Champaign County, IL Rental Property Rules: Repairs & Habitability (2026)

2 of the county's Public Nuisance Ordinance defines a TYPE 5 DANGEROUS STRUCTURE as a building principally intended for human occupancy that is damaged, deteriorated or improperly maintained so it cannot shelter its occupants safely and that continues to be occupied. 2(J)(2) lists the specific occupied-unit conditions that trigger that nuisance declaration in unincorporated Champaign County: unavailability of safe potable water inside each DWELLING UNIT (subsection f), unavailability of a working toilet (subsection g), plumbing that fails to meet the Illinois State Plumbing Code (subsection h), failure of a septic system where no sanitary sewer connection exists (subsection i), and lack of interior heating from an inoperable heating system or lost gas or electrical service (subsection j).

The ordinance also reaches inadequate electrical systems that force occupants onto extension cords for essential heating, cooking or lighting (subsection l), and separately bans running power into a dwelling unit on an extension cord from a source located outside that unit altogether (subsection m). The ordinance builds in a landlord-favoring exception on the heat and utility items: a lost gas, electrical or heating service is not a cited nuisance if the loss is strictly due to the tenant's own failure to pay rent or to pay a utility bill that is clearly the tenant's responsibility (subsections j and k).

4). Because this is a county nuisance ordinance, it reaches only rental units in unincorporated Champaign County; rentals inside Champaign, Urbana, Rantoul, Savoy or Mahomet fall under those cities' own housing codes.