The Texas senate has passed an anti-squatter bill — but critics call it 'pro-eviction' legislation
Bill 38 aims to provide property owners with a faster legal process to evict squatters from their dwellings and reclaim their properties.
'The current process is so broken that it punishes the rightful property owners while rewarding trespassers who know how to game the system,' State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, who authored the bill, said in a press release on April 10.
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The bill would give landlords the right to file for an eviction notice if they have given a tenant at least three days' prior notice, unless there's an existing lease or agreement with a different timeframe spelled out. In addition, the courts would be required to act between 10 and 21 days of the landlord's filing.
'You can't stay in the home because we have the ability to do a quick eviction process,' Bettencourt told Fox 7 Austin.
There's limited data available to estimate how many squatters are currently holding property illegally in Texas.
Cpt. Jim Sharmon, Harris County Constable Pct. 4, testified that there are hundreds of cases each year in a single Harris County Constable Precinct, according to a press release from Bettencourt in May 2024.
Bettencourt also cited a third-party survey that reported 475 cases of squatting in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He estimated there were thousands of cases across the state.
In the April 10 press release, Bettencourt emphasized the problem by recounting victims' stories.
'A homeowner testified a squatter broke into her Mesquite home, sold her belongings for pennies on the dollar, and then a JP in Garland, Texas, ruled to keep the squatter in her home over the holidays, denying her the right to come home for Christmas!' he said.
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Local Texas news station KHOU 11 reported a representative from the Texas Apartment Association testified that a group in San Antonio illegally seized more than 250 apartment units. The apartments were marketed as an immigration services center, but the group kept the rent money they collected for themselves.
'These stories are outrageous, but they're real — and they're happening statewide,' Bettencourt said in the release.
State Sen. Molly Cook was among those who opposed the bill.
'[Bill] 38 is very clearly a pro-eviction piece of legislation,' she wrote in a social media post. 'This bill would streamline evictions, erode due process and increase homelessness in a time where rent prices are increasing faster than peoples' wages. Housing insecurity is a public health crisis.'
The Texas Tribune reported on the state's housing affordability crisis in January. Rising home prices have vastly outpaced incomes, according to the publication. Meanwhile, housing policy group Up for Growth estimates there's a shortage of hundreds of thousands of homes.
Proponents of the bill argue that the proposed legislation works for both landlords and tenants with valid leases.
'I think we've struck the right balance between property rights of the owners and the needs of the of the renters, but to drive out the squatters that are really taking advantage of the fact that that they think they don't have to pay anything or they have no penalty of occupying what they don't own,' Bettencourt told Fox 7 Austin.
The bill must pass the House before the governor can sign it into law.
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