Illinois HOA records requests: what the law actually requires

What the law says

Most Illinois subdivisions and planned communities - as opposed to condominiums - are governed by the Common Interest Community Association Act, 765 ILCS 160. Its records provision isn't a standalone section the way it is in some states; it's folded into Section 1-30, titled "Board duties and obligations; records," under subsection (i). That subsection requires the board to maintain and make available for examination and copying - at convenient weekday hours, to any member, unit owner, mortgagee, or their authorized agent or attorney - a defined list of association records. If a member submits a written request for those records, the board has a real deadline to act on it.

On fees, the statute doesn't set a per-page cap the way Florida's does - it just says: "A reasonable fee may be charged by the board for the cost of retrieving and copying records properly requested" (765 ILCS 160/1-30(i)(3)). There's no fixed dollar figure in the statute, so what counts as "reasonable" is judged case by case.

What counts as an association record

Section 1-30(i)(1) lists what the board must keep and produce: the recorded declaration and other community instruments, covenants, bylaws and amendments, articles of incorporation or organization, annual reports, and adopted rules and regulations; detailed chronological records of receipts and expenditures affecting the common areas, plus copies of contracts, leases, and other agreements the board has entered into; minutes of board meetings, which must be kept for at least 7 years; ballots and proxies from board elections and other member votes, kept for at least one year; other records a not-for-profit corporation would have to make available under Section 107.75 of the General Not For Profit Corporation Act of 1986; and any reserve study.

Two things worth flagging: unlike some states' statutes, the Act doesn't spell out a specific list of privileged or excluded material (no explicit personnel-records or attorney-client carve-out is written into this section). But it does require a "written statement of a proper purpose" before a member can access ballots/proxies or the broader category of Not For Profit Corporation Act records - so those two categories aren't quite as unconditional as the rest of the list.

What happens if the board misses the deadline

Illinois doesn't set a fixed per-day statutory penalty the way Florida or Colorado do. Instead, a missed 30-day window is automatically "deemed a denial" - which lets the member go to court. If the board "fails to provide records properly requested... within the time period provided," the statute gives the member a path to relief:

In practice, that means the leverage isn't a per-day dollar penalty - it's the threat of the association having to pay the member's attorney's fees on top of its own if it loses a records-access lawsuit.

Condos follow a different law

If your community is legally a condominium rather than a planned community/subdivision, the Common Interest Community Association Act above doesn't apply to you at all - condos are governed instead by the Condominium Property Act, 765 ILCS 605, whose records section is Section 19 ("Records of the association; availability for examination"). It covers similar ground but with meaningfully different numbers and conditions:

• Shorter deadline: 10 business days (not 30) after a written request, or it's deemed a denial.
• "Particularity" requirement: the written request must state "with particularity the records sought to be examined" - a more specific bar than the CICAA imposes for most records.
• Cost-based fee, not a flat "reasonable fee": the association can charge "the actual cost... of retrieving and making requested records available," plus the actual cost of reproduction if copies are requested.
• Split attorney's-fee rule: a prevailing member recovers attorney's fees and costs as of right for core records (declaration/bylaws, minutes, insurance, contracts, financial books, reserve studies) - but for the membership list and ballots/proxies, fees are only recoverable if the court finds the board acted in bad faith.
• Explicit exclusions: the Condo Act carves out records relating to employee appointment/discipline/dismissal, pending or threatened litigation, other owners' unpaid charges, and documents tied to another owner's sale or lease of a unit - categories the CICAA text doesn't spell out the same way.

The rest of this page focuses on the Common Interest Community Association Act, since it's the closer analog to the non-condo HOA statutes covered elsewhere on this hub - if you're in a condo association, use the numbers in this section (765 ILCS 605/19) instead.

A simple template for the request itself

A written request is what starts the 30-day clock under the Common Interest Community Association Act and creates a paper trail. Copy, fill in the brackets, and send it (email or mail, whichever the association's governing documents specify or accept):