Texas anti-squatter bills could mean faster evictions. Here's what renters should know
Texas lawmakers want to prevent squatters from violating tenant rights and landlords' properties.
The Texas Senate passed Senate Bill 38, and it's now in the House. Meanwhile, the House introduced its own version of an anti-squatter bill, House Bill 32, that, if passed, would go into effect Jan. 1, 2026.
What do these bills say about tenant rights, and are they actually helpful for Texas renters and homeowners?
A squatter is a person who occupies an abandoned or unoccupied property without the legal right to do so. Squatters may move into a property for a variety of reasons, such as to find shelter, to avoid paying rent, or to claim ownership of the property.
In Texas, squatters can claim what is known as adverse possession, which allows the trespasser to legally claim ownership of a property after a certain amount of time has passed.
According to NOLO, adverse possession is a legal principle that enables a trespasser — often a neighbor but occasionally a stranger — to obtain rightful ownership of another person's land. Originating in early British legal traditions, this concept now primarily serves to ensure fairness. It applies when a property owner has neglected or overlooked a piece of land while someone else has continuously occupied, maintained, or utilized it for an extended period. Forcing the long-term occupant to leave under such circumstances could result in undue hardship or injustice.
According to CityJournal.org, the squatter must do the following to claim adverse possession: either occupy the property for three years with a color-of-title lease; live on the property with a deed in their name, pay property taxes and cultivate the land for five consecutive years; or occupy and improve the land for at least ten years.
Other requirements also include:
There is no valid lease agreement.
They must live on the property. The squatter must be physically present on the property as an owner to file a claim for adverse possession.
To file an adverse possession claim, the squatter must not share the property with anyone else. They must show that they're openly living on the property and can't share it.
The squatter has to live continuously on the property for three to ten years.
If the squatter abandoned the property for months or years, they are no longer considered in possession of it and, therefore, cannot file a claim for adverse possession.
On April 10, SB 38 passed the Texas Senate with a 21-8 vote. The bill was written by Senator Paul Bettencourt.
In a statement, Sen. Bettencourt said the current tenant laws allow squatters to occupy properties through legal loopholes.
"The current process is so broken that it punishes the rightful property owners while rewarding trespassers who know how to game the system, Bettencourt said. "In the interim hearing, 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! You can't make these up, as squatter horror story after horror story was told."
Here's what's proposed under SB 38:
Establishes a fairer, faster process to remove squatters, requiring courts to act within 10 to 21 days of a property owner's filing, clarifying the delivery method for the Notice of Vacate.
Takes out appeals that stall evictions, reinforcing judicial discretion.
Confirms that Justice of the Peace courts may set a hearing to motion for summary disposition.
HB 32 in Texas introduces significant changes to eviction procedures, particularly affecting tenants.
Here are some key points from the bill:
The bill streamlines eviction suits, making it easier for landlords to remove unauthorized occupants.
It restricts counterclaims in eviction cases, meaning tenants may have fewer legal avenues to challenge evictions.
Only the Texas Legislature can modify eviction procedures, preventing local governments from enacting tenant-friendly policies.
Landlords must provide at least three days' written notice before filing an eviction suit for nonpayment of rent, unless a different period is specified in a lease.
According to a Texas Tribune article in March, legal advocates say HB 32 and SB 38 aim to simplify and expedite the eviction process, potentially enabling landlords to remove tenants with fewer procedural safeguards than currently required. This change may reduce the time tenants have to respond to eviction notices or present their case in court, making it more challenging for them to protect their rights.
Mark Melton, an attorney who leads the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center, said HB 32 is harmful to Texans' rights.
"There is nothing lawful or fair about this bill at all," he said. "In fact, it is extremely and obviously unconstitutional.'
Adam Swartz, a Dallas County justice of the peace judge said the bills are an exaggeration of what the actual problem is.
"This bill seems like trying to kill a mosquito with a shotgun,' he said.
Removing a squatter requires a law enforcement officer with a valid court order.
According to the Texas State Law Library, if a squatter or tenant on your property fails to make the required rent payments or is intruding on the property, you can initiate the eviction process by serving them with a three-day vacate notice.
If the three-day period elapses without any resolution, you can escalate the matter by filing an eviction lawsuit with your county's court. Typically, an eviction lawsuit takes approximately 2-3 weeks to reach a conclusion and may take longer if a notice of appeal is filed.
You can read more about the process of evictions at hemlane.com/resources/texas-eviction-laws/.
In March 2024, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted that Texans have a right to defend themselves from squatters through the Texas castle doctrine.
In Texas, the castle doctrine, a legal principle, grants residents the authority to employ force, even lethal force, in self-defense, the defense of their families, and the protection of their property against intruders or assailants.
However, legal experts in Texas have said you can not just shoot a squatter.
Geoffrey Corn, a professor at Texas Tech University's School of Law, explained in a Newsweek article that the Texas castle doctrine does not justify violence.
'Now, if I came home unaware someone had invaded my home, confronted that individual and demanded they leave, and was then attacked with deadly force, I would then be justified in defending myself with deadly force,' he said.
'But if I knew a squatter was in my home, and then attacked that individual with deadly force, my response would be excessive and the castle doctrine would not change that."
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: What the proposed Texas anti-squatter bills mean for landlords
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Five takeaways from New Jersey's primaries for governor: How the candidates are handling Trump and more
The matchup in New Jersey's race for governor is officially set — and Tuesday's primaries also laid down big indicators about the state of both political parties after the first major intraparty contests since the 2024 election. Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a former state legislator, easily won his party's primary with President Donald Trump's endorsement, underscoring Trump's significant sway over the GOP electorate. U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill won the crowded Democratic primary, pitching herself as the candidate with the best shot at holding on to the governorship and steering past ideological and antiestablishment sentiment simmering in her party. She defeated candidates who were to her left and to her right. The race to replace term-limited Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, one of two governor's races this year, is expected to be competitive. Trump lost the state by 6 percentage points in November, a 10-point swing in his direction compared with his 2020 margin. Here are five takeaways from Tuesday's primaries: Sherrill won as many Democratic voters were weighing which candidate would be most electable and as each Democratic candidate pitched a different path forward for the party. Sherrill's victory suggests some Democratic voters want to dust off the party's successful playbook from the 2018 midterm elections, when she flipped a longtime Republican-held House seat. In that campaign and in her primary run this year, Sherrill stressed her background as a Navy helicopter pilot and a former federal prosecutor and pitched 'ruthless competence' as a counter to Trump. 'It just seems so obvious to me what the path forward is. It's effectively govern,' Sherrill recently told NBC News. 'And this is what I've been doing since 2018 when I first ran, right? ... I say to people, 'What's keeping you up at night?'' 'I tell people it's not maybe the sexiest tagline, but ruthless competence is what people in New Jersey want to see in government,' Sherrill added later. 'And that's what I've always provided, and that's what I think stands in stark contrast to the most incompetent federal government we've probably ever seen in this nation.' Still, while Sherrill won with over a third of the vote, the results revealed a fractured party. Two candidates who pitched themselves as more progressive, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, won a combined 36% of the vote. Two of the more moderate candidates, U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer and former state Senate President Steve Sweeney, got 20% combined, while teachers union president Sean Spiller won 10%. After having come just 3 percentage points shy of defeating Murphy in 2021, Ciattarelli made one thing clear in his bid four years later: He's all in on Trump. Like many prominent Republicans, Ciattarelli wasn't always on board — he criticized Trump as a 'charlatan' in 2015. And while he embraced Trump during his previous bid for governor, he didn't campaign with him. That led Ciattarelli's opponents, including his top competitor, former radio host Bill Spadea, to try to frame him as insufficiently loyal to Trump. (Spadea had voiced criticism of Trump before he fell back in line.) But Trump's endorsement of Ciattarelli cemented his front-runner status, helping hasten the end of the campaign. And in a nod to Ciattarelli's past criticism, Trump tried to inoculate him from any attempt to undercut his Trump bona fides. 'Jack, who after getting to know and understand MAGA, has gone ALL IN, and is now 100% (PLUS!),' Trump wrote in a Truth Social post announcing his backing. Tuesday's result suggests that Trump's seal of approval was good enough for most GOP primary voters. By late Tuesday evening, Ciattarelli was carrying all of the state's 21 counties. Ciattarelli's vote share was at 67% by late Tuesday evening, compared with just 22% for Spadea. State Sen. Jon Bramnick, who had been critical of Trump, had won just 6%, followed by two other candidates who had each won less than 3% of the vote. Ciattarelli thanked Trump in his victory speech for his 'endorsement and strong support,' making a joke about his being a 'part-time New Jersey resident.' (Trump owns a home and a golf course in Bedminster.) But Ciattarelli spent most of his speech focused on a general election argument, not on shoring up his base — indicative of the line he'll have to walk in a state Trump lost three times, even after the improvement he showed last year. Both parties are grappling with antiestablishment sentiment, wondering how to handle it, channel it or just avoid getting run over by it. But Tuesday's results were also a reminder that political institutions still have some staying power. New Jersey's traditional political machines were dealt a blow last year following a lawsuit from Democrat Andy Kim during his Senate run, when a court ordered that county parties could no longer give advantageous ballot positions to their preferred candidates. That diminished the sway those parties had Tuesday, but they still demonstrated some power. Ciattarelli was the only Republican who competed for county party endorsements. Fulop didn't compete for Democratic county party endorsements, and Gottheimer sat some out, as well. Some county parties split between the candidates, with Sherrill earning the most endorsements from 10 of the 21 counties. While Sherrill was carrying 15 of the state's 21 counties late Tuesday, Gottheimer was winning his home county, Bergen, which endorsed him. Sweeney, the only candidate from South Jersey, fared far better in the six counties that backed him. He was winning 40% of the vote in Gloucester County while garnering 7% of the statewide vote. The county party endorsements were no guarantee of victory: The Essex County Democrats, for example, endorsed Sherrill. But as of late Tuesday evening, she was trailing Baraka in Essex County, where he is mayor of Newark, the state's largest city. Even in that instance, though, the party endorsement may have helped Sherrill cut Baraka's margins in his home base. Tuesday night's victory speeches were also important table-setters, indicative of how each party is looking to frame the general election. And New Jersey's general election this year may foreshadow much of what we see on the campaign trail around the country in the 2026 midterms. Outside of a quick thanks to Trump, Ciattarelli kept his focus tightly on Sherrill and New Jersey Democrats in his victory speech. He criticized her as 'Phil Murphy 2.0,' arguing that she has 'enabled every extremist and costly idea Phil Murphy has put forth,' and he even revived a key criticism of Murphy from his 2021 campaign. He also criticized Sherrill's focus on Trump as a deflection. 'Mark my words: While we focus on these key New Jersey issues, my Democratic opponent will do everything in her power. Trust me ... if you took a shot every time Mikie Sherrill says 'Trump,' you'd be drunk off your ass every day between now and Nov. 4,' he said. 'But every time you hear her say 'Trump,' I want you to know what it really means: What it really means is Mikie doesn't have a plan to fix New Jersey,' he continued. During her victory speech, Sherrill leaned heavily on her biography but also emphasized a dual mandate — a fight against New Jersey Republicans and also against Trump, a recipe that Democrats have successfully leaned on in past midterm elections. Calling Ciattarelli a 'Trump lackey' who shouldn't lead the state, Sherrill criticized 'Trump and MAGA Republicans in D.C. [who] want to raise your taxes and take away your health care and education dollars.' 'This country is too beautiful to be beholden to the cruelty and self-interest that Jack and Trump are trying to hoist on her,' she said. 'The future is built on hard work and hope, and here in New Jersey, we're known for our grit, our tenacity — maybe a little bit for how loud we are — but it's going to take a strong voice to cut through the noise from Washington and deliver for the people,' she said. 'So I stand here tonight doing just that. And as a mom of four teenagers, you guys know I'm not going to put up with the incompetent, whiny nonsense coming from aggrieved MAGA Republicans.' Tuesday's results showed how money matters in campaigns — and how it has its limits. On the Democratic side, Sherrill won despite having been outspent by some of her opponents whose outside groups dropped millions of dollars on the race. The largest outside spender was Working New Jersey, a super PAC funded by the state's teachers union, which Spiller leads. The group had spent a whopping $35 million on the race as of May 27, according to the latest campaign finance reports, while Spiller's campaign had spent $342,000. As of late Tuesday, Spiller had about 10% of the primary vote. Gottheimer and Fulop were also boosted by outside groups that spent millions of dollars on the airwaves. (Gottheimer drained his congressional account to fund the outside group supporting him.) Sherrill got support on the airwaves from One Giant Leap PAC, which spent less than either Gottheimer's or Fulop's groups but spent most of its funds in the final weeks of the race. Ciattarelli and an aligned outside group, Kitchen Table Conservatives, outspent the other Republicans. And Ciattarelli touted his strong fundraising as proof that he would be a formidable general election candidate. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
8 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Poll: Colorado voters do not want to see funding cuts for assistance programs
DENVER (KDVR) — As the spending plan known as the One, Big, Beautiful Bill makes its way through the U.S. Senate, new polling is out here at home, giving insight into how some Coloradans feel about programs that could see cuts under the proposal. The poll by Healthier Colorado shows that support for programs like SNAP and Medicaid is strong among Colorado voters. Safe2Tell report involving sexual misconduct leads to arrest 'They are going to rip this away from Colorado, but also the 36 other states that have utilized this,' said Congresswoman Brittany Pettersen. The congresswoman representing Colorado's seventh congressional district is concerned that substance abuse programs funded by Medicaid could be gutted if cuts inside the spending proposal in Washington come to fruition. 'With the budget proposal, they are taking states' ability to apply for the waiver that we utilized in Colorado and across the nation to draw down federal dollars to support treatment programs for those who are struggling with addiction,' Pettersen said. The concern over cuts comes as new data from the Centers for Disease Control shows a 35% drop in fentanyl deaths among young people in Colorado. New polling data from a Healthier Colorado survey out today also shows how some Coloradans may feel about the potential cuts to services. The survey, conducted between late last month and the early part of this month, polled 675 Colorado voters. 49% of them are unaffiliated voters, 26% are registered Democrats, 23% are registered Republicans. Aurora City Council will not hold in-person meetings until Kilyn Lewis lawsuit concludes Of the folks polled, 48% of people surveyed say they want to see an increase in Medicaid funding, and 25% said they would like to see it stay about the same. Only 21% say they would like to see a decrease. The survey also polled people about SNAP benefits, with 83% of people surveyed saying they support funding those benefits. 404 of the 675 people who took the survey live in Colorado's eighth congressional district. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
12 minutes ago
Arizona governor vetoes bill banning teaching antisemitism, calls it an attack on educators
PHOENIX -- Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has vetoed a proposal that would have banned teaching antisemitism at the state's public K-12 schools, universities and colleges and exposed educators who violate the new rules to discipline and lawsuits. The proposal would have prohibited teachers and administrators from teaching or promoting antisemitism or antisemitic actions that create a hostile environment, calling for the genocide of any group or requiring students to advocate for an antisemitic point of view. It also would have barred public schools from using public money to support the teaching of antisemitism. Educators would have personally been responsible for covering the costs of damages in lawsuits for violating the rules. Hobbs, a Democrat, said Tuesday that the bill was not about antisemitism but rather about attacking teachers. 'It puts an unacceptable level of personal liability in place for our public school, community college, and university educators and staff, opening them up to threats of personally costly lawsuits," she said in a statement. "Additionally, it sets a dangerous precedent that unfairly targets public school teachers while shielding private school staff." Hobbs described antisemitism as a very troubling issue in the U.S., but said students and parents can go through the state's Board of Education to report antisemitism. The measure cleared the Legislature last week on a 33-20 vote by the House, including a few Democrats who crossed party lines to support it. It's one of a few proposals to combat antisemitism across the country. Democrats tried but failed to remove the lawsuit provision and swap out references to antisemitism within the bill with 'unlawful discrimination' to reflect other discrimination. The bill's chief sponsor, Republican Rep. Michael Way, of Queen Creek, called the veto 'disgraceful,' saying on the social media platform X that the legislation was meant to keep 'egregious and blatant antisemitic content' out of the classroom. 'To suggest that it threatened the speech of most Arizona teachers is disingenuous at best,' he added. Opponents said the bill aimed to silence people who want to speak out on the oppression of Palestinians and opened up educators to personal legal liability in lawsuits students could file. Students over the age of 18 and the parents of younger pupils would have been able to file lawsuits over violations that create a hostile education environment, leaving teachers responsible for paying any damages that may be awarded, denying them immunity and prohibiting the state from paying any judgments arising from any such lawsuits. Last week, Lori Shepherd, executive director of Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center, wrote in a letter to Hobbs that if the bill were approved it would threaten teachers' ability to provide students with a full account of the holocaust. Under the bill, 'those discussions could be deemed 'antisemitic' depending on how a single phrase is interpreted, regardless of intent or context,' she said. The bill would have created a process for punishing those who break the rules. At K-12 schools, a first-offense violation would lead to a reprimand, a second offense to a suspension of a teacher or principal's certificate and a third offense to a revocation of the certificate. At colleges and universities, violators would have faced a reprimand on first offense, a suspension without pay for a second offense and termination for a third offense. The proposal also would have required colleges and universities to consider violations by employees to be a negative factor when making employment or tenure decisions. Under the proposal, universities and colleges couldn't recognize any student organization that invites a guest speaker who incites antisemitism, encourages its members to engage in antisemitism or calls for the genocide of any group. Elsewhere in the U.S., a Louisiana lawmaker is pushing a resolution that asks universities to adopt policies to combat antisemitism on campuses and collect data on antisemitism-related reports and complaints. And a Michigan lawmaker has proposed putting a definition of antisemitism into the state's civil rights law.
