Courtesy Calls

Courtesy of yours truly CHAC is now well informed about the glaring loopholes regarding foreclosures in their system.

I have talked with several high level people regarding why government money is being sent to people whose properties are either going into or are deep in the foreclosure process.

My remedies and suggestions are getting the once over by the top brass. Time will tell if I’ve made a difference on this one.

The wheels of justice grind slowly.

Courtesy of yours truly my developer now has a stop work order placed on the building he’s “developing” literally around the corner from me.

In fact, when the leaves are off the trees, I can look across the vacant fields and see where the work was happening.

That's was as in past tense.

That’s all been stopped now.

True to form, Mr. Knight was basically doing a gut rehab with no plans on file with the Department of Construction and Permits, commonly known as DCAP. He also did not apply for any permits until recently.

Not a one.

I can only imagine the next groups of buyer’s faces when they find out that their homes are not quite what they imagined them to be. Then of course both the Attorney General’s Office and the Consumer Affairs Department of the City of Chicago basically told me I don’t have a right to expect that my electricity be done correctly.

So what do I know?

Nonetheless a stop work order was issued May 10th.

Now hold on to your hats kids ‘cause this is where it gets tricky.

Per the Real Estate Registry ordinance that was created by the city every front page of an estimate, contract, subcontract and advertisements for residential real estate development must have the developer’s business license number.

More importantly every application for a building permit is supposed to carry that business license number as well.

Mr. Knight has no business license number that I can find registered with the city.

Now I’m sure my search hasn’t been as detailed as it should be. It’s kind of difficult to know the name of every business registered in the Illinois Secretary of State’s system. It would be nice to be able to pull up a list using a registered agent query but that animal doesn’t exist for that office yet.

I did have the city do a search on several known business names that Mr. Knight has used in the past or is the registered agent for according to the Secretary of State’s office and nothing turned up.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t have a business license, it just may be under a name of a company I have yet to discover.

If he wants to continue to develop residential property legally (note the key word legally), he’ll have to beat a path to the Department of Revenue’s door.

Now here’s the linchpin---the internet listings for Mr. Knight’s developments that are currently in circulation should, according to the registry, be taken down.

Nowhere in the internet listings did I see any business license number.

What happens if some person falls for that pre-construction pricing bit, and actually plunks down some hard earned case as earnest money on a development that has no architecture plans or legal permits?

Then they have to wait for a development that may or may not happen.

That individual then may or may not throw any plans about breaking leases and a moving date out the window.

Roof over your head? Highly overrated.

What happens if this person loses out on another potential unit because he or she put down a contract on a building that is for all intensive purposes sitting on the back burner?

Moreover the earnest money might give my developer capital to keep his ruse(s) going.

You see the Lord High Executioner has been very helpful with this whole Knight business.

When the report hit his desk about Mr. Knight’s development activities in my hoody ho, I could hear the amazement in his voice.

Lord High Executioner:
“He essentially did a gut rehab with no permits. He didn’t even file any type of plan with the city.”

Me:
“I told you so. This does not come as a surprise to me.”

Lord High Executioner:
“How can you just do that?”

Me:
“Because he can---trust me this is an established pattern.”

Lord High Executioner:
“Well it doesn’t matter as everything will have to be ripped out reinstalled and inspected properly.”

Me:
**grinning into the phone**

Wait till the Lord High Executioner gets a copy of the tape from the informal hearing with Consumer Affairs from last fall, he’s gonna plotz all over himself.