Illinois Estate Law

09/04/2026

A new Illinois law did something useful on January 1, and almost nobody has been told about it.

Deed fraud — someone recording a forged or altered deed against a home they don't own — used to be handled county by county, however each one chose. Some ran a property fraud alert system. Some didn't.

That's no longer optional. Every Illinois county now has to establish and maintain a property fraud alert system, and every recorder has to have a process for reviewing and referring documents that look fraudulent. The same law also lets a rightful owner sue someone who knowingly records a deed meant to unlawfully cloud or transfer title.

Here's the part to actually do something with.

The alert is opt-in. Your county has to run the system. It does not have to enroll you.

You register the property by its PIN, and after that the county notifies you — by email, phone, or mail — when a document is recorded against it. You can list up to three other people to be notified too. Your attorney, agent, or title company can file the registration for you, or you can usually sign up on the recorder's website. Any fee has to be stated on the form before you sign.

Two honest caveats. An alert is a notification, not a lock: it tells you something was recorded so you can move quickly, it doesn't stop the filing. And the statute is explicit that nobody is liable if an alert doesn't reach you, so the contact information you give has to be right.

Still — it takes a few minutes, and the properties it protects most are the ones least likely to be watched. Vacant lots. A parent's house sitting empty during probate. A rental held for years with nothing new recorded against it.

If you've inherited Illinois property, or you're holding a home you don't live in, this is a short errand worth running.

We handle Illinois closings and deed work on a flat, upfront fee, quoted before we start, so you know the cost before you decide anything.

Book a free consultation → illinoisestatelaw.com
(312) 373-0731

General information, not legal advice.

09/04/2026

The most important document in an estate plan is usually the one nobody can find.

Not the trust. Not the deed. The original, signed will — the paper itself.

Here's what Illinois expects, and almost nobody knows it.

If you have someone's will, you file it. Illinois law says that immediately upon the death of the person who signed it, whoever has the will in their possession files it with the circuit clerk of the proper county. Not eventually. Not once the family decides whether probate is necessary.

Filing the will is not opening probate. They're separate acts, and filing is the simple one. It doesn't open an estate, appoint anyone, or start a court process. So "we're not sure we're going to probate this" isn't a reason to hold onto it. The duty to file doesn't wait for that decision.

If you're the named executor, you also have your own clock. Within 30 days of learning you're named, you either start the proceeding to admit the will to probate or you formally decline to serve. Do neither, without good cause, and a court can decide you don't get to serve at all.

Thirty days sounds generous. It isn't, when it overlaps with a funeral.

There's a hard edge here too. Willfully destroying or altering someone's will without their direction — or deliberately hiding it for 30 days after you know they've died — is a felony in Illinois. And if someone has the will and won't hand it over, a court can compel it.

Now the part that costs families real money: the original.

If the will was last known to be in the signer's own hands and can't be found after death, Illinois courts start from the presumption that they destroyed it deliberately — that they revoked it. A copy can sometimes still be admitted, but whoever offers it has to overcome that presumption with clear and convincing evidence.

A missing original turns a routine administration into a contested one — an argument about paper, not about anything your parent actually wanted.

The practical part.

Keep the original somewhere findable and fireproof, and tell your executor exactly where. A document nobody can locate protects nobody.

Don't unstaple it, write on it, or clip anything to it. Marks on the paper invite questions later.

Keep a scan for reference — but the scan is not the will.

And if your attorney holds the original, make sure your family knows which firm — the most common gap we see.

None of this is complicated when the paper is where it should be. Nearly every expensive version starts with a document nobody can find.

We handle Illinois estates on a flat, upfront fee, quoted before anything is filed — including telling you honestly when a full probate isn't necessary.

Holding a will and not sure what to do with it? That's a short conversation, and it's free.

Book a free consultation → illinoisestatelaw.com
(312) 373-0731

General information, not legal advice.

09/03/2026

There's a fence in the backyard. Everybody assumes it marks the property line.

Quite often, it doesn't.

Fences get built by whoever built them, in whatever year, using whatever looked about right. Sheds drift. Driveways get widened. Decades later, everyone has been mowing to a line nobody ever measured — and the only document that says where the land actually ends is a plat of survey.

Here's what a survey is, in plain English. It's a scale drawing made by a surveyor licensed in Illinois, showing your lot's boundaries, the measurements of every parcel line, where the house, garage, driveway and fences actually sit, and any easements and rights of way recorded against the property. It's a real boundary survey, not a sketch — and the surveyor stakes or flags the corners so you can go stand on them.

In most Illinois residential contracts, the seller pays for it, and it has to be dated within six months of closing. That's a contract term, not a law, so it can be modified — and attached units are usually handled differently. Worth confirming rather than assuming.

Two things a survey routinely turns up.

An encroachment — the neighbor's fence sitting a couple of feet inside your line, or your garage a few inches over theirs.

An easement — a strip, often across the back, where a utility has recorded rights. It's still your land. You just can't build on it, and finding that out after you've ordered the pool is an expensive way to learn.

One thing a survey is not: title insurance. They're different products doing different jobs, and an owner's policy commonly takes exception to exactly the kind of thing an accurate survey would have shown — unless survey coverage is added.

Now the reassuring part, because this is where people brace for a fight.

Almost none of this becomes one. The survey lands during attorney review, which is precisely when it's still cheap to deal with. Most findings are resolved on paper: a title endorsement, a recorded agreement acknowledging where the fence sits, a seller cure before closing, or occasionally a decision that you're fine with it and want it documented. What you don't want is to find it years later, when you're the one selling.

So when the survey shows up in your inbox, open it. Look at the boundary, look at where the improvements sit, and look for hatched strips. If something doesn't match what you saw on the walkthrough, that's the conversation to have — that week, not later.

We handle Illinois residential closings on a flat, upfront fee — quoted before we start, survey review included.

Buying or selling this fall and want someone reading the survey properly? Let's talk before the contract is signed.

Book a free consultation → illinoisestatelaw.com
(312) 373-0731

General information, not legal advice.

09/03/2026

"Sure, I'll just bring in the whole trust."

Please don't.

When a bank, title company, or brokerage asks a trustee to "send over the trust," they are usually asking for far more than they need — and most trustees agree before anyone mentions there's another option.

Illinois has one. A certification of trust is a single signed page from the trustee that establishes:

◆ that the trust exists, and when it was signed
◆ who created it and who is serving as trustee now
◆ what that trustee is authorized to do
◆ whether it can be revoked, and by whom
◆ the trust's tax ID and how title is taken

What it leaves out is the part that belongs to your family: who inherits what. Illinois law says plainly that a certification does not have to contain the trust's dispositive terms.

The institution can still ask for the excerpt that names the trustee and grants the specific power it's relying on. That's fair. What it generally cannot do is insist on the entire document simply because it would like to read it — and a party that demands the full trust anyway can be liable for damages if a court finds the demand wasn't made in good faith. (Some recipients get more room here — a bank that has to review the whole document to satisfy another law is treated as acting in good faith.)

Most trustees learn all of this about ten minutes after sliding forty pages of their parents' private wishes across a counter.

We handle Illinois trust administration on a flat, upfront fee, quoted before we start — and a certification of trust is usually a same-day fix.

Not sure what your bank is actually entitled to see? That's a short conversation, and it's free.

Book a free consultation → illinoisestatelaw.com
(312) 373-0731

General information, not legal advice.

09/02/2026

Congratulations on the house. Here is your first piece of official-looking mail.

It has a seal. It has a division name. It has a deadline printed in a box. And it would like a not-small fee to send you a "certified copy" of the deed you just recorded.

It is not from the county.

It's a private company. They read the recording data — which is public — see that a property changed hands, and mail the new owner a bill for something the new owner can get themselves.

Three things worth knowing:

You probably don't need a certified copy of your deed at all. The recorded deed is the record. Your closing packet already has a copy, and the county has the original.

If you do want one, buy it from the county. Copies run a few dollars a page; in Cook County a certified copy starts around ten dollars for the first page. Considerably less than the letter is asking.

And the letter usually tells on itself. Somewhere near the bottom, in the smallest type on the page, it says it isn't a government agency and this is a solicitation. That one sentence is the most accurate thing in the envelope.

Nothing bad happens if you throw it away. Nothing good happens if you pay it.

We handle Illinois residential closings on a flat, upfront fee — so the only bill you get from us is the one we quoted you before we started, and we'll tell you which mail actually matters.

Closing soon, or holding a letter you're not sure about? Send it over.

Book a free consultation → illinoisestatelaw.com
(312) 373-0731

General information, not legal advice.

09/01/2026

08/31/2026

HELP WANTED: Co-Trustee. Two positions. No interview.

If your parents named you and your sibling to serve together, you've already been hired. Nobody handed you the terms, so here they are.

Illinois expects co-trustees to act together — not in parallel, not by quietly dividing the accounts between you. And a co-trustee is supposed to actually participate. Stepping back and letting your brother handle it isn't a neutral choice; the law expects both of you in the room.

When you can't agree, the default rule is that co-trustees who can't reach a unanimous decision may act by majority, after written notice to the other trustees.

Read that again if there are two of you.

Two people don't have a majority. So with exactly two co-trustees and nothing in the document to break a tie, a real disagreement has no referee inside the trust. If it hardens into a true deadlock, the tiebreaker is a judge — and a court can remove a trustee where a lack of cooperation is substantially impairing the administration of the trust.

There's one more line nobody expects. In most cases each of you has a duty to keep an eye on the other — not to snoop, but to use reasonable care to stop a co-trustee heading for a serious breach, and to put it right if it happens. "I wasn't the one handling the money" is not a complete answer.

Here's the reassuring part: almost none of this ends up in front of a judge.

Most of it gets solved on paper, early. Read what the trust actually says about deadlocks — good documents name a tiebreaker. Decide up front who handles which task, and put the delegation in writing; Illinois lets one trustee delegate to a co-trustee. Agree on how you'll record decisions. And get an outside read on the close calls, so it's a question about the trust instead of sibling against sibling.

Two honest caveats. The trust document itself can change most of these default rules, so the answer always starts with reading it. And if there are three of you, majority actually works — this is mostly a two-trustee problem.

We help co-trustees set this up before it turns into a dispute, and we help sort it out when it already has — on a flat, upfront fee, quoted before we start.

Just found out you're serving alongside your sibling? Come in together. It's a much cheaper conversation than the other one.

Book a free consultation → illinoisestatelaw.com
(312) 373-0731

General information, not legal advice.

08/28/2026

Illinois has 102 counties. When someone dies, their estate is opened in exactly one of them — and it's probably not the one people assume.

The default is the county where they had a known place of residence. Not the county where the will was signed. Not the county where the attorney's office sits. Not the county where you, the executor, happen to live now. If there was no known Illinois residence, it shifts to where the bulk of their real estate was, and after that, where the bulk of their personal property was.

It sounds like a technicality. It isn't. The county sets the courthouse, the local rules, the filing procedures, and how quickly things actually move — and filing in the wrong one costs you weeks you don't get back.

The good news: sometimes there's no case to open at all. If the estate is small enough and the assets are titled the right way, it can often be handled without a probate case. Figuring out which situation you're in is the first conversation, not the last.

We handle Illinois probate and estate administration on flat, upfront fees — so you know the full cost before we start, in whichever county the case belongs in.

Not sure where to file, or whether you have to? Let's sort that out first.

Book a free consultation → illinoisestatelaw.com
(312) 373-0731

General information, not legal advice.

08/24/2026

Think dying without a will means the state seizes everything you own? It doesn't — but the reality is nearly as unsettling: Illinois has a default plan for your estate, and it's already written.

It's called intestate succession, and it's a one-size-fits-all formula in the Probate Act. It decides who inherits and in exactly what shares — your spouse and children split things by fixed percentages, whether or not that's what you'd have wanted. Close friends, unmarried partners, stepchildren, a favorite charity? The statute doesn't know them, so they get nothing.

And if you have minor children, a will is where you'd name the person you trust to raise them. Without one, that decision goes to a judge, guided by the statute — not to you.

The reassuring part: taking back that say is simpler than most people expect. We write wills and estate plans on flat, upfront fees, so you know the full cost before we start and your wishes — not a default formula — decide what happens.

Rather choose for yourself? Let's put your plan in writing.

Book a free consultation → illinoisestatelaw.com
(312) 373-0731

General information, not legal advice.