The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Real Estate and Landlording => Topic started by: FrugalSaver on December 29, 2016, 04:06:00 PM
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Does anyone have any experience actually having to evict a tenant in the state of Texas?
Could you provide a quick overview?
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Here you go
post 5 day pay or quit / cure or quit
file for eviction at JP court
wait 21 days or more
go to court on your court date, show cause, JP typically grants eviction and gives them a few days to leave
they don't leave within this time
go back to JP court, pay a fee for a writ of possession
Wait (I've waited up to a month in Houston, usually closer to a week though)
Constable will contact you to arrange set out
show up at that time, have labor there to move tenant's stuff out to the curb.
constable will give you a writ of possession, and if tenant returns after this, you can have them arrested
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Here you go
post 5 day pay or quit / cure or quit
file for eviction at JP court
wait 21 days or more
go to court on your court date, show cause, JP typically grants eviction and gives them a few days to leave
they don't leave within this time
go back to JP court, pay a fee for a writ of possession
Wait (I've waited up to a month in Houston, usually closer to a week though)
Constable will contact you to arrange set out
show up at that time, have labor there to move tenant's stuff out to the curb.
constable will give you a writ of possession, and if tenant returns after this, you can have them arrested
thanks for the pithy summation.
Given that, would you think it's reasonable to estimate a realistic worst case scenario of about 60 days from starting the process to getting someone out of the house?
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Maybe 70 days to be safe (assuming you properly post and document the 5 day etc)
about $250 total for the filing fee and writ of possession
If you don't need to file yet, go to JP court and watch "justice" in action. It helps to see where others fail/screw up/etc so you can try to skip those steps in the future
As an aside, if at all possible, I like to evict for multiple reasons - If you just post a pay or quit and they show up at court with the money, late fee, etc, then the JP won't evict them, and likely have a pissed off vindictive tenant who you get to stress about next month.
Instead, you post the pay or quit and a cure or quit for that dog you noticed a few months back, the excess trash in the yard, whatever violates your lease. You're much more likely to be successful when they can't prove they fixed whatever violation you found. If I start the process, I finish it - I don't want to wait months to see what some vindictive SOB has done to my house.
In Texas, you don't even have to be an attorney to be a JP - these guys and gals are a special breed, and expect to be treated as such. That said, they do not always follow laws, statutes, rules or common sense. If you have a tenant who can really pull some heart strings, expect to wait longer, even if you are totally in the right and show up with all your shit together.