Illinois voids covenants calling a marked squad car a commercial vehicle
Illinois voids covenants calling a marked squad car a commercial vehicle
2026-09-10 · Illinois · Legislation
What happened. HB 67 was signed July 24, 2026 as Public Act 104-0580, effective January 1, 2027. It adds a new section to each of Illinois's two association statutes — 765 ILCS 160/1-73 and 765 ILCS 605/18.14 — with identical text.1
An association may not define or designate a marked law enforcement vehicle assigned to a law enforcement officer, or a marked firefighter vehicle assigned to a firefighter, as a commercial vehicle and subject it to a restrictive provision in an association instrument, covenant, rule or regulation, as long as the vehicle does not exceed 12,000 pounds. Any such provision “violates this Act and is void and unenforceable.”
The three limits that decide whether it applies
The section is narrower than its press coverage, and each qualifier does work.
Marked. An unmarked take-home vehicle is outside the section. The statute says “marked” twice and does not define it further.
Assigned. The vehicle must be assigned to the officer or firefighter. A personal pickup with a union decal is not covered.
12,000 pounds. A hard ceiling. Most marked patrol vehicles and command SUVs sit well under it; a marked apparatus does not.
“Law enforcement officer” takes its meaning from Section 10-10 of the Law Enforcement Officer-Worn Body Camera Act; “firefighter” from the Illinois Municipal Code.
What the enacted version dropped
The bill as introduced went further: it would also have barred associations from prohibiting the parking of such vehicles anywhere the owner, tenant or guest otherwise had parking rights. That did not survive.
The enacted section regulates only the characterization. An association may still enforce a neutral parking rule — assigned spaces, guest-parking time limits, no overnight parking on private streets — against a squad car on the same terms as any other passenger vehicle. What it may not do is route that vehicle into the commercial-vehicle prohibition and enforce the harsher rule.
That distinction is the whole compliance question. A board that reads this as “police vehicles may park anywhere” will over-correct; a board that reads it as cosmetic will keep issuing void violation notices.
Why no owner vote is needed
The provision self-voids. An offending covenant is “void and unenforceable” by operation of statute on January 1, 2027, so the association does not need a declaration amendment, a membership vote, or a recorded instrument to fix it. That is unusually convenient, and it is also a trap: because nothing has to be filed, nothing prompts the board to act, and the stale text sits in the declaration indefinitely.
The four-item cleanup
Rules and regulations. Scrub any definition of “commercial vehicle” that turns on markings, lettering, decals, equipment racks or light bars — those are exactly the criteria that sweep in a marked squad car.
Violation letters and fine schedules. A template that cites the commercial-vehicle covenant needs a carve-out, or the association will levy a fine it cannot collect.
Pending enforcement. Any open matter against a covered vehicle should be dropped rather than carried into 2027. There is no grandfathering clause.
The declaration. Leave the text alone if amendment is expensive, but record a board resolution noting the statutory override so future boards and buyers' counsel can find it.
The Senate version that died — and why it matters
SB 1713 would have barred associations from classifying any authorized emergency vehicle as commercial, without the marked/assigned/12,000-pound narrowing. It never moved out of Assignments. Illinois got the narrow version, and the broader idea is available for reintroduction in the 105th General Assembly.
For boards, that is the practical forecast: this section is likely a floor rather than a settled boundary. An association rewriting its vehicle rules in 2027 would do well to write them so that widening the protected category later does not require another rewrite.
What to watch next
Whether “marked” gets litigated. The statute does not define it, and the gap between a full livery package and a small door decal is where the first dispute will come from.
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