Roder v. Equity One Investment Fund

── Roder v. Equity One Investment Fund ── Court: Appellate Court of Illinois Date: May 14, 2026 Category: General 2026 IL App (1st) 231664-U FOURTH DIVISION Order filed: May 14, 2026 Nos. 1-23-1664, 1-23-2377 (cons.) NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1). ______________________________________________________________________________ IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIRST DISTRICT ______________________________________________________________________________ MARK RODER, ) Appeal from the ) Circuit Court of Plaintiff-Appellant and Cross-Appellee, ) Cook County. ) v. ) No. 2023 L 000321 ) EQUITY ONE INVESTMENT FUND, ) Honorable ) John J. Curry, Jr., Defendant-Appellee and Cross-Appellant. ) Judge, presiding. JUSTICE QUISH delivered the judgment of the court. Presiding Justice Navarro and Justice Lyle concurred in the judgment. ORDER ¶1 Held: The circuit court’s order granting defendant’s motion to dismiss under section 2- 619(a)(5) is affirmed, as the plaintiff should have known of his alleged injury more than five years before he filed his complaint, and therefore, the complaint was untimely. The circuit court did not abuse its discretion in denying the parties’ cross- motions for sanctions. ¶2 Plaintiff Mark Roder (“Roder”) and defendant Equity One Investment Fund (“Equity One”) each appeal from several orders of the circuit court of Cook County in these consolidated appeals. Roder appeals from the circuit court’s order granting Equity One’s motion to dismiss Nos. 1-23-1664, 1-23-2377 (cons.) Roder’s complaint under section 2-619(a)(5) of the Code of Civil Procedure (“Code”). 735 ILCS 5/2-619(a)(5) (West 2024). Both parties appeal from the circuit court’s orders denying the parties’ cross-motions for sanctions. For the following reasons, we affirm the orders of the circuit court. ¶3 I. BACKGROUND ¶4 The following background is taken from Roder’s complaint and its attachments. This matter concerns unpaid property taxes for a residential property located on Sunnyside Avenue in Brookfield, Illinois (hereinafter, “the property”). The property is held in a land trust with Roder as the beneficial owner. Roder has resided at the property at all relevant times. In 2008, the Cook County Treasurer issued a special assessment tax on the property, which went unpaid and became delinquent. In 2009, Equity One, an experienced tax lien purchaser, purchased from the Cook County Treasurer the delinquent special assessment at a tax sale. As a result of the sale, Equity One held a tax lien on the property. Equity One made payments under the tax lien for the 2008 to 2011 tax years which, at that time, satisfied the delinquent property taxes. ¶5 In January 2012, Equity One filed a petition for a tax deed for the property in the circuit court of Cook County (No. 2012 COTD 0389), alleging that its right to redeem the tax lien would expire on July 16, 2012. See 35 ILCS 200/22-5 (West 2024). On July 12, 2012, Roder filed a petition for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Il