Installment Land Contracts in Illinois: A Suggested Approach to Forfeiture

NSTALLMENT land contracts are not new.They have long been a useful and usable means for selling and buying real estate.It may well be their long usage which has brought about the present reappraisal of their proper scope.I Dean Albert J. Harno once wrote in a letter to the law alumni of the University of Illinois: "Comprehensive thinking is even more vital than specialized thinking, for only through broad conceptions can the product of specialized thinking be utilized."'To look comprehensively at the specialized subject of real estate sales, there are only three means available: an outright transfer for full cash consideration, where the purchaser has the funds; a sale subject to a purchase money mortgage, where the purchaser has perhaps a third or more of the required purchase price; a sale by means of installment land contract, where the purchaser is able to pay very little, if any, money toward the total purchase price.No security problems arise on a cash sale, obviously, and mortgage transactions are so thoroughly regulated by statute that the parties can usually be easily advised of their rights, but where the sale is by means of a land contract in Illinois, the rights and duties of the vendor and purchaser are not always easily learned.