Landlords should not have the right to enter your apartment unless they provide advance notice, and yet in Texas they seemingly do have this right. The reason I say seemingly is because this morning I spent 45 minutes for the specific section of the Texas property code that addresses the landlord’s right to entry.
I could not find any language that was directly related to the landlord’s right to entry. I did, however, come across several websites that talked about the landlord’s right to entry. And there were contradictory, uh, statements from different websites, but most. said that landlords have the right to enter without advanced notice under certain circumstances.
TexasLawHelp. org has the following selection. Texas courts have held that a landlord may not enter your home. Unless, keyword unless, you allow the entry or the lease gives the landlord specific reasons to enter. Okay, so you allowing the entry is not wired here. We want to find out if someone can just enter your home without advance notice.
So now we’re looking to the lease. So, with the lease, the standard lease form in Texas. is produced by the Texas Apartment Association. So look to your lease to see what provisions address the landlord’s right to entry. It is pro, it is probably the case that your lease uses the Texas Apartments Association or TAA form.
If it does, I found this language. In the TAA form. And there are two lengthy paragraphs, but I’m going to read them because they are very important. Paragraph 14, when we may enter, if you or any resident guest or occupant is present, then repair or service persons, contractors, law officer, law officers, government representatives, lenders, appraisers.
Prospective residents or buyers, insurance agents, persons authorized to enter under your rental application or our representatives may peacefully enter the apartment at reasonable times for reasonable business purposes. So that’s if someone is present. Now let’s read the second paragraph. If nobody is in the apartment, then any such person may enter peacefully and at reasonable times by breaking a window or other means when necessary for reasonable business purposes if written notice of the entry is left in a conspicuous place in the apartment immediately after the entry.
We are under no obligation to enter only when you are present, and we may, but are not obligated to, give you prior notice or make appointments. This is horrible. This is ridiculous. If you pay attention to this language, It basically means that any of the persons that are named, including prospective residents or buyers and insurance agents and many other people, can enter your apartment without you being there.
And they could potentially break a window if necessary. But all they have to do to do this is leave a notice of entry. in a conspicuous place immediately after they enter. And it further says the apartment is under or the the landlord is under no obligation to enter only when you are present. And they may provide advance notice but they’re not obligated to.
So the rights of renters are being trampled on and the Texas legislature needs to address this immediately. This is ridiculous. There should not be this liberty, uh, available and tenants are signing these leases without even knowing this section exists. And you can say, well, then the, the, then the tenant should read the lease form.
Well, this is, as I said, it’s a standard form and many tenants have no other options. And they have to sign these overly, they have to agree and assent to these overly. terms that provide great leeway on the part of the landlord that should never be there in the first place. The Texas property code should preempt this and, and disallow this.
As it stands, it appears to me that this is in place. Now, I researched this for 45 minutes this morning and I could not find a conclusive answer. And I think that’s a problem in and of itself. I was looking at Google, I clicked on several websites, over, over 10, to look for this answer. And I could not find the definitive answer with the source attribution.
Yes, there were some websites that stated the landlord has the right to enter, or they don’t have the right to enter, but I need to see the Texas property code. And when I looked at the Texas property code, I saw no language that specifically addressed the landlord’s requirement of advanced notice. And so it looks like it appears to be the case that because there is no provision, we look to the lease agreement.
And so it’s important that you look at your lease agreement and determine what language is there. I read the language from one sample, uh, lease form. That I could find, uh, by the Texas apartment association, but you need to look to your lease and see what language is present in your lease. The, the, the Texas legislature needs to protect renters rights.