Understanding Essential Services: How to Notify Landlord About Failure

If the landlord fails to supply essential services, the landlord should be contacted immediately in writing. Essential services include heat, running water, hot water, electricity, gas, and plumbing.

How should the landlord be contacted?

To protect yourself in case your landlord decides to attempt legal action, a tenant needs to follow the proper procedures before taking action.

Under the Oak Park Residential Tenant and Landlord Ordinance (RTLO), a tenant needs to send written notice to the landlord the correct way and state what essential services are lacking. This written notice can be sent by certified mail, regular mail, email, text, or personal delivery.

What options does a tenant have after sending written notice?

After sending written notice, the tenant has to wait 24 hours. After 24 hours, the tenant may:

• Substitute Service: What's missing? A tenant may get a space heater, bottled water, or other reasonable replacement for an essential service and deduct the cost from next month's rent. The tenant must keep the receipts and provide copies to the landlord when before making the deductions.
• Substitute Housing: If conditions force a tenant to find substitute housing (e.g., hotel, motel, or AirBnb), the tenant is excused from paying rent for as long as the lack of essential services exists. Also, the tenant may recover the cost of substitute housing from the landlord in a lawsuit as long as it does not exceed the monthly rent. Consult an attorney prior to exercising this remedy. The RTLO does not entitle the tenant to deduct the cost of substitute housing from future rent, and the law requires the tenant to mitigate damages, meaning to keep the cost as low as possible.
• Withhold rent: The tenant may withhold an amount from the rent that reflects the reduced value of the apartment. (A conservative estimate is better even in the worst-case scenario - e.g., no more than 50%.)

After sending written notice, the tenant has to wait 72 hours. After 72 hours, the tenant may:

• Terminate the lease: If the problem is not corrected with 72 hours of the receipt of the written notice, a tenant may legally terminate the lease. Once this is done, the tenant must move out within 30 days.