(Answered by a Licensed Texas Eviction Attorney)
Types of Texas Residential Lease Agreements
The Texas residential lease agreement you use for your rental properties is an all-important detail when your tenants start defaulting under their lease. This is particularly true when a tenant is committing a conduct-related default, a default unrelated to non-payment. Complicating this for Texas residential landlords is the fact that there are many Texas residential lease agreements available. These come in a wide range in terms of quality and understanding what makes a Texas residential lease agreement a good rental contract is not always easy to understand.
This set of Texas Residential Lease Agreement FAQ’s is designed to help you understand what options are available to you, the hallmarks of a good lease contract, the “why” behind what makes a lease a good lease, and the role that a well written lease plays in helping you remove a problem tenant.
Girling Law offers Texas residential real estate investors a cost-effective option with its Rock Solid Lease©. Our firm’s lease includes all of the attributes this article describes for a highly effective Texas rental contract, all for less than $50.00.
Types of Texas Residential Lease Agreements
What types of Texas Residential Lease Agreements are available to me as a landlord?
You will find Texas residential leases an many different forms. They can be a bit challenging to categorize. The best way to wrap your head around the various types of leases available to you are to think of them as coming from three different categories: 1) promulgated leases; 2) paid leases; 3) free leases.
What is a promulgated Texas residential lease agreement?
When you hear the term “promulgated lease” used in Texas, the speaker is almost always referring to a lease agreement produced by one of several different real estate investment industry organizations. The most frequently used promulgated leases in Texas come from the Texas Real Estate Commission, the Texas Realtors® Association, and the Texas Apartment Association. These leases are regularly updated by these organizations’ attorneys to ensure compliance with changes in various state laws.
As a Texas eviction attorney, do you recommend using one of these promulgated Texas residential lease agreements?
Yes! But only if you are a member of the organization that produces the lease and only if you are using the most recent version of the organization’s lease. My response to one of the questions, below, explains why making unauthorized use of one of these leases (i.e. not being a member of the organization) is a REALLY bad idea.
I have found copies of Texas Realtors® Association and Texas Real Estate Commission Texas residential lease agreements on unrelated websites and they appear to be free. Is it safe to use these?
Probably not. For reasons I state in the next FAQ, you should NEVER use one of these leases if you are not a member of the organization. In addition, downloading copies of these promulgated Texas residential lease agreements from other websites means you are almost certainly using an outdated lease agreement. As of mid-2023, there have been several recent changes in Texas law relating to residential tenancies. Two examples include pre-eviction notices and late fees. There are others. It will not matter if you complied with the terms of your outdated lease, but failed to comply with the Texas laws that were in effect on the date of your lease. The grandfathering of laws does not relate back to the date of your lease version; they relate back to the date of your lease.
Is it safe to use a promulgated Texas residential lease agreement even though I am not a member of the organization producing it?
Absolutely not. In fact, it is highly likely you will get burned if you attempt to present such a lease as evidence to a Texas Judge.
All of the Texas promulgated leases include copyright language. In the small lettering (what attorneys call “the boilerplate language”) of these leases you will find a term stating that if you are not a member of the organization that produced the lease, the tenant may void the lease at will. This means the tenant could show up to Court and tell the Judge that the tenant no longer wishes to have the lease honored. This step will forbid the Judge from awarding you unpaid rent damages and attorney fees. While you will still enjoy a judgment for possession of your rental property, your situation can get much worse….
By presenting this lease to a Texas court as evidence, you have also made a judicial admission that you have used the Texas residential lease agreement. This means you have created proof that you violated the organization’s copyright by using their lease without their permission. The organization, of course, can easily prove you are not a member. This would be all they need to do to sue you over violating their copyright, and they would be happy to do so. Afterall, as the owner of rental properties, you have assets any judgment creditor can collect against. In other words, by presenting the organization’s Texas residential lease agreement to the Court, you have made the organization’s job of suing you very easy. They can now easily win and foreclose on one or more of your rental properties. This problem will mushroom if you have multiple properties in which you used the organization’s leases. They will easily obtain your other Texas residential lease agreements during the discovery phase of their lawsuit against you.
How likely is it for a Texas Judge to enforce the copyright language in promulgated Texas residential lease?
Very likely. Many Texas Justices of the Peace are active or former Real Estate Agents and Brokers. Some are members of the local Texas Realtors® Association. All of these Judges will be very familiar with the notice requirements in these lease agreements. Because eviction is such a significant proportion of a Texas Justice of the Peace’s case load, running for Justice of the Peace is often a logical transition for Texas real estate professionals. Justices of the Peace are not required to be attorneys in Texas.
In addition, new Texas Justices of the Peace are required to go through 80 hours of training before they are permitted to sit on the bench. I have never taken this training, but I infer from my experience with them and my discussions with them that Texas Justices of the Peace are likely trained to enforce these Texas residential lease terms. When I appear before Texas Justices of the Peace, I regularly observe them enforcing these lease terms against self-represented landlords. And several of these Justices of the Peace who do this sort of thing I know are not presently or were never previously licensed Texas Real Estate Agents or Brokers.
Which types of paid Texas residential lease agreements do you advise Texas landlords to use?
I advise my landlord clients to use only the paid Texas residential lease agreements obtained from a licensed Texas attorney. This is typically your best option, if you are unwilling to pay the membership fees needed to legally acquire a promulgated lease.
One of the downsides to attorney-generated residential leases is cost. If you go to an attorney and request a “customized” lease, you should expect to pay several thousand dollars for this service. In addition to being a very costly item, the value of these “customizations” are questionable. You need a lease that is thorough. Very few rental properties require a written lease with customizations that can be otherwise found in a through lease like a promulgated lease.
Our firm’s Texas residential lease agreement, the Rock Solid Lease©, offers you the perfect balance. Our attorney-drafted Texas residential lease agreement offers you a very thorough lease that is also landlord-friendly and affordable!
Are the Texas residential lease agreements from those heavily branded websites good leases?
Generally, no. Many of the Texas residential lease agreements available for purchase online are low to below average quality leases. Some are even designed to provide advantages to your tenants. I have reviewed most of the leases from the big-name document companies and big box office supply companies. I have seen leases from these companies requiring the landlord to deliver a notice to cure (given to the tenant before the landlord delivers the notice to vacate). In Texas, notices to cure are only required for mobile home park evictions or if the lease otherwise unnecessarily requires a notice to cure. And these were not mobile home park specific leases. I have also come across leases that did not permit the landlord to recover attorney fees. These types of leases also regularly omit some of the critical residential lease terms I discuss below.
I’m using a free Texas residential lease agreement that I located online. Am I going to be OK?
Maybe. If you do not experience any conflict with your tenant, you should expect no problems from having used a free, low quality lease agreement. However, if your tenant stops paying rent or commits some other default under your written lease agreement, you will run into a high-risk situation when it becomes necessary to start the eviction process. An experienced eviction attorney will often succeed in navigating around the issues created by a problematic lease agreement. Of course, hiring an attorney to represent you in an eviction trial is far more expensive than the cost of a through, paid-for lease agreement. For example, Girling Law’s Rock Solid Lease© is available to you for under $50.00.
Texas Residential Agreement Templates – Contents Quality
Which lease terms to you typically find in higher-quality Texas residential lease agreement templates?
The better Texas residential written lease agreement templates will include the following terms:
- Automatic lease renewal
- Late fees that are compliant with Texas law
- Identification of all occupants (i.e. not just renters)
- Identification of animals, if any
- Identification of which utilities the tenants and landlord are responsible for
- Requirement for all occupants to comply with community / HOA / Condo rules
- Specific prohibitions including:
- no pools
- no trampolines
- no “nuisances”
- no vehicle repairs allowed
- Occupants may not operate a business out of the property
- Occupants may not violate city or county ordinances
- No illegal activities
- Language prohibiting the occupants from being a “bad neighbors”
- No smoking
- No holding over beyond the initial term of the lease
- Rules for overnight guests
- Parking rules including the number of vehicles
- Landlord access provisions
- Terms enabling the landlord to market property for sale or to other tenants
- Tenant takes the property in as-is condition
- Property maintenance rules
- Yard maintenance rules
- State law language requirements – security deposit, repair requests, locks, and smoke alarms, etc.
- Defining default
- Early termination
- Attorney fee provisions
- Boiler plate language including
- No oral agreements
- joint and several liability for each renter
- list of waivers
- identification of controlling law
- Rules for abandonment, including the disposition of personal property
I just want a simple but effective one-page Texas residential lease agreement template that is easy for my tenants to read. Where can I find such a lease?
Nowhere. The words “effective” and “one-page” have no business being used in the same sentence with reference to a written Texas residential lease agreement templates. This concept is an absolute fantasy. The concept of a “simple lease” should be categorized under the same sections of Wikipedia where you might find entries for unicorns, fairies, and leprechauns.
Renting out a high-value, complex asset like real estate to another person IS NOT a simple activity. It is very complex activity because real estate – even small parcels of real estate – are complex. And giving possession of your real estate to another person in Texas invokes a number of complex laws. Using a “simple” contract for such a complex activity can result in a disastrous outcome.
Will a high-quality Texas residential lease agreement template help me?
Absolutely and in numerous ways. A high-quality Texas residential lease agreement template will help the parties to the lease avoid confusion about the terms of their agreement, enable the landlord to comply with the content requirements under Texas law, will give the landlord all the legal protections allowed under Texas law, and will expedite the eviction process should the tenant default.
How does a high-quality Texas residential lease agreement template help a Texas landlord comply with state law?
High-quality Texas residential lease agreement templates ensure the landlord is fully complying with the many requirements under Texas state law, including the requirements for specific wording and typography. Texas law includes requirements that certain statements in your leases to be included in writing. Some Texas laws go as far as requiring certain statements to have specific typographies such as bold or underlined text.
Ensure you are complying with the Texas Property Code. Download your copy of Girling Law’s Rock Solid Lease©.
How can a high-quality Texas residential lease agreement template give me legal protections?
A Texas residential lease agreement template can be written to be tenant friendly or to be landlord friendly.
I have seen online leases that require the landlord to give the tenant a notice to cure prior to starting the eviction process. This is not a legal requirement under Texas law and notices to cure do nothing but give defaulting tenants additional time in the unit. Additionally, for a period of time these notices to cure take away from the landlord the election to remove the tenant because of the default. Once you sign a lease with a legally unnecessary notice to cure provision, you are obligated to honor this requirement. The fact such terms are not required under Texas law does not exempt you from complying with them. The Judge will require you to issue the notice to cure. If you do not, you should expect the Judge to dismiss your eviction. I routinely observe Judges looking for such terms and enforcing them, even when the tenant fails to appear at trial.
I have also seen Texas residential lease agreement templates that require the landlord to give an eviction notice that is far longer than what Texas law requires. The authors of these leases clearly have an agenda to enable non-paying tenants to further victimize their landlords by giving the tenants additional, uncompensated time in the property. Alternatively, these authors are counting on the landlord missing these requirements, forcing the landlord to start the eviction process over after the eviction judge dismisses the case. Just like the legally unnecessary notice to cure provisions, if you sign a lease requiring you to give your tenant a 30-day notice to vacate you will be required to do so.
How does a high-quality Texas residential lease agreement template enable me to evict a problem tenant faster?
A well written, Texas residential lease agreement template will enable you to start the eviction process as quickly as possible after your tenant defaults under the lease. Texas law allows parties to a Texas residential lease agreement to agree to a 24-hour notice to vacate period. You should be using a lease with a 24-hour notice period and without a notice to cure period. One exception is Section 8 properties. If you make the mistake of renting to a Section 8 tenant, the Section 8 administrator may make you sign a Housing Assistance Program (HAP) agreement that includes a notice to cure provision and a longer notice to vacate period. Section 8 administrators will almost certainly not agree to remove or reduce these terms. Additionally, even if the lease agreement template you have with your tenant has a 24-hour notice to vacate period and no notice to cure provision, the terms of your HAP agreement will “wrap around” the terms of your lease agreement template. In other words, where your HAP agreement has different terms that your Texas residential lease agreement template, the HAP agreement terms supersede the lease.
Enforcement of a Texas Residential Rental Agreement
How do I know a Judge will honor the terms of my Texas residential rental agreement?
You don’t. But having a well written, Texas residential rental agreement can make it risky for a Texas Judge to ignore the terms of your written Texas residential rental agreement.
Texas Judges are held to ethics rules called Cannons that do not allow them to show partiality to one party in a lawsuit. It is nearly impossible for a Judge to intentionally disregard a lawful term in a signed, written rental agreement without showing partiality to the party advantaged by the Judge’s actions. This sort of thing almost certainly violates the Judicial Cannons, and most Judges want to steer clear of such an ethics violation.
Can I recover attorney fees in my Texas residential rental agreement?
Yes. The easiest way to do this is to have your tenant sign a written Texas residential rental agreement that includes an attorney fee provision. This provision will state that the prevailing party in any civil lawsuit relating to the lease will be entitled to reasonable attorney fees.
If your lease does not include such a term or if your have a verbal agreement with your tenants, you may still recover attorney fees. However, doing so will require you to provide the tenant a 10-day notice to vacate that includes special language.
Can I recover late fees in my Texas residential rental agreement?
No. Late fees are not recoverable in an eviction under any circumstances.
The reason for this goes back to an ancient provision in our laws that prohibits punitive damages in a contract cause of action. There are no exceptions to this rule. I have never met a Justice of the Peace – to include a very new one – who was unaware of this rule.
Will my tenant be permitted to remain in the property if the Judge throws out my Texas residential rental agreement?
Not necessarily. If the Judge disregards your Texas residential rental agreement and there is no question about whether or not you are the owner of the property, you may still obtain a judgment for possession.
Not having a written Texas residential rental agreement often means only that you are not entitled to unpaid rent damages and attorney fees (unless your attorney provides the tenant a 10-day notice to vacate with special language).
Still, not having a written Texas residential rental agreement can open you up to risks that I do not wish to cover because I do not want to unintentionally coach fraudulent tenants on how to burn you.
For less than $50.00, you can enjoy a Texas residential rental agreement that will give you the peace of mind in knowing your rental agreement fully complies with the Texas Property Code. Order your Rock Solid Lease© now!