Every Illinois seller learns about the radon disclosure early. Your attorney mentions it, your closing packet includes the state pamphlet, and by the time you're under contract you know the drill: disclose what you know, hand over the paperwork, move on. It's a known quantity.
What catches Villa Park sellers off guard isn't radon. It's a second inspection that has nothing to do with your buyer, your buyer's inspector, or anything in your purchase contract. The Village of Villa Park runs its own inspection before it will let title transfer on any property inside village limits, and it isn't checking your roof or your furnace. It's checking whether your sump pump, your downspouts, or your floor drains were ever plumbed into the sanitary sewer instead of the storm system. That single, narrow question is the one that can hold up a closing everyone thought was finished.
What the Village Is Actually Looking For
The requirement is called a Certificate of Compliance, and it applies to the sale or transfer of title of any property in the village. It isn't optional and it isn't something your buyer's inspector can substitute for. The Village's Public Works Department has to physically walk the property and confirm there's no illegal stormwater connection to the sanitary sewer system before that certificate gets issued.
The checklist, laid out under Section 25-431.2 of the village code, covers ground a typical home inspection doesn't spend much time on: the water meter and service line material, the sump pump and its discharge line, the water heater and furnace area, every bathroom and kitchen fixture, floor drains, stairwell drains, sewer cleanouts both inside and outside the house, downspouts, any cistern, and a grease basin if the property has one. It's a plumbing-and-drainage audit, not a general condition report. The inspector isn't grading your kitchen. They're tracing where your water goes.
Why This Matters More in Villa Park Than in Newer Suburbs
Here's the part that explains why this inspection exists at all, and why it's more likely to find something in Villa Park than in a subdivision built in the last twenty years. For decades, tying a sump pump or a downspout directly into the sanitary sewer was normal plumbing practice. Nobody thought twice about it. It kept water off the lawn and out of the basement, and it was often the path of least resistance for a plumber working in a house with clay tile or an older lot layout.
That practice is now illegal, because those connections overload a sanitary system that was never sized to handle stormwater on top of household waste. But the ban doesn't retroactively fix every house it was installed in. It just means the connection sits there, undiscovered, until something forces someone to look. In Villa Park, a lot of houses were built during exactly the era when this kind of plumbing was common. The village's housing stock leans heavily on postwar single-family construction from the 1950s and 60s, and the town's older streets carry a mix of that ranch-era building alongside bungalows from the 1920s. A local plumbing contractor who's worked Villa Park's neighborhoods for decades describes the geography almost block by block, noting which streets still run on older terra cotta sewer lines and which basements are more prone to tree root intrusion and seasonal backups. That's not a coincidence. It's the direct result of when these homes were built and what was considered acceptable plumbing at the time.
A seller in a five-year-old townhome in a newer part of DuPage County is very unlikely to have this problem. A seller with a ranch house that's changed hands two or three times since the 1960s has real odds of an undocumented legacy connection nobody currently living there ever installed or even knew about.
The Clock Nobody Mentions Until It's a Problem
Assuming the inspection goes fine, there's a second wrinkle worth planning around. The Certificate of Compliance expires 30 days after it's approved. If your closing date slides, which happens constantly in real estate for reasons that have nothing to do with plumbing, you can end up holding an expired certificate on the day you're supposed to hand over keys.
That means the order of operations matters. Schedule the inspection too early relative to your actual closing date and you may need to redo it. Schedule it too late and you risk a scramble if Public Works can't fit you in on short notice. The inspection itself typically takes about 30 minutes once someone from Public Works is on site, so the appointment isn't the bottleneck. Getting on their calendar with enough runway, without burning your 30-day window, is.
What It Costs and How You Pay For It
The fee is $50, and the Village is specific about how you can pay it: cash, cashier's check, or money order. Personal checks and business checks are explicitly not accepted for this fee. It's a small detail, but it's the kind of thing that trips up an out-of-town seller who assumes any village office takes a regular check.
There's also a related billing quirk worth knowing about if you're new to Villa Park. In addition to the village's own water and sewer charges, residents receive a separate quarterly bill from the Salt Creek Sanitary District, which handles wastewater treatment and isn't affiliated with the village itself. It shows up on its own schedule, usually about a week after the village bill, and it's easy to mistake for a duplicate or an error if nobody's told you to expect it. Closing on a Villa Park property means squaring away both.
If the Inspection Finds a Problem
The whole point of the Certificate of Compliance is to catch an illegal connection before the sale closes, not after. If the inspector finds one, whether it's a sump pump tied into the sanitary line or a downspout that was never rerouted, it needs to be corrected by a licensed plumber before the village will issue the certificate that your closing depends on. That's not a hypothetical inconvenience. It's the entire reason the inspection exists, and it's exactly the kind of repair that can turn into a negotiation point between buyer and seller if it surfaces late in the process instead of early.
This is where getting ahead of the timeline pays off. A seller who orders the compliance inspection as soon as they list, rather than waiting until the closing date is locked, has time to fix a problem quietly and on their own terms. A seller who finds out about it during the final week of escrow is negotiating from a much weaker position.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You List
Is this the same thing as my buyer's home inspection? No. Your buyer's inspection is negotiated in the purchase contract and covers the general condition of the home. The Certificate of Compliance is a legal requirement from the village itself, separate from anything in your contract, and it only concerns whether stormwater is illegally connected to the sanitary sewer.
Does this apply if I'm selling a condo or a townhome in Villa Park? The requirement applies to the sale or transfer of title of any property in the village, so it isn't limited to detached single-family homes. If you're unsure how it applies to your specific unit, Public Works can walk you through it before you list.
What if my closing date moves after I've already passed inspection? Keep the 30-day expiration in mind. If your closing slides past that window, you'll need to schedule a fresh inspection rather than relying on the original certificate.
The Bigger Point
None of this shows up in a generic seller's checklist, because it isn't generic. It's a Villa Park rule, tied to Villa Park's housing stock, enforced by a Villa Park department that most sellers never think to call until someone tells them to. Knowing it exists before you list, not after your buyer's attorney asks about it, is the difference between a smooth closing and a scramble in the final week.
If you're getting ready to sell in Villa Park, or you're trying to figure out what a house here will actually take to close cleanly, Annamarie Moisé has walked this exact process with local sellers and knows which calls to make first. Call Anna today to start your move.
