My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: Illinois
I'm wondering if my landlord is breaching my lease and what actions can I take against this.
Heres my situation, I am a college student that has been living in this subpar living standards apartment for about 7 months... my lease isn't up for another 5.
I paid 1 full year of rent in advanced and never caused any problems usually i'm too busy with school to even leave my apt.
I originally signed up with this apartment due to cheap rent and free utilities. Although during that time the landlord decided to meter every unit. I was told by the old manager that mine should be taken care of because of the lease agreement at the time I signed it and to just give the bills to her. Well it's 4 months later and I get billed with a total of 137 in utilities and there is a new manager.
I talked politely with the new management and he seems like a good person that walked into a situation that the old manager had all screwed up so some of his ignorant comments I excused during our talk(especially when it sounded like was giving me an ultimatum, saying the landlord probably won't pay it so if you don't I guess your power will be shut off). So heres my problem with this.
-In my lease it says atleast once that the landlord pays for utilities, it's stated once which if needs be I believe could stand up in court.
-In my lease it basically states all my charges for the full year saying basically to have from this date to that date with the payment of such amount, security deposit, and following said rules. Nothing about me paying utilities.
-On the website they still haven't changed it, it says FREE UTILITIES in like 30 size font. So I time stamped it and got the source code and saved that... false advertising if anything.
-The new manager was also saying my contract should have had a piece of paper in it saying that we will be charged electricity sometime and he said it was in an older contract than mine back in 2008 where mine is 2009 but I don't think it is legit because it's signed BLANK INVESTMENT GROUP and not the last managers name as it has on mine.. if it was supposed to be in my contract which i doubt as I first heard of the meters wanting to be installed 2 months before it happened... I doubt they planned this back in 2008 especially since it's a shanty apt anyway.
-The new manager was saying that this isn't negligence on anyones behalf... I didn't say it but if anything I highly disagree. If I was supposed to have said sheet in my contract it should have been there I didn't know about it til now I don't think it's negligence on my behalf... what did I do wrong, should I be punished because the landlord couldn't keep a standardized lease?
-The bill is up to 140 which I was told was to be handled by the last manager for 3 months. I can afford it but it's the principle that I was told by many sources that it is free. But due to this technically this is a bill that could lower my credit score due to it not being paid and I didn't budget for it because I was told IT WILL BE TAKEN CARE OF DUE TO MY LEASE.
Well thats about it. I just want to make sure I am in the right, I don't like being confrontational but I was in the military for 6 years and I know when people are trying to take advantage of my honest demeanor so please let me know if this is blatant disregard of a contract that I have been in for 7 months .

