Imagine there was a law that said police can never give a speeding ticket unless the offender is pulled over, told they were speeding, and given two days to promise not to do it again. We all know what would happen — reckless drivers would see this as a license to speed at will, knowing a warning is the worst they'd ever face. That would be an absurd law that would never pass, right?

Well, in the context of landlord-tenant law in Cook County, something remarkably similar actually exists.

The CCRTLO's Disclosure Requirements

The Cook County Residential Tenant and Landlord Ordinance (CCRTLO), which has been in effect since June 1, 2021, imposes a number of important disclosure obligations on landlords. These are not trivial formalities. They include:

• Notice of code violations — Landlords must disclose any municipal code violations cited against the unit or common areas in the prior 12 months, including pending code enforcement litigation.
• Notice of utility shutoffs — Landlords must disclose any notice from a utility provider of an intent to terminate water, gas, electrical, or other service.
• Lead hazard disclosure — Landlords must provide tenants with the EPA's lead-based paint pamphlet and disclose any known lead hazards.
• Bed bug disclosure — Landlords must provide the EPA's bed bug prevention pamphlet and respond to infestations.
• Ownership and management information — Landlords must disclose in writing the name, address, and phone number of the owner and any person authorized to accept service of process or receive notices.
• Foreclosure disclosure — If the property is subject to a foreclosure complaint, landlords must disclose this to tenants within seven days of being served.
• CCRTLO Summary — Landlords must attach a Cook County-approved summary of the ordinance itself — including tenants' rights and landlord obligations — to every written lease.

These are serious disclosures. They give tenants critical information about the physical condition of the property they're moving into, the financial stability of their landlord, potential health hazards, and their own legal rights. The legislature clearly recognized that tenants need this information, which is why it made disclosure legally mandatory.

So what happens if a landlord simply doesn't provide them?

The Notice-and-Cure Problem

Here's where things get strange. For most of these disclosure requirements, the CCRTLO does not impose any consequence on a landlord who fails to comply — unless and until the tenant notifies the landlord of the failure and gives the landlord a chance to fix it.

Take the CCRTLO summary attachment requirement as an example. Under Section 42-110(i), if a landlord fails to attach the required summary to the lease, the tenant's remedy is to send the landlord written notice of the breach. The landlord then has two business days to "cure" — meaning to actually provide the notice they were supposed to deliver before the lease was ever signed. If the landlord cures within two days, there is no penalty whatsoever. Only if the landlord fails to remedy the breach within those two days can the tenant seek $200 in damages or terminate the lease.

The same structure applies to the ownership and management disclosure (Section 42-110(f)), the bed bug pamphlet requirement (Section 42-110(d)), the lead hazard disclosure (Section 42-110(e)), and the foreclosure disclosure requirement (Section 42-110(g)).

In other words: fail to provide the disclosure, wait for the tenant to complain, then provide it. Keep your tenants in the dark and get away scot-free.

Why This Structure Helps Only Bad Landlords

Let's think about who actually follows rules like this in the real world.

A conscientious landlord — one who takes their legal obligations seriously — is going to provide all required disclosures when they sign a lease. They're going to attach the CCRTLO summary, hand over the EPA pamphlets, and disclose any known code violations. The notice-and-cure provision doesn't benefit them at all, because they're already in compliance.

The only landlords who benefit from this structure are the ones who don't provide disclosures in the first place. And that raises the obvious question: why would a landlord skip required disclosures?

The most charitable explanation is ignorance. The argument made by landlord-aligned lobbyists during the County Board's debate was that small "mom and pop" landlords might not be aware of the ordinance's requirements, and that it would be unfair to penalize them before they had a chance to learn and comply. The notice-and-cure provision was their answer.

There are several serious problems with this rationale.

First, "mom and pop" landlords are largely exempt from the CCRTLO already. The ordinance carves out owner-occupied buildings with six units or fewer, as well as individual single-family homes and single condo units meeting certain conditions — precisely the situations most likely to involve a small individual landlord. The "ignorant small landlord" that lobbyists were worried about is, in many cases, not even covered by the ordinance.

Second, the notice-and-cure provision is not limited to small landlords. It applies equally to large institutional investors, real estate investment trusts, and commercial property management companies — entities with in-house legal counsel, compliance departments, and every resource imaginable to understand the laws that govern their business. These are the landlords most likely to be deliberately strategic about what disclosures they provide and when.

Third, and most importantly, the argument that landlords need to be educated by their tenants before facing consequences turns the entire purpose of a disclosure on its head. A disclosure law exists to ensure that the party who lacks information receives it. The tenant is that party. If a landlord fails to hand over the CCRTLO summary — the document that explains what the tenant's rights are — and the tenant can only enforce their right to receive it by already knowing it exists, the disclosure has failed its entire purpose.

The Absurdity of Asking Tenants to Demand What They Don't Know They're Owed

Think about who will actually invoke the notice-and-cure remedy. The only tenant who sends a landlord a written notice citing Section 42-110(i) and demanding the CCRTLO summary is a tenant who already knows what the CCRTLO summary is and what it contains. By definition, that tenant does not need the disclosure. They already have the information.

The tenants who most need these protections — those who are new to renting, unfamiliar with the ordinance, or in a financially vulnerable position — are the last people who will know to send that notice. They will simply sign the lease, never receive the disclosures, and have no idea that anything is missing.

The worst part about this scheme is that it allows a giant loophole for bad landlords. A landlord who wants to keep tenants in the dark about their rights under the CCRTLO can do so by simply omitting the required summary. If a particularly sophisticated tenant later objects, the landlord hands it over and faces zero consequences. Most tenants will never object at all — because they don't know their rights, precisely because their landlord never provided the required disclosure.

The Bottom Line

Every person who operates a business is expected to understand the regulations that govern their industry. A restaurant owner must know health code requirements. A contractor must know licensing and permit rules. A landlord — particularly a commercial one owning multiple units across Cook County — must know the laws that apply to their tenants.

It is not an unreasonable expectation. It is a basic condition of operating a regulated business.

The notice-and-cure provisions of the CCRTLO, as currently written, undermine the ordinance's own goals. They impose no real cost on non-compliant landlords, place the burden of enforcement on the tenants least equipped to exercise it, and create a structural advantage for landlords who are deliberately trying to conceal information from the people who have a legal right to receive it.

The County Board got the disclosure requirements right. The enforcement mechanism needs to catch up.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not represent the opinions of CTM Legal Group or any of its attorneys or affiliates. The attorneys at CTM Legal Group represent tenants and landlords throughout Cook County in disputes arising under the CCRTLO and other landlord-tenant laws. If you have questions about your rights or obligations under the ordinance, contact us at (312) 818-6700.