The board sends a letter. The facade needs work, or the roof, or the risers, and every owner’s share is $24,000 payable over three years.
Some owners write the check. Some decide that is the moment to sell.
If you are in the second group, there is a piece of Illinois law you should understand before you list, because it is the reason condo sales fall apart here.
The 22.1 disclosure is not optional
Section 22.1 of the Illinois Condominium Property Act requires a seller, on a buyer’s demand, to make available a specific package of association information. The association has to furnish it to you on written request.
According to the Community Associations Institute’s Illinois chapter, the list includes:
The declaration, bylaws, other condominium instruments, and rules. A statement of any liens, including the unit’s account with unpaid assessments and other charges. A statement of capital expenditures the association anticipates in the current and next two fiscal years. The status and amount of the reserve for replacement fund, including anything earmarked for a specific project. The association’s most recent available financial statement. The status of any pending suits or judgments involving the association. A statement of the insurance coverage provided for unit owners. A statement that any prior owner’s alterations are believed in good faith to comply with the condominium instruments. And the association’s principal office or designated agent for notices.
Read item three again. Anticipated capital expenditures for the current and next two fiscal years. That is where a coming special assessment lives, and it goes to the buyer in writing whether or not you want to talk about it.
The deadline problem nobody warns you about
Here is the practical trap.
The statute gives the association 30 days from a written request to furnish the information. Meanwhile, the standard contracts used in this market frequently give the buyer a much shorter window to review the documents, often just a few business days.
CAI Illinois flags that conflict directly. The association is working to a statutory month. Your contract is working to a week. If the property manager takes 25 days, your buyer’s review period has come and gone, and the contract is the thing that governs what happens next.
Request the 22.1 package the day you decide to sell. Not when you go under contract.
Why buyers run from this
Three reasons, and they stack.
The number is often unfinished. Boards frequently approve a project before the final bids come in. A buyer reading “anticipated” and a range rather than a figure assumes the top of the range, because that is the rational thing to assume.
Lenders care about reserves and owner-occupancy. Thin reserves, a high percentage of rentals, a pending lawsuit against the association, or a large unfunded project can affect whether a building is warrantable. If a buyer’s loan product will not work in your building, the buyer pool shrinks to cash and the price follows.
Litigation is a red flag by itself. Item six on that list, pending suits involving the association, is the one that most often ends a conversation. It does not matter much whether the suit is minor.
There is a Chicago-specific wrinkle on top of all that. A large share of the condo stock here is converted two-flats, three-flats and courtyard buildings from the early twentieth century, with small associations and correspondingly small reserves. When a hundred-year-old masonry facade finally needs work, there are six owners to split it rather than two hundred, and the per-unit number gets ugly fast.
Who actually pays the assessment
This is the fight, and it is worth going in knowing it is a fight.
Whether the seller or the buyer carries a special assessment depends on the declaration, on when the assessment was levied versus when it is payable, and on what the contract says. Illinois practice treats this as negotiable rather than settled, which means the answer is whatever the two attorneys agree to.
Buyers will almost always ask you to pay it in full at closing or credit it. If the assessment is large relative to your equity, that credit can quietly consume most of your proceeds.
If the unit also carries unpaid assessments or a lien, that is a separate and more urgent problem. Our post on selling a Chicago house with liens covers how those clear through title.
What a cash sale changes
Not the disclosure. We are a buyer and the 22.1 package applies to our purchase the same as anyone’s. You still request it from the association.
What changes is everything downstream of it.
There is no lender, so the building’s warrantability, its reserve level, its rental percentage and its pending litigation stop being gating items. There is no appraisal that has to support a number in a building with a cloud over it. There is no buyer who reads item three, panics, and withdraws in the review period.
And there is no month of waiting to find out. We price the assessment into the offer at the front, tell you what we are assuming, and do not come back at week six to re-trade it.
Two Rivers Properties buys condos and small multifamily across Chicago and the surrounding counties. We make a cash offer within 24 hours, can close in as little as 7 to 14 days once title clears, and cover the closing costs with no commissions on your side. Our how it works page lays out the sequence.
What to have ready when you call
The address and unit. Your monthly assessment. Whether a special assessment has been approved, proposed or merely discussed, and the amount and payment schedule if you have it. Whether you are current on assessments. Whether you know of pending litigation involving the association. And whether you have requested the 22.1 package yet.
If you have the last board meeting minutes, those often tell us more than the disclosure will.
The short version
A special assessment is not a reason a Chicago condo cannot sell. It is a reason the financed route gets difficult, slow and expensive to negotiate.
The disclosure is going to say what it says. The only real question is who you would rather have reading it. Call Two Rivers Properties at (872) 208-1774 or request a cash offer.
This post is general information and not legal or financial advice. The Illinois Condominium Property Act, your declaration and your contract govern who owes what. Consult an Illinois real estate attorney before signing anything.
