A bill introduced in the Texas House of Representatives could make it easier for Texas renters to be evicted from their homes, sparking alarm from tenants' rights advocates and legal professionals who say the bill goes beyond targeting illegal occupants.
House Bill 32 would eliminate the requirement for landlords to provide a notice to vacate before filing eviction proceedings as long as they are evicting for any reason other than nonpayment of rent.
This would undo the current legal requirement for landlords to provide a three-day notice to vacate before beginning the eviction process.
The bill also introduces the option for judges to award a summary judgment in an eviction filing, meaning the case would be ruled in the landlord’s favor without a trial. This would be possible if a judge determines there are no disputed facts in the filing and the tenant fails to file a response within three days, according to the bill text.
Opponents such as Texas Housers panned the bill, with Research Director Ben Martin arguing it creates a presumption that landlords are correct and a tenant’s defense is always false.
“It makes the eviction process in Texas, once and for all, a rubber stamp for landlords,” Martin told The Houston Chronicle.
Texas Rep. Angie Chen Button of Richardson authored the bill seemingly in response to a request from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to help landlords take back their property from squatters, the Chronicle reported.
Cracking down on squatters was cited as a legislative priority this year in Gov. Greg Abbott's annual State of the State address in February.
Squatting “not only threatens community safety, it impacts housing affordability and availability,” Chen Button said in a post on X, noting that she was looking forward to working with Texas Sen. Paul Bettencourt of Houston on legislation.
Bettencourt asked for squatter horror stories during a Senate hearing last summer and vowed in a June Facebook post that the legislature would create a legal definition of squatters and fast-track the legal process for eviction during this session.
The Chronicle noted that Dallas had 475 reported cases of illegally occupied homes last year, a small fraction of the 84,000 eviction cases in Dallas-Fort Worth last year. Adam Swartz, a justice of the peace judge in Dallas, told the outlet that squatting cases are rare and laws exist for property owners to remove people illegally occupying a property.
The bill under consideration also allows eviction filings in precincts adjacent to the precinct in which the property is located.
That led Michael Cody Moore, a former justice of the peace and current municipal judge, to question whether the bill is constitutional. That measure could require rural renters to travel more than an hour to get to court, disproportionately impacting those without access to a vehicle, he said.
Bettencourt is expected to file a companion bill to HB 32 in the Senate, the Chronicle reported.
