Condo Renters Beware

This is something to think about for both condo owners renting their condos to tenants, and tenants renting from a condo owner.

If you are renting a condo, know that the use and occupancy of the condo is not only subject to the lease, but also to the condominium association Declaration, By-laws, and the rules and regulations. If the lease conflicts with the condo documents, then there could be problems. A brief example will show why this is the case.

A condo owner rented out his condo to a tenant. In the lease, the condo owner allowed the tenant to have two small dogs in the unit. The lease was signed and the tenant moved in with her dogs. Two days later the tenant got a visit from the property manager. She found out that the condominium declaration does not allow unit owners to have pets. The property manager threatened to evict her from the unit if she did not get rid of the dogs.

The aftermath of this scenario is bad for both the landlord and tenant. First, the tenant obviously wants to keep her dogs, so she is going to be forced to move out if she wants to keep them. The landlord is in breach of the lease, since the lease states that the tenant can have dogs. Now, the tenant must find another place to live, and has to sue the landlord to recover the cost of the move and loss of the unit. In Chicago, the Residential Landlord Tenant Ordinance applies, this means that the landlord could be liable for the tenants attorney fees and court costs as well as other damages. The tenant may be able to recover her costs, but now she is forced to find another place to live in a very short period of time.

The moral of the story is that both landlords and tenants should inquire about the condominium rules and regulations prior to signing a lease to make sure that the lease provisions do not conflict with the condominium documents, because the condo association will win every time and both the landlord and tenant will end up losing.

Disclaimer

This is a passive blog and the materials contained herein are provided for informational purposes only. Nothing contained in this blog should be interpreted as a solicitation of business and none of the information contained herein constitutes legal advice. The law is subject to change without notice, and the local laws of your residence may be different from the general information displayed on this blog. You should not rely on the information provided on this blog without first consulting an attorney. Contacting this website does not establish and attorney/client relationship between you and its publisher Christopher A. Cali

An attorney/client relationship can only be established with Christopher A. Cali by engaging in direct person-to-person contact with Christopher A. Cali. Christopher A Cali does not intend to practice law in any jurisdiction in which he is not licensed.

Be Careful What You Post on Social Networking Sites

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2010/01/twitter-mold-libel-defamation-suit-dismissal-cook-county-court.html

This article discusses a lawsuit between a landlord and a tenant for comments that the tenant made about the landlord on Twitter. The offending post was:

"Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay," Amanda Bonnen wrote in her Twitter feed May 12 at 9:08 a.m.

The court ended up dismissing the lawsuit Wednesday because the plaintiff could not prove an essential element of the case, which is that you must show that the comments made are specifically against the Plaintiff. The court felt that Amanda's use of "Horizon" was too vague to give rise to a libel lawsuit.

The case is an excellent example of why you have to be careful when posting things on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc. People have a tendency to vent their frustrations on these sites and many people will play fast and loose with the facts and the wording. Sometimes these posts can expose you to liability. Particularly, since these postings involve written rather than oral assertions, what you post online can expose you to a libel claim.

Slander and libel both involve making false statements of fact against a person or organization to a third party that harms the reputation of the person or organization. The difference between slander and libel is that slander is oral defamation while libel is written defamation. Therefore, if you post false information about someone on your Facebook wall you are 2/3 of the way to committing libel. The third element is that there needs to be actual harm to the person. HOWEVER, there are some exceptions.

There are some false statements that are so outside the bounds of decency that the law automatically assumes that harm is caused. These kind of false statements include:

• Infidelity
• Loathsome diseases (AIDS, Herpes, etc.)
• A criminal act
• Dishonesty in business

Therefore, if you post on Twitter that someone cheated on their wife, or has AIDS, knowing it is false, you have committed libel and that person does not have to prove specific damages and can instead collect general damages. For example, the court could assess $10,000 of damages against you without the plaintiff having to prove that they sustained $10,000 worth of damages.

As more and more avenues for us to communicate our thoughts to the world become available, we have to keep in mind that there can be consequences to the things we may innocently write on the Internet. It doesn't matter if you post something and then take it down later, as soon as you post it is published for the world to see. So please be careful what you say, otherwise your Facebook status message could land you in front of a judge!

Disclaimer

This is a passive blog and the materials contained herein are provided for informational purposes only. Nothing contained in this blog should be interpreted as a solicitation of business and none of the information contained herein constitutes legal advice. The law is subject to change without notice, and the local laws of your residence may be different from the general information displayed on this blog. You should not rely on the information provided on this blog without first consulting an attorney. Contacting this website does not establish and attorney/client relationship between you and its publisher Christopher A. Cali

An attorney/client relationship can only be established with Christopher A. Cali by engaging in direct person-to-person contact with Christopher A. Cali. Christopher A Cali does not intend to practice law in any jurisdiction in which he is not licensed.

2010 Interest Rate for Chicago Security Deposits.

If you enter into a lease for a residence in Chicago, the Chicago Landlord Tenant Ordinance dictates what interest rate the tenant is to receive on their security deposit. The interest rate for leases entered into between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2010 is 0.073%.

What this amounts to is if your security deposit is $1,000, then you are entitled to a whopping $0.73.

What Business Owners Need To Know About "Terms and Conditions"

If you are a business owner, at some point in your business you probably have a form contract that you use for sales or services. The first page of your contract probably has all the important information on it, the: who, what, where, and when. Stapled to the back of that first page are probably 2-5 pages of the generically named ‘Terms and Conditions.” The only thing that most business owners know about the terms and conditions is that they have to be there. However, most business owners do not know exactly why they need to be there or what they need to say.

Terms and conditions are not hard to obtain. Search the internet and you can find a plethora of free boiler plate terms and conditions that you can download and staple right to the back of your contract. Many business owners trying to save on costs follow this approach rather than having an attorney draft a contract for them, and none of them know just how costly that decision ends up becoming. This is because most people who put their own contracts together don’t know exactly what they are putting in there.

Some provisions are easy. But do you know what force majeure means? Do the boilerplate terms and conditions have a warranty stuck in the middle somewhere that you are not planning to give? Did the provisions you downloaded make the exclusive law and venue California for disputes when your business is located in Chicago? Does your contract let you collect attorney fees if you need to sue your customer for payment or will you have to pay those fees without reimbursement?

The main issue is that boilerplate items need to be tailored to your business needs. Unless they are prepared by a professional who knows your business, your contract could end up becoming a legal and financial nightmare.

Disclaimer

This is a passive blog and the materials contained herein are provided for informational purposes only. Nothing contained in this blog should be interpreted as a solicitation of business and none of the information contained herein constitutes legal advice. The law is subject to change without notice, and the local laws of your residence may be different from the general information displayed on this blog. You should not rely on the information provided on this blog without first consulting an attorney. Contacting this website does not establish and attorney/client relationship between you and its publisher Christopher A. Cali

An attorney/client relationship can only be established with Christopher A. Cali by engaging in direct person-to-person contact with Christopher A. Cali. Christopher A Cali does not intend to practice law in any jurisdiction in which he is not licensed.