What are the laws of advertising?

Question for real estate agents/brokers about advertising laws (IL)?

• Someone bought the house across the street from me. It was a foreclosure. They fixed it up and are now reselling it. They have a sign out in front of the house for sale with a flyer. Sign and flyer say "St. [current rehabbers last name] Properties" with a little picture of a cartoon house and the phone number. The address is a P.O. Box, no street address listed, no specific agent/broker name, cell phone number only. No fair housing logos or anything. And it lists the property as 4 bed/2 bath when I know for a fact that one of those bedrooms and one of the bathrooms is in the basement. This is in IL. I have my real estate license, but I am in commercial. I know there are numerous things wrong with this advertisement. If it is for sale by owner doesn't it need to say that? Who does this guy think he is pretending to be a real estate company when he has neither a broker's nor a salesperson's license? I googled the name of the "company" and didn't find anything. Also checked the IL Dept of Regulation and nothing coming up under that name. As someone who keeps up with the continuing ed and fees associated with maintaining my license, this is ticking me off. Can someone clarify residential advertising rules in IL? Am I overreacting?

• Answer:

  The owner of the property can advertise it any way they want. Homeowners do not need to follow any state guide lines that RE Agents or brokers do. As long as they are selling property they own they are not bound by any of the realtor laws and they can call them self anything they want. You do not need a RE license to sell your own property, even if you own 10 of them. You should know this. I bought and sold 13 properties under the name of Bay West Investments, sole ownership, the bottom line is, it is for sale by owner. End of story.