Tea & Crumpets

You see my good and faithful readers, the laws and ordinances regulating real estate development in Chicago are pretty clear cut.

Per the real estate developer registry of the City of Chicago, a developer of residential projects must have the following:

Valid articles of incorporation from the Secretary of State’s office.
A valid certificate of good standing from the Secretary of State’s office.
A valid City of Chicago Business License.

Once all of that paper work is in order or perhaps in conjunction with applying for a City of Chicago business license; the applicant can register as a residential developer. Afterwards, a developer’s license number is issued by the city.

Upon receipt of the license number, the developer can now apply for his or her building permits. They must also have the license number displayed not only the permit application but also on contracts, estimates and advertisements associated with their residential development(s).

That’s the way the game is supposed to be played.

One step leads to the other which in turn leads to the next.

I simply mentioned the above process to the Lord High Executioner.

I also asked if an individual owed the city money for fines, lawsuits, traffic tickets and the like if they would be issued a license before it was paid in full.

I also questioned how could a building permit for a residential building be issued to a developer who hadn’t cleared the registry process for the city?

The frightening thing is how many mid sized or smaller developers have already been issued permits by DCAP despite the fact a developer’s license number was not a part of their application?

Is it possible that DCAP is not checking the applications or are ignorant of the statutes?

These requirements were enacted by the city over a year ago.

As I laid all of this out for the Lord High Executioner---who will now simply be referred to by the initials LHE---he looked at me in amazement.

“You’ve put a lot of time into this.”

Indeed.