90-Day Notice To Condo Owners May Be Served On The Board of Managers

Only July 29, 2005, Governor Rod Blagojevich signed into law Public Act 094-0384 which is an amendment to the Illinois Condominium Property Act.  Of particular importance to owners, contractors, and subcontractors is the new section which permits service of the 90-day notice of lien claim to be made on the Board of Managers of the Condominium.  Under the Illinois Mechanics Lien Act, a subcontractor, within 90 days after completion of the subcontractor’s work, must cause a written notice of its claim to be sent to the owner of record, or his or her agent.  The prohibitive cost of ordering tract searches to determine each owner of a large condominium building has resulted in numerous subcontractors electing to forego their mechanics lien rights.

Under the amendment to the Illinois Condominium Property Act, Section 18.4 (r) states that the Board of Managers of the Condominium Association is now authorized to accept service of a notice of lien claim on behalf of each member of the Condominium Owner’s Association with respect to improvements performed pursuant to any contract entered into by the Board of Managers itself, or any contract entered into prior to the recording of the condominium declaration.

This amendment to the Illinois Condominium Property Act becomes effective on January 1, 2006, and pertains to property containing more than 8 units.  The Board of Managers of the Condominium must distribute the notice to the unit owners within 7 days of the acceptance of the service by the Board of Managers of the Notice.  The new Act states that service is considered effective as if each individual unit owner has been served with the notice.

This amendment to the Illinois Condominium Property Act does not obviate the need for recording a lien on each individual condominium unit within 4 months of the subcontractor’s last date of work.  That will still entail great expense to the subcontractor.  The initial cost of serving the 90-day notice, however, will be dramatically reduced.

Members of Ogletree Deakins, namely, Randy Ruff, through his involvement as Chairperson of the Chicago Bar Association’s Construction and Mechanic’s Lien Subcommittee and Margery Newman, as a member of the Illinois State Bar Association’s Real Estate Law Section Council were instrumental in having the state legislature enact this amendment.

Additional Information

Should you have any questions or require any additional information, please contact Randolph Ruff at 312-558-1228, or via email at clientservices@ogletreedeakins.com.

Note: This article was published in the August 11, 2005 issue of the Construction eAuthority.