Texas House bill would weaken renters’ rights, advocates say

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A proposal before the Texas Legislature billed as a way to clamp down on squatters would reduce legal protections for renters, accelerate evictions and increase homelessness, tenants’ advocates told House lawmakers Wednesday.

House Bill 32 would speed up the state’s eviction process, make it easier for landlords to find judges who will side with them in eviction cases and make it harder for low-income tenants to obtain legal assistance, opponents of the bill said. If lawmakers enact the proposal, it’s possible that tenants could get evicted without ever seeing the inside of a courtroom or knowing there was ever a case against them, they said.

“There is nothing lawful or fair about this bill at all,” Mark Melton, an attorney who leads the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center, told members of the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence committee. “In fact, it is extremely and obviously unconstitutional.”

The legislation — filed by state Rep. Angie Chen Button, a Garland Republican — is part of a push to help property owners deal with squatters, or people who illegally occupy a property. Property owners and landlord groups have told lawmakers that landlords have had increased run-ins with squatters, but existing laws and procedures are insufficient to help boot them from their property, costing them thousands upon thousands of dollars in the process. The state’s top three Republican officials — Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows — have said that legislation to crack down on squatting is a top priority during this year’s legislative session.

House Bill 32 “is not about punishing anyone,” Button told the committee. “It is about providing justice to the property owner and giving their property back.”

Landlord groups in Texas see the bill as a vehicle not just to address squatting but to curtail state laws they say can trip up landlords when seeking an eviction — which landlords say they view as a last resort after efforts to resolve issues with their tenants have failed. Chris Newton, Texas Apartment Association executive vice president, said in a statement that “squatting is a symptom of a broader problem — an eviction process that can be slow and inefficient.”

“For too long, inefficiencies in Texas’ civil eviction process have led to delays that embolden those who unlawfully occupy properties and leave property owners struggling to regain control of their property,” Newton said. “These delays reduce housing availability and affordability while jeopardizing the safety of residents and staff.”

Opponents of the bill argue that cases of squatting are rare, and that Button’s proposal wouldn’t help property owners in those cases. Instead, they said, the bill would weaken the state’s already meager legal protections for the state’s 4.2 million renter households — a growing number of whom have faced increased pressure from rising rents.

Legal aid lawyers, housing advocates and justices of the peace, the judges who handle eviction cases, told lawmakers that the proposal would deprive tenants of due process. An eviction can remain on a tenant’s record for up to seven years, making it exceedingly difficult to find housing because landlords tend to reject applicants with an eviction on their record.

Button’s bill aims to accelerate the eviction process in a number of ways.

State law requires landlords to give tenants written notice three days before they file for eviction. If passed, the bill would loosen rules for how landlords may deliver that notice to tenants. The proposal would only require landlords to give that notice in cases where tenants have fallen behind on rent. Housing advocates fear landlords would circumvent that requirement in nonpayment cases by ginning up other reasons to file for eviction.

The bill would give landlords an avenue to obtain an eviction judgment without going to trial. Landlords could seek an automatic ruling in their favor without a hearing if there are “no genuinely disputed facts” in the case. Tenants would only have three days to respond before a judge issues a ruling. Legal aid lawyers and housing advocates doubt renters, especially those who don’t regularly interact with the legal system, could realistically respond in time.

If tenants lose their eviction case, they would have fewer days to file an appeal before they’re removed from the home.

“These are unsophisticated, poor people,” Melton said. “They're never going to figure out how to file an affidavit in three days to respond. That's never going to happen. And that's why they drafted this way. Everybody knows that.”

Some Republicans on the panel appeared uneasy that existing state law could be allowing tenants to remain in place if they’re not paying rent, though they expressed willingness to see changes to the legislation that would work out common ground between landlords and tenants.

“I don't believe anyone on this committee or anyone that we're going to hear from today wants a complete denial of due process,” said state Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican who chairs the committee.

The bill would allow landlords to file their case in neighboring precincts, a measure intended to enable landlords to seek rulings from judges seen as more favorable.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, some judges have placed additional scrutiny on landlords who bring evictions and taken extra steps to give renters access to legal representation — often a deciding factor in whether a tenant avoids eviction.

Research shows tenants are less likely to show up to court for their hearing if it’s further away, and thus are more likely to lose their case. If a tenant doesn’t show up, they wouldn’t obtain legal representation that would help them avoid eviction, tenant advocates said.

Housing advocates and legal aid lawyers predicted such a move would backfire on landlords — in fact slow down the eviction process because landlords would clog some courts with a glut of eviction cases and create a backlog.

The bill also aims to require cities and counties that use public funds to provide legal assistance to tenants to also put up dollars to relocate tenants — a move that legal aid attorneys and local officials said would make it prohibitive to provide legal assistance to tenants.

Dallas County recently began providing funds to the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center in a bid to tackle homelessness in the region, Commissioner Andy Sommerman said.

“By accelerating this notion of being able to be evicted so quickly, it will definitely decrease our ability to handle that homelessness,” Sommerman said.

Lawmakers implored landlord and legal aid groups to hash out their differences and find middle ground to alter the proposal. There was already some agreement, for example, that legislators could perhaps find ways to speed up the process of returning possession of rental properties to owners after they win their case.

State lawmakers have filed separate bills this year aimed at increasing criminal penalties for alleged squatters. But those cases are rare, said Judge Adam Swartz, a Dallas County justice of the peace. Swartz told lawmakers his court sees a “handful” of squatter cases out of some 8,000 eviction cases each year.

“This bill seems like trying to kill a mosquito with a shotgun,” Swartz said.

Disclosure: Texas Apartment Association has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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