Being evicted does not moot an Illinois owner's appeal — but no transcript does
Being evicted does not moot an Illinois owner's appeal — but no transcript does
2026-09-10 · Illinois · Courts
What happened. On October 16, 2025 the Illinois Appellate Court, First District, Fourth Division, affirmed a judgment of $24,434.75 plus possession in 832 Oakdale Condominium Ass'n v. McBride, 2025 IL App (1st) 240834-U. It is a Rule 23 order and is not precedential.1
The owner had been evicted. The association argued her appeal was therefore moot. The court disagreed, and its reasoning is the useful part.
Why eviction does not end it
Drawing on Spanish Court Two Condominium Ass'n v. Carlson, 2014 IL 115342, the court reasoned that condominiums “are not primarily creatures of contract but rather of statute.” An order of possession for an association “is intended to be temporary, not permanent, 'with possession eventually returning to the unit owner'” — quoting Knolls Condominium Ass'n v. Harms, 202 Ill. 2d 450, 457 (2002).
The evicted owner remains a unit owner, with continuing assessment obligations. So the controversy is live.
The counterclaims
She had raised counterclaims including a challenge to the legality of a special assessment. The striking of those counterclaims was affirmed — but largely because she failed to supply transcripts.
Under Foutch v. O'Bryant, where the record on appeal does not show what happened below, the appellate court presumes the trial court acted correctly.
Statutes engaged: 735 ILCS 5/9-106, 5/9-111(a), 5/2-1110, 5/2-1001(a)(3)(ii); 765 ILCS 605/18(a)(8), 605/18.4(i), 605/19(b).
Two lessons, pointing in opposite directions
For owners: order the transcripts
This is the most practical advice in any Illinois association case this year, and it costs money rather than legal skill.
An appellant who does not provide a transcript, or a bystander's report or agreed statement of facts where no transcript exists, will lose on anything the trial court decided in the exercise of discretion — regardless of the merits. The same defect sank the appeal in Blue Ocean v. Greenway Court six months earlier.
Two Illinois association appeals in one year decided on an empty record is a pattern, and it disproportionately affects self-represented owners who do not know the requirement exists.
For boards: winning possession does not end the relationship
An association that has obtained possession still has an owner — one who continues to accrue assessments, retains the right to appeal, and will eventually get the unit back. The order is a collection lever, not a transfer of title.
That has a practical consequence boards sometimes miss: the association is now in possession of a unit it must maintain, and it is collecting rent or holding it empty while the ownership relationship continues. The remedy is powerful and it is not an ending.
The counterclaim question, unresolved
Whether a challenge to a special assessment is germane to a condominium possession action is genuinely contested in Illinois, and this case does not settle it — the striking was affirmed on the record, not on the legal question.
Spanish Court Two established that some owner defences are germane to an association's possession action and others are not, and the line has been litigated ever since. An owner wanting to raise an assessment's legality would be better placed bringing it as a separate action, where it will be decided on its merits rather than on germaneness.
The distinction matters because Illinois gives boards real latitude on special assessments. The Act's owner-veto procedure at 765 ILCS 605/18(a)(8) has exceptions, and the First District held in Dedic v. Board of North Shore Towers Condominium Ass'n, 2018 IL App (1st) 171842, that work qualifying as an emergency or as “mandated by law” under 18(a)(8)(ii) escapes the referendum requirement entirely — there, a $1.01 million balcony-railing assessment levied with no owner vote after an engineer found 56 of 90 railings could not carry the code-required load.
What to watch next
No petition for leave to appeal was found. As Illinois high-rises age and facade and balcony work becomes unavoidable, the Dedic exception is the doctrine boards will lean on and owners will test.
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