Court Based Rental Assistance Program

[Xingcai Wu]

Hi BP,

I’m in Will County, Joliet Illinois. Me and my eviction tenant are applying for the Court Based Rental Assistance Program together so she can pay the rent she owe me without an Eviction. My question is what if the rental assistance gets denied. How can I still recover what she owe me? 

Thank you so much,

Wu

[Adam Martin]

Is this mandatory or voluntary.  Absent it being mandatory I would just go through with the eviction there are far too many good tenants out there looking for quality housing to waste time on one who burnt me.  Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me.  

[Jonathan Klemm]

Hey there @Xingcai Wu -  I am in Chicago and I am not familiar with court based rental programs.  Is that through the county?   My guess is  @Mark Ainley or @Bob Floss II may be able to provide you some insight.

[Phillip Austin]

@Xingcai Wu Keep in mind, rent assistance from the government may take several weeks before you receive approval. So, if you don’t get approved, you’ll have to start the eviction process which will also take several weeks until the tenant is officially out. 

If the tenant has a large outstanding balance, it may be worth waiting. However, if it’s only one or two months, I’d highly recommend offering cash for keys just to get the tenant out. 

[Bob Floss II]

@Xingcai Wu The court will generally guide you to a program they know is funded. There are many different programs available, but not all of them still have funds to give out. The approval process can take several weeks or several months depending on the program. 

[Xingcai Wu]

Quote from @Bob Floss II:

@Xingcai Wu The court will generally guide you to a program they know is funded. There are many different programs available, but not all of them still have funds to give out. The approval process can take several weeks or several months depending on the program. 

@Bob Floss II Thank you so much for the reply. So, long story short. Me and the tenant signed an Agreed Dismissal Order from the court that she will move out by last month, which she did, and she will apply for the Court Based Rental Assistance Program through Will County to pay the owed rent to avoid Eviction. So, few days ago, I received a notice that the application is denied. I’m not sure why. I’ve tried to email the responsible department without any response. The tenant owes pretty significant amount of money. My question is that now she moved out per the court order, but I didn’t get paid as planned. How am I going to get what she owed me back?

sincerely,

Wu 

[Mark Ainley]

@Xingcai Wu typically @Bob Floss II is right but the one way I see it fall apart is when the tenant doesn’t do what they need to do in the admin side to get the assistance grant.  Focus on getting tenant to finish line and don’t worry about not happening.  I say this because it will be a slow road to get paid outside of getting this money here so focus your attention where the money is at now.

Thanks @Jonathan Klemm

[Jonathan Klemm]

I am personally interested to see how this plays out @Xingcai Wu please keep us posted.  Navigating rental assistance seems to be tricky thing, so would love to learn how it ends up.

[Bob Floss II]

@Mark Ainley @Jonathan Klemm @Xingcai Wu It doesn't apply here, but I'll point out any landlord with a tenant applying for an aid program needs to participate. I had a client with a tenant that applied for a Chicago program and since the landlord didn't sign or participate in the application, the check for $20,000 back rent was cut directly to the tenant. Shocker, the tenant turned around and offered to "settle" with the landlord for $8,000. 

[Sam Cano]

I am in a similar situation and going through an eviction with a tenant in cook county. The application was filed may 12 and application still says under review. Then tenant is 5 months behind on rent and i have a trial date coming up in 10 days. At this point I am ready to just move on being that I am not sure if I am going to get paid at this point. The Program could easily refuse the tenant or the state could say they ran out of money.

To the landlords that received rental assistance how long did it take before application was accepted. How long to get paid after it is accepted. In all honesty I am hoping tenant gets accepted before trial date. That being said it is a no win situation because even if they accept it I will probably deal with this again with the tenant. If someone wants to be a deadbeat they make it pretty easy in cook county.