Free Illinois Commercial Lease Agreement Template

An Illinois commercial lease agreement rents business property — a storefront, an office, a warehouse, a restaurant space — to a tenant who will trade from it. Article IX of the Code of Civil Procedure supplies the notice and eviction rules, renamed from forcible entry and detainer to eviction in 2018.

The article works by tenancy shape rather than by property type. What you owe the other side depends on whether the arrangement runs week to week, for a term under a year, or from year to year.

Notice periods here follow the length of the tenancy, and one of them carries mandatory wording.

Notice by Length of Tenancy

Under 735 ILCS 5/9-207(a), where a tenancy runs week to week and the tenant holds over without special agreement, the landlord may end it on seven days’ written notice and bring an action for eviction or ejectment. Subsection (b) applies 30 days’ written notice to any tenancy for a term of less than one year other than week to week.

735 ILCS 5/9-205 covers the longer arrangement. In all cases of tenancy from year to year, 60 days’ written notice is sufficient to end the tenancy at the end of the year, and the notice may be given at any time within the four months preceding the last 60 days of the year.

The Rent Demand and Its Required Sentence

735 ILCS 5/9-209 lets a landlord, any time after rent is due, demand payment and notify the tenant in writing that unless payment is made within a stated time — not less than five days after service — the lease will be terminated. If the tenant does not pay within that time, the landlord may treat the lease as ended and start an eviction or ejectment action without further notice or demand.

The section then protects the notice against partial payment, but only on a condition. Where payments do not total the amount demanded by the end of the notice period, the notice is not invalidated, provided it prominently states that only full payment of the rent demanded will waive the landlord’s right to terminate under it, unless the landlord agrees in writing to continue the lease in exchange for partial payment.

It depends entirely on whether that sentence is in your notice under an Illinois commercial lease agreement. A demand under 735 ILCS 5/9-209 that carries the prescribed wording survives a partial payment falling short of the amount demanded. A demand that omits it does not have that protection.

Two further points sit in the same section. A claim for rent may be joined in the eviction complaint, including a request for the pro rata rent covering any period a judgment is stayed, and judgment may be obtained for the amount found due. Collecting past rent after filing does not invalidate the suit.

1. Settle rent, escalation, the term, renewal rights, and responsibility for taxes, insurance, and repairs.
2. Decide the tenancy shape deliberately, because § 9-205 and § 9-207 attach different notice to year-to-year, under-a-year, and week-to-week arrangements.
3. Give the term a definite start and end date so the periodic notice ladder does not apply by default.
4. Agree a cure period for late rent, working out from the five-day statutory floor.
5. Sign, and keep an executed copy with your business records.

The statute governs notice, not substance, so an Illinois commercial lease agreement needs to cover:

• Legal names of landlord and tenant, and the entity behind each signature.
• A description fixing the premises, including any common areas.
• Rent, the payment interval, and how increases are set.
• The term and its end date, plus renewal rights and holdover terms.
• Allocation of property taxes, insurance, utilities, and repairs.
• Permitted use, and the consent needed to assign or sublet.
• Where notices go, and any cure period longer than the statutory minimum.