Section 34 of the Illinois Mechanics Lien Act (770 ILCS 60/34) presents a way for an owner to quickly dispose of a contractor’s lien recorded against his/her property. Typically, the owner serves the Section 34 notice and the contractor must either sue to foreclose its lien within 30 days or it loses the lien. But what if after …
Category Archives: Mechanics Lien/Construction Law
Contractual Exculpatory Provisions and Procedural and Substantive Unconscionability – Some Illinois Bullet-Points
Exculpatory and limitation of damages provisions are staples of commercial transactions; especially in the service contract setting. The former shields a contracting party from all liability (“if something goes wrong, I’m not responsible”), while the latter caps a party’s monetary damages (“if something goes wrong, my maximum liability is $100”). For decades, cases across the land have grappled …
“Private Statutes of Limitations” in Illinois: Some Quick Hits
The Featured Case: 15th Place Condominium Ass’n v. Fitzgerald Associates Architects, PC, 2013 ILApp(1st) 122292-U (September 5, 2013) Key Rules: 1/ Illinois’ ten-year statute of limitations (SOL) governs a developer’s breach of indemnity claim against a general contractor when the indemnity clause is part of a construction contract (735 ILCS 5/13-206); 2/ The four-year SOL (735 ILCS 5/13-214(a)) for …
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