses, but this section grants no separate right to examine it. Enforcement is by suit in the circuit court, to compel examination “by mandamus or otherwise”.
  • Do members have the right to inspect and copy HOA documents? — the general principles behind all three, in plain language.
• Recorded documents. A declaration, bylaws, plat, amendments and lien notices are recorded with the county recorder where the property is. Recording is what makes them work — and in Illinois it is also what limits them: § 605/2.1 makes any provision of a recorded condominium instrument that conflicts with the Act void as against public policy, and § 5/3-105 makes a recorded covenant restricting occupancy by race, color, religion or national origin void, with inserting one a civil rights violation in itself.
• Which statute governs your community. Start with whether the property is a condominium; if it is not, § 160/1-5’s “real estate other than a condominium or cooperative” is what puts you in the other Act. Then check two things before assuming a small-association exemption: whether the association is organized under the General Not For Profit Corporation Act of 1986, and what its annual budgeted assessments are. The law guide works through the test and says where each Act stops.