Texas is Trying to Do Something About Squatters

Here’s a story that made the local news in Texas this week. A woman was cleaning out a home she had recently vacated and was attacked by a pair of squatters. This particular home had been occupied by squatters just before she moved in a year ago.

“When I moved in, the house was completely destroyed,” Patrick said. “They ruined the flooring, the walls; there were holes in the walls.”

After spending more than a year in the home, Patrick decided it was time to go, moving her three children out on Saturday…

She went back Sunday for one more pass to collect her belongings and that’s when she was attacked.

“When I came in, everything went upside down,” said Patrick.

Stepping into the kitchen, Patrick said she came face to face with a man and a woman stealing the refrigerator.

“I looked at her and said, ‘Ma’am, you’ve got to go,’” said Patrick. “And out of nowhere, the fridge comes down on me.”

Three of her teeth were broken and she’s now had to spend thousands of dollars in repairs.

Another squatting story out of Texas made national news over the past year. It involves a woman named Terri Boyette who was having some work done on her home.

While that project was underway, she had to take an extended trip to another state to take care of her mother. That’s when she says a handyman squatted, and essentially made her home his. Boyette had previously shown us how the squatter trashed the place. And she says, as this played out over time, police told her they couldn’t do much about it because Texas law isn’t very strong on squatting.

Boyette eventually got an order of removal but a judge extended it by 30 days so the squatter wouldn’t be kicked out before Christmas. Once he learned he was about to be kicked out, he held a a yard sale on the front lawn of some of her property.

 Once the suspected squatter knew he would be evicted from the home, he started selling off her washer, dryer, refrigerator and dining room table.

The alleged squatter was served with his final eviction notice on Feb. 6 and was formally evicted on March 20.

Even then she couldn’t move back in. She had to hire a company to clean out the house which had been used as a drug den for nearly a year.

“At that time when we came in, the house was full of garbage and rotten food and drug paraphernalia,” said Terri Boyette, a Mesquite resident…

“They had to come in and clean out the house with hazmat suits because water had been left running the entire nine months that the person was in here. They had to do a mold remediation,” Boyette said.

Last year Boyette testified before a Texas Senate committee about her experience and even some Democrats were outraged by it.

State Senator Royce West (D-Dallas) called the incident frustrating. 

“It makes no sense. No sense at all. I am starting to get outrageous as well,” he said. “I want to know from Mesquite PD what they don’t understand about the statute.

“They said because no one was living there,” Boyette told the senator. 

“That’s a bunch of crap,” West said.

Eventually, that led to a bill designed to limit the time it takes to remove a squatter which is now working its way through the legislature. The Texas Senate passed a version of it yesterday.

SB 38, authored by Senator Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, would require civil courts to act within 10-21 days after a property owner files to evict someone from their property.

“The current process is so broken that it punishes the rightful property owners while rewarding trespassers who know how to game the system,” said Bettencourt in a press release Thursday afternoon…

The bill now goes to the Texas House of Representatives for consideration. Rep. Angie Chen Button, R–Garland, authored SB 38’s companion, HB 32. That bill is still in the House Judiciary Committee as of Thursday.

It may take a few more days or weeks until this is passed but it looks like it has some momentum. But the head of the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center, thinks this is all terrible.

Mark Melton, an attorney and founder of the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center, called the bill, HB 32, “pretty diabolical.”

“This bill provides a process where you can evict someone without a trial within about 10 days,” Melton said. “I’m not sure how much worse you can get than eviction without a trial.”…

HB 32 also shifts the burden of proof, he said. Under current law, and any legal pretext, whoever files the lawsuit is the one required to prove they are entitled to whatever remedy they are claiming they are owed. With this bill, Melton says, the landlord makes the allegations in the petition, and it’s up to the tenant to prove the allegations untrue.

I don’t know how accurate that is but how many days should it take to prove you have legal access to the property? I was a renter for many years and I could have proved my occupancy was valid with a matter of minutes by simply going to get a copy of the lease. Melton talks about people having time to find a lawyer but do you really need a lawyer to show that you signed a lease that says you have the right to be there? This is not a process that should take six months or more while the homeowners house is trashed and their property sold. 

It seems to me there has to be a better middle ground between not evicting legal tenants who are a day late on the rent and not being able to evict illegal squatters who are trespassing and destroying property while the courts take their sweet time. What happened to Terri Boyette should never happen to anyone.