Illinois · Law guide

Illinois HOA law guide.

Every Illinois statute that governs community associations, hosted in full on HOPB with the official text. Illinois has more of them than most states — two community Acts that never overlap, a corporate code that reaches you two different ways, three Acts that limit what a board may do, and two more that supervise your association and its manager. Two of the eight are scheduled to expire. This index is how the pieces fit together, and which one answers your question.

8 statutes Full text on-site Current through P.A. 104-465
Community associations

Which statute governs your community — and it is genuinely one or the other.

Illinois has two community-association statutes and they do not overlap. A “common interest community” is defined as “real estate other than a condominium or cooperative” (§ 160/1-5), so a property is a condominium or it is a common interest community, never both — though a cooperative is excluded from the definition altogether, and so is a master association, which runs on § 605/18.5 instead. The Condominium Property Act dates from 1963 and applies to every condominium with no size exemption at all; the Common Interest Community Association Act dates from 2010 and exempts some small associations — but only on a condition most summaries leave out.

01 Illinois Condominium Property Act765 ILCS 605/1 to 605/35, all 61 sections. Applies “to all condominiums in this State”, and voids any condominium instrument — declaration, bylaws or plat — inconsistent with it (§ 605/2.1). On board powers and records it goes further, deeming a missing required term “incorporate[d]… by operation of law”. Reserves are mandatory in every budget adopted since 1 July 1990, waivable by two-thirds — but only by an association whose own instruments contain no reserve requirement — then disclosed in bold on resale. A budget or special assessment above 115% of last year’s can be challenged on a 20% petition within 21 days. The assessment lien is prior to all other liens recorded or unrecorded bar taxes and earlier encumbrances. Ten categories of record, denied after 10 business days, with a fee award to a prevailing member that is mandatory for records (1)–(6), (9) and (10) but needs a finding of bad faith for the membership list and ballots. Board terms cap at two years; the membership quorum default is 20%. 02 Illinois Common Interest Community Association Act765 ILCS 160, all 22 sections. CICAA is Article 1 of Act 160 on § 1-1’s own words, so the Act and the acronym are not quite synonyms. It reaches townhomes, villas and detached single-family homes in a common interest community — and expressly not a master association. The exemption has a first condition that is usually dropped: § 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. An unincorporated common interest community can never take the full exemption, at any size. Subsection (b) is a different animal: it needs no incorporation and opens to an association of 10 units or less, one with annual budgeted assessments of $50,000 or less, or one whose 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. Board terms cap at four years (with an election at least every 24 months), the 115% petition window is 14 days, records are denied after 30 days, and reserves are not required at all.
Corporate form

Your association is also an entity — and for one Act that is a precondition.

Illinois community associations are usually incorporated as not-for-profit corporations, and the corporate code supplies what the community Acts leave out. It reaches a condominium association whether or not it incorporated, by borrowing; it reaches a common interest community association by actual incorporation — which is also the gateway to the CICAA exemption above.

03 Illinois General Not For Profit Corporation Act of 1986805 ILCS 105, all 144 sections across seventeen Articles. Not an HOA statute — Illinois’s general nonprofit corporation code, which reaches your association because your association is one. Section 605/18.3 gives a condominium association its powers “whether or not it is incorporated”, but only so far as not inconsistent with the Condominium Property Act or the instruments. The default quorum is one-tenth (§ 107.60), not a majority — though both community Acts set 20% for their own meetings, and those govern. Proxies last 11 months. A board is at least three directors; removal takes two-thirds of votes present and voted, on notice naming the director, and only the named director may be removed. Records run 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.
Protections

What your board cannot do to you, whatever the declaration says.

Three Acts limit an association directly. Illinois’s civil rights statute protects nineteen bases in housing, several with no federal counterpart; a separate Act governs how an assistance-animal request must be handled; and a third protects rooftop solar — though only for some buildings.

04 Illinois Human Rights Act775 ILCS 5, all 96 sections across fifteen Articles. Article 3 is real estate transactions. A transaction is protected against “unlawful discrimination, familial status, immigration status, source of income, or an arrest record” (§ 3-102) — and “unlawful discrimination” 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 unfavourable military discharge. Source of income is the one that comes up most; check the federal statute directly before relying on any comparison. A restrictive covenant limiting occupancy by race, color, religion or national origin is void, and inserting one is itself a violation (§ 3-105). Housing charges run on Articles 7B and 8B, not the 7A/8A route employment summaries describe. 05 Illinois Assistance Animal Integrity Act310 ILCS 120, all five sections. “Housing provider” expressly includes a condominium board, condominium association and cooperative. Documentation may be required only if the disability or the disability-related need “is not readily apparent or known” — there is no general right to demand paperwork. Where it may be required it must come from someone with a therapeutic relationship, a term defined to exclude a certificate issued “without conducting a meaningful assessment”. And no pet deposit, pet fee, pet assessment or special liability insurance may be required, “even if the housing provider allows pets” — though actual damage may be charged on the same terms as any other resident’s. 06 Illinois Homeowners’ Energy Policy Statement Act765 ILCS 165, all ten sections. Check § 165/45 first, because it may switch the whole Act off for you: it does not apply to a building over 60 feet, or one with a shared roof subject to an association — and “shared roof” means any roof serving more than one unit, “including… a contiguous roof serving adjacent units”, or forming part of the common elements. That is most condominiums and most attached townhomes. Where it does apply it is very strong: no bylaw or power that prohibits or has the effect of prohibiting installation, no requiring specific technology, and a residual power over configuration that may not cut production by more than 10%. Miss the 30-day processing deadline — 120 days where no energy policy statement has been adopted yet — or fail to adopt that statement at all, and the owner may proceed after a 10-business-day cure notice.
Oversight

Who supervises your association and its manager — and how long both regimes last.

Illinois has both a dedicated dispute-resolution office for community associations and a licensing regime for their managers. Both are currently scheduled to expire, on different dates and by different mechanisms, and neither gives an owner a right to sue.

07 Condominium and Common Interest Community Ombudsperson Act765 ILCS 615, all 18 sections. “This Act is repealed on January 1, 2029” (§ 615/70) — a sunset already moved more than once, most recently by P.A. 104-377 in August 2025, and the live position is worth checking. It obliges every association to adopt a written complaint policy whose final determination must be in writing, within 180 days, and marked “final” — a duty every association owes except a CICAA-exempt one (§ 615/35(b)). That marking starts the 30-day filing clock in § 40(d)(5); an owner who never gets a response marked “final” waits 90 days from the complaint instead. An owner may then request assistance, subject to five conditions and three bars. The limit that matters: the Ombudsperson “shall assist only opposing parties who mutually agree to participate”. Facilitation, not adjudication. Note the asymmetry: § 605/35 binds every condominium association, while § 160/1-90 exempts CICAA-exempt associations. 08 Community Association Manager Licensing and Disciplinary Act225 ILCS 427, all 50 sections. Licenses the people who manage Illinois community associations. 44 of its sections are marked scheduled for repeal on January 1, 2027 — but that date is not in this Act: § 427/170, its own repealer, was itself repealed effective 1 January 2022, and the date comes from § 4.37 of the general Regulatory Sunset Act (5 ILCS 80), which names this Act among those repealed that day. No license is needed to manage an association of 10 units or less, or by an unpaid director or officer — so sometimes there is nothing to look up. Fidelity insurance is a precondition of a manager touching association funds (§ 427/55). And § 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. Otherwise complaints go to the Department, not to court.
Where the Acts meet

The questions no single statute answers.

Illinois leaves less lying around than most states, but not nothing. Across all 406 sections these Acts hand off to the Code of Civil Procedure, the Illinois Mortgage Foreclosure Law, the Mechanics Lien Act and the Real Estate License Act of 2000, among others. What is left is the seams — where the same question gets two answers depending on which kind of community you live in.

09 Related & miscellaneous Illinois statutesNine cross-cutting topics and six myth-busters, each stated with the limit that goes with it — which statute governs your community and the exemption condition most summaries drop; the three records regimes at 10 business days, 30 days and a proper-purpose demand, with three different fee rules; the many provisions that void a governing document, four of which go further and deem the missing term written in; the two sunsets and why they run on different mechanisms; fidelity cover at four standards; the 115% rule at two different clocks; assistance animals as violation versus procedure; the shared-roof exclusion that switches off the solar Act; and the accessibility code that names condominium buildings and requires 20% adaptable units.

General information, not legal advice. Statutory references are to the Illinois Compiled Statutes as published by the Illinois General Assembly and may not reflect the most recent amendments.

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