The holding boards will use

An imperfect ledger does not void the demand. That is genuinely useful, because association ledgers are frequently imperfect — late fees computed on a superseded schedule, a payment applied to the wrong period, a violation fine included that is later withdrawn. Before Rao, each of those was an argument that the whole notice failed and the case had to start again.

It does not follow that accuracy does not matter. It follows that inaccuracy is not a magic defence.

The number owners need to hear

$2,223.69 in assessments. $30,853 in fees.

That is the real subject of this case, and it is the number any Illinois owner considering a fight over a few thousand dollars in assessments should be shown before deciding. Section 9.2(b) of the Condominium Property Act shifts the association's reasonable fees onto a losing owner, and a jury trial over $2,223 generates fees that dwarf it.

The corollary that owners consistently miss: disputing the number while not paying anything is the expensive path. An owner who pays the undisputed portion and contests the balance is in a very different position from one who ignores the notice for a year and then argues the notice was wrong.

What it does not mean for boards

Two cautions, and they matter.

First, reconcile the ledger anyway. The association won here; it also litigated to a jury verdict over $2,223 and had its fee documentation attacked. An accurate notice is cheaper than a defensible one.

Second, a fee award follows a win and only a win. In Du Bois v. Sherwood Commons the Third District held fees incurred in litigation where the association “failed to prove a default or failure to pay assessments” are not recoverable under Section 9.2(b) and cannot form the basis of a lien. An association reading Rao as licence to run up fees on a weak case has read the wrong half of Illinois law.

The symmetry is now well established. Clarendon v. Klein, published in July, confirms a prevailing association recovers even against an owner the court has found indigent.

Fee documentation on the eve of trial

Worth flagging for practitioners. The court declined to disturb the award despite documentation produced very late and a superseded original petition. That is a discretionary ruling and should not be read as a safe harbour — a different trial judge could readily have reduced the award, and would have been affirmed for that too.

What this is not

A Rule 23 order, not precedent, citable only under Rule 23(e)(1). And it does not address whether the fees were reasonable in the abstract — only whether the trial court abused its discretion in awarding them.

What to watch next

Whether any Illinois court engages with proportionality between fee awards and the assessments recovered under Section 9.2(b). No decision in this period does, and it is the obvious question a fourteen-to-one ratio invites.