Emotional Support Animal (ESA) Letters in Aurora, IL

Two filings, one clock, and the trap in section 22-26

Start with the rule that actually costs Aurora renters their cases.

Aurora runs its own Human Relations Commission under Chapter 22, Article II of the city code. It takes housing discrimination complaints and investigates them, and it has subpoena power. You have 180 days to file.

Then comes § 22-26(3)(b). To preserve your rights under the Illinois Human Rights Act, it says, a contemporaneous complaint must also go to the Illinois Department of Human Rights within that same 180 days.

Read it twice, because most people read it never. Aurora does not treat the city complaint as a version of the state one. It treats it as something you file in addition. A tenant who hands a form in at 44 East Downer Place and goes home satisfied may have let the state route close.

So if an Aurora landlord refuses your emotional support animal, plan on two filings the same day. That is the local rule, and it is unforgiving.

Who Chapter 22 covers, and the words “support dog”

Aurora’s ordinance is unusual in one small way. Section 22-23 describes disability partly as a determinable physical characteristic that makes a person need “a guide, hearing or support dog,” or that affects the ability to acquire, rent or maintain a housing accommodation. Few Illinois municipal codes put the words “support dog” in print at all.

Do not lean your whole weight on it. That clause is built around a physical characteristic, so it is not your best hook if your disability is a mental-health condition. The same warning covers its state cousin, 775 ILCS 5/3-104.1, written for blind, hearing impaired and physically disabled tenants.

The Aurora text you want is § 22-24. It bars refusing to rent, imposing different terms, and advertising a preference: each “on the basis of physical or mental disability.” Same chapter, wider reach. Quote that one.

What the state Act asks your landlord to do

Underneath the city ordinance sits the real engine, and it never mentions your animal.

775 ILCS 5/3-102.1(C)(2) makes it a civil rights violation to refuse to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services when that is necessary to give a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling. The word “animal” is not in the Illinois Human Rights Act. It is not in the state’s housing regulation either: 71 Ill. Adm. Code 2300 runs to eight sections and none mentions an animal.

That silence is not a gap. It is the whole argument. A no-pets clause is a rule. So is a breed list, a weight limit, a pet-rent box in the leasing portal. You are not asking your landlord to like your dog. You are asking for one rule to be set aside because of a disability, which is the thing the statute names.

Animal control wrote a sentence about comfort animals

Expect to have this one quoted at you.

Aurora’s Chapter 9, the animals chapter, follows the federal ADA definition. It says only dogs may be considered service animals, and that animals whose sole function is to provide comfort are not. A landlord who finds that line will send it over as if it settles everything.

It settles nothing about your lease. Chapter 9 is animal control. It governs the street and public settings, not the renting of a home, and it does not narrow § 22-23, which names support dogs. Your accommodation is decided under Chapter 22 and the Illinois Human Rights Act, not the animal ordinance.

Nothing to sign up for, and nothing worth buying

No Aurora office and no Illinois agency keeps a list of emotional support animals. There is no card, no vest, no city permit and no state registry with any legal weight, so any site selling one is selling you nothing.

What works is documentation from a licensed professional who has assessed you and can explain why the animal matters for your condition. Under 24 C.F.R. § 100.202(c) a landlord may ask for information showing you qualify for a benefit available to people with disabilities. A current letter from a provider who knows you answers that, and turns your request into one the landlord has to engage with.

The 2024 ordinance that helps, but not with your lease

In November 2024 Aurora added Article IV to Chapter 22, §§ 22-100 to 22-106, adopted by Ordinance O24-072 on the 26th. It is a well-built procedure. The application is free, the city must acknowledge it in writing within 10 days, and a hearing officer must decide within 45 calendar days, with one 45-day extension possible before the applicant may treat it as denied. Medical records are not normally required.

Now the limit. That article accommodates the city’s own zoning, land-use and code rules, and it runs to the zoning administrator. It does not bind a private landlord, and filing there will not make anyone accept your animal. Read it as evidence Aurora takes accommodation seriously, then go back to Article II for the landlord problem.

One more code trap: ignore the stale editor’s note pointing at a “§ 22-47 fair housing board.” Aurora’s old fair housing article, §§ 22-41 to 22-51, was deleted by Ordinance O12-043 in June 2012. That board does not exist.

The charge that disappears when the request is granted

Aurora’s code has no pet deposit rule and no pet fee rule. Its four counties set no ceiling. Illinois caps nothing, not a security deposit, not a pet deposit, not pet rent. For an ordinary pet, an Aurora landlord writes whatever number the market allows.

For an approved assistance animal the number should be zero, and not because a cap says so. A fee attached to the animal puts a price on the accommodation, and the statute makes refusing the accommodation the violation. Illinois adds one express line at 775 ILCS 5/3-102.1(C)(1): a landlord may not increase for a person with a disability any customarily required security deposit.

After the keys go back, whichever county you are in

Approval is not a shield against damage. If the animal ruins a carpet, you owe for the carpet.

The Security Deposit Return Act, 765 ILCS 710/1, controls how that is taken. Your landlord has 30 days from the later of your moving out or your right of possession ending to send an itemised statement of damage with paid receipts attached. No statement means the whole deposit comes back within 45 days. If a circuit court finds a refusal to itemise or bad faith, the award is twice the deposit plus costs and reasonable attorney’s fees.

One recent change matters here. Public Act 103-224 struck the old “5 or more units” words from that Act on January 1, 2024, putting small Aurora landlords on the same 30-day clock as a management company.

One home in three, spread over four counties

Aurora is the second-largest city in Illinois and sits in Kane, DuPage, Will and Kendall counties at once: about 109,990 residents on the Kane side, 52,486 in DuPage, 11,803 in Will and 6,431 in Kendall.

Of 61,317 occupied homes, 20,604 are rented: a 33.6% renter share, just above the 32.9% figure for Illinois as a whole on the Census Bureau’s 2020–2024 five-year estimates. One Aurora household in three rents, and all of them fall under the same city ordinance whichever county sends their tax bill.

Past City Hall: one year, two years, and a jury

The Commission is not your only option, and Aurora’s dual-filing rule pushes you toward the state anyway.

A housing charge goes to the Illinois Department of Human Rights within one year under 775 ILCS 5/7B-102(A)(1), counted from when the violation was committed or terminated. The Department targets 100 days to investigate, and missing that does not cost it jurisdiction. A dismissal can go to the Illinois Human Rights Commission for review within 90 days.

Or go straight to court. 775 ILCS 5/10-102(A) gives you two years in circuit court, either side may demand a jury, and paragraph (3) says you may sue whether or not you ever filed a charge. Damages, attorney’s and expert fees, and civil penalties up to $16,000, $42,500 or $70,000 are available under 775 ILCS 5/8B-104.

And if the landlord punishes you for asking (threats, pressure to drop it, sudden inspections), that is its own violation under 775 ILCS 5/3-105.1.

Help that reaches all four of Aurora’s counties

The Human Relations Commission takes the complaint itself: HRC@aurora.il.us, 44 East Downer Place, 630-256-3010. Remember the state filing that goes with it.

Prairie State Legal Services covers Aurora from two offices, a direct consequence of the city’s shape: West Suburban handles DeKalb, DuPage, Kane and Kendall, and the Joliet office handles Will. Check which one your address sits in first.

HOPE Fair Housing Center serves DuPage, Kane, and portions of Cook County plus 28 other counties in Northern and North Central Illinois. And the Illinois Department of Human Rights is where that second, essential filing goes.