Legal counsel when a property matter turns adversarial. Purchase and sale conflicts, title and boundary questions, and lease and construction claims, resolved through negotiation, alternative dispute resolution, or litigation when a matter demands it.
A notice of lis pendens recorded under 735 ILCS 5/2-1901 is constructive notice to anyone who later takes an interest in the parcel, which is why the complaint and the notice are filed the same morning. Real estate disputes run on recorded paper, and the side that reads the chain of title before it sends a demand usually sets the terms.
Courts presume no parcel has a substitute, so the remedies differ from an ordinary contract fight: specific performance to force a conveyance, quiet title to settle who owns what, foreclosure to collect against the land itself. An Illinois mechanics lien must be recorded within four months of completing the work to bind a later purchaser or lender, and sued on within two years; a written contract claim has ten.
We fix the record before anyone writes a demand, protect the asset while the case is pending, and price every path, mediation and arbitration included, against what the building costs each month in limbo. When only a judgment clears the title, we try the case and record the judgment the week it is entered.
Representation in conflicts arising from residential and commercial transactions, including breach of a purchase and sale agreement, earnest-money disputes, failed closings, and claims for specific performance or rescission.
Title defects, easements, encroachments, boundary-line disagreements, and the quiet-title matters that cloud ownership and stall transactions, resolved so the record carries a clear answer.
Disputes under commercial and residential leases, from defaults and rent and operating-expense disagreements to repair and maintenance obligations and the enforcement or termination of a tenancy.
Counsel on the disputes that surface in development and construction, among them contract and scope disagreements, defect and delay claims, mechanics' liens, and the coordination failures that lead to them.
Evaluation and litigation of post-closing claims tied to disclosure obligations and the conduct of brokers and agents, measured against the representations made and the disclosure laws that apply to the transaction.
Negotiated settlement, mediation or arbitration, or litigation in state and federal court when a court order is the only adequate remedy, with the forum chosen to fit the conflict.
Under the merger doctrine the purchase contract's promises are absorbed into the deed when it is delivered, and a buyer who finds a problem afterward is left with the deed's covenants and whatever the contract expressly said would survive. Survival clauses are read literally. A representation without one is gone.
Illinois follows the American rule: each side pays its own lawyers unless a statute or the contract shifts fees. Most commercial leases and many purchase agreements do, usually to the prevailing party, and that clause, read before the first letter goes out, often decides whether a dispute is worth pressing at all.
The Illinois Residential Real Property Disclosure Act requires the seller's report before the contract is signed; delivered afterward, it gives the buyer three business days to walk. Liability requires the seller's actual knowledge of the defect, and suit must be filed within one year of possession or recording, whichever comes first.
Most leases and purchase agreements make written notice and a cure period conditions of default. A notice sent by email where the document requires certified mail, or one that misstates the cure date, is usually void, and a remedy exercised on it becomes a breach by the party who served it.
Illinois allows four years from the date a construction defect was or should have been discovered, with an outside limit of ten years from the act or omission under 735 ILCS 5/13-214. A defect that surfaces in year eleven is a maintenance expense rather than a claim, however plain the fault.
Under most Illinois form contracts the escrowee releases earnest money only on the parties' joint written direction or a court order, and may deposit the funds with the court and step aside. The party who refuses to sign a release has chosen a lawsuit over the deposit, with fee exposure if the contract shifts fees.
Before any demand goes out, we assemble the paper the dispute will turn on: the purchase agreement, the title commitment and survey, the lease file, the inspection reports, the disclosure forms. Then we read the recorded instruments against what the parties actually did on the ground.
Real property waits for no docket, so the early moves protect the thing itself: a lis pendens or escrow hold to stop a sale out from under the claim, a mechanics' lien perfected or bonded off, a default notice served in the form the lease and the statute require.
With the position secured, we press the resolution the numbers favor. That may be a negotiated buyout, an easement or boundary-line agreement, or mediation or the arbitration the contract compels, each priced against carry costs, because a building in dispute bleeds every month it sits in limbo.
When only a court can clear the conflict, we try it: quiet title, specific performance to force the closing, ejectment or eviction, foreclosure of the lien. Then we record the judgment so the chain of title carries the result forward to the next buyer.
Money damages replace most things. They do not replace a parcel of land, so real estate is the fight worth winning in kind.
Most come in three forms: a party who will not close, a defect in title or a boundary line that clouds a sale, and a default under a lease or a construction contract, including the mechanics lien that follows. Post-closing disclosure claims make up much of the rest. We act for whichever side holds the interest worth protecting, and the first task is the same in every case: find out what is of record and what the contract requires before a default exists.
No, and often the contract decides. Many purchase agreements and leases require mediation before suit or send disputes to arbitration, and an arbitration clause is enforced by a motion to compel that stays the court case. Where the contract is silent, we weigh the carry cost of the property against the time to judgment. Court becomes necessary when the remedy only a court can give is the point: a decree of specific performance, an order quieting title, or possession.
In Illinois the Residential Real Property Disclosure Act sets the frame. The seller answers the statutory report from actual knowledge, and liability runs to what the seller knew, not what an inspector might have found. The proof is usually the seller's own repair receipts, insurance claims, and earlier inspection reports, which is why preservation letters go out early. Commercial deals usually displace all of this with an as-is clause and negotiated representations, so the first thing we read is the survival clause.
Preserve, read, then write. Pull the full file: the contract with its amendments, the title commitment and survey, and every message between the parties, and suspend any routine deletion. Then read the notice and default clauses before sending anything, because a demand that skips a required cure period can put you in breach. Do not touch the earnest money, the security deposit, or the condition of the property without advice; each is evidence.
A negotiated boundary agreement or a release of earnest money can close in weeks. A quiet-title action with unknown heirs needs service by publication and a default judgment, which adds months. A contested specific-performance case runs through discovery and trial on the court's calendar, while an eviction moves faster because the Illinois Eviction Act makes it a summary proceeding. We give an estimate at the outset and revise it as the case develops, because the property's carry cost is the clock that matters.
By separating the asset from the argument. Early in the case we try to free the property: a sale closes with the disputed funds held in escrow, a mechanics lien is bonded off so the lender will fund, a tenant stays in possession under a reservation of rights while the rent dispute is decided. The litigation then runs on its own track with one partner responsible for it, and you receive a short written status at each stage rather than a copy of every filing.
Legal guidance for commercial property transactions, development, financing, and management, the deal-side counsel that heads off disputes before they arise.
Explore →Counsel on commercial and residential leasing and the ongoing legal responsibilities of managing property, structuring the obligations that lease disputes later test.
Explore →Land use planning, development, and zoning compliance, coordinating the agencies and approvals whose breakdowns give rise to construction and development claims.
Explore →Representation for condominium and community associations and their stakeholders on governance, enforcement, and the disputes that arise within shared-ownership communities.
Explore →Reviewed by Jonathan D. Herpy, Sr., Senior Partner · Last updated October 2026 · Educational overview · Not legal advice
One partner is accountable for the whole matter, and you have that partner's direct line. Chicago, London, and Dubai work to the same standard.