By: Joseph Silverstein

In 2021, the Illinois General Assembly did not make any amendments to the Illinois Common Interest Community Association Act and only made one significant change to the Illinois Condominium Property Act (the “Act”).  Effective January 1, 2022, Section 18(a)(1) of the Act was amended to allow an association’s declaration or amendment to an association’s declaration to require a majority of members of the board of directors to be made up of unit owners who occupy their units as their primary residence. Specifically, Section 18(a)(1) of the Act, as amended, provides as follows:

(a)(1) The election from among the unit owners of a board of managers, the number of persons constituting such board, and that the terms of at least one-third of the members of the board shall expire annually and that all members of the board shall be elected at large; if there are multiple owners of a single unit, only one of the multiple owners shall be eligible to serve as a member of the board at any one time. A declaration first submitting property to the provisions of this Act, in accordance with Section 3 after the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 102nd General Assembly, or an amendment to the condominium instruments adopted in accordance with Section 27 after the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 102nd General Assembly, may provide that a majority of the board of managers, or such lesser number as may be specified in the declaration, must be comprised of unit owners occupying their unit as their primary residence; provided that the condominium instruments may not require that more than a majority of the board shall be comprised of unit owners who occupy their unit as their principal residence; (emphasis added)

Notably, the amendment to the Act provides that a declaration and/or by-laws “may” provide such residency requirement to serve on an association board but that such is not a requirement. Each association should evaluate its governing documents to determine if this language is already included in the association’s declaration and/or by-laws. If not, the association should evaluate whether adopting a formal amendment to include such requirement is appropriate. The formalities for adopting a formal amendment are set forth within an association’s declaration and by-laws. 

For more information about this article, contact Tressler attorney Joseph Silverstein at jsilverstein@tresslerllp.com.