When a Car Repair Goes Wrong in Texas

Two questions arrive together after a repair goes badly. Can the shop keep the car, and is there anything to be done about the bill. Texas answers them in separate codes, and the first answer sits in a chapter carrying two different vehicle liens. Reading the wrong one produces a confident answer that is false.

Two liens in one subchapter, securing different money

Section 70.001(a) of the Texas Property Code creates the worker's lien. A worker in this state who by labor repairs an article, expressly including a vehicle, may retain possession until the amount due under the contract for the repairs is paid, or, where no amount is specified by contract, until the reasonable and usual compensation is paid. That secures the repair.

Section 70.003(c) creates a second one. A garageman with whom a motor vehicle is left for care has a lien for the charges for that care, including reasonable towing to the garageman's place of business. It then closes on the phrase that decides most of what follows: excluding charges for repairs. Custody sits on one side of that line. The mechanic's invoice sits on the other.

The repair lien lives and dies with possession

Section 70.001(b-1) releases it once the worker receives good and sufficient payment of the amounts due, or relinquishes possession. One exception survives that release. Where the vehicle went back for a check, money order, or credit card transaction on which payment was stopped or dishonored, section 70.001(b) keeps the lien alive until the amount due is paid, though not against a bona fide purchaser who bought after the stop payment order. Section 70.001(c) permits that retaking only where the person obligated under the repair contract signed a notice that the article may be repossessed.

The five-day notice belongs to the care lien

Drivers hear about a five-day notice and assume every shop owes one. Read the opening words of section 70.004(a): it speaks to a holder of a lien under Section 70.003 who obtains possession under a state law or city ordinance. That holder must notify the last known registered owner and each lienholder of record no later than the fifth day after the day possession is obtained, or the 14th day after that same event for a vehicle registered outside Texas. Section 70.004(b) sends it by certified mail, return receipt requested, carrying a request to remove the vehicle, a request for payment, the location, and the accrued charges.

Section 70.004(e) caps the storage meter at five days before the day the notice is mailed or published, then allows reasonable storage, impoundment, and preservation fees until the vehicle is removed and the accrued charges paid. Billing storage for an unauthorized period is an offense under section 70.004(f), punishable by a fine of not less than $200 nor more than $1,000. None of it attaches to a section 70.001 repair lien, which section 70.004 never mentions.

What a shop must do before selling a titled vehicle

Not what section 70.005 provides. Its 60 days of possession, 11th day after the request for payment, and 20 days' notice reach property other than a motor vehicle subject to chapter 501 of the Transportation Code, which leaves out an ordinary titled car. Section 70.006 carries the sequence instead, and every deadline below runs from the event named beside it.

1. Written notice to the owner and to every title lienholder

   Section 70.006(a) requires a lienholder under the subchapter who retains possession to notify the owner and each holder of a lien recorded on the certificate of title, or, where the vehicle is registered outside Texas, the last known registered owner and each lienholder of record. Section 70.006(b) sends that by certified mail, return receipt requested, stating the charges and requesting payment.

2. Added contents when a repair lienholder writes to a title lienholder

   For a section 70.001 lienholder who is not a franchised dealer licensed under Occupations Code chapter 2301, section 70.006(b-1) adds five items: the physical address where the repairs were made, the lienholder's legal name, its taxpayer or employer identification number, a signed copy of the work order authorizing the repairs, and any proposed sale date. Leave one out and section 70.006(b-2) makes the recorded title lien superior.

3. Filing a copy with the county tax assessor-collector

   Section 70.006(a) has that lienholder file a copy in the county where the repairs were made, with a $25 administrative fee payable to the county tax assessor-collector. Section 70.006(a-1) sets the deadline by weight. Below a gross vehicle weight rating of 16,000 pounds the filing is due no later than the 30th day after the charges accrue. At or above that rating it is due no later than the later of two dates: the 30th day after the charges accrue, or the 30th day before a proposed sale or disposition.

4. The county office passes the notice along

   Section 70.006(h) gives the county tax assessor-collector until the 15th business day after receiving the notice to send the vehicle's owner and each title lienholder a copy showing the date it was filed.

5. The redemption window

   Section 70.006(e) lets the owner or a lienholder take the vehicle back by paying all charges due before the 31st day after the date the copy of the notice is filed with the county tax assessor-collector.

6. Public sale, and the alternative to it

   Past that 31st day, section 70.006(f) permits a public sale, forbids holding it earlier, and directs excess proceeds to the person entitled to them. Section 70.006(f-1) allows disposal under subchapter D of Transportation Code chapter 683 instead, but only where the lienholder determines that the vehicle's only residual value is as parts or scrap metal, or that a public sale is uneconomical.

Two provisions there cut toward the owner. Section 70.006(g) requires the same non-franchised-dealer lienholder, on request, to let the owner and each lienholder of record inspect the vehicle, or have a qualified professional inspect it, to verify the repairs were made, finished before the sale date. Publication is no shortcut either. Section 70.006(c) permits it only where all five of its conditions hold together, among them that the registering entity advised in writing it is unwilling or unable to supply owner and lienholder information, or sent no response on or before the 21st day after the certified-mail request.

Section 70.007(b) folds excess proceeds into the county general fund where nobody claims them before two years after the day they are paid to the county treasurer. Section 70.008 lets a court award reasonable attorney's fees to the prevailing party, naming neither side.

Where the chapter stops

Nothing in sections 70.001 through 70.008 obliges a shop to write an estimate, to get approval before exceeding one, or to return replaced parts. The chapter is lien machinery, not a repair practices code, and it takes price from the repair contract or, failing that, from the reasonable and usual compensation in section 70.001(a)(2). Duties of that sort belong on another shelf: a licensing statute for the trade where the Legislature enacted one, a rule from the agency administering it, and the terms a shop posts or asks a customer to sign. No price term insulates a false statement about the work.

When the complaint is the bill rather than the car

The Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act defines services in section 17.45(2) to include work, labor, or service purchased or leased for use, expressly including services furnished in connection with the sale or repair of goods. Entries on the enumerated list at section 17.46(b) then describe recognizable shop behavior. Item (13) forbids a knowing false or misleading statement of fact concerning the need for parts, replacement, or repair service, carrying that knowledge element on its face. Item (22) forbids representing that work or services were performed, or parts replaced, when they were not. Item (5) reaches a representation that goods or services have a characteristic, ingredient, use, benefit, or quantity which they do not have. Item (7) is worded the other way round: it reaches a representation that they are of a particular standard, quality, or grade, or that goods are of a particular style or model, if they are of another.

Naming an item starts a claim rather than finishing one. Section 17.50(a) requires the conduct to be a producing cause of economic damages or of damages for mental anguish, and its first basis adds detrimental reliance. Who counts as a consumer, and how the four bases differ, belongs to the guide to Texas deceptive trade practices; pre-suit notice, limitations, and recovery belong to DTPA notice and damages. A defect in a new vehicle under a manufacturer's express warranty runs on other machinery again, in the Texas lemon law guide.

Chapter 70 rewards reading in the original, because its two liens differ in their text, not their headings. Every section above links to the official statute, the sourcing standard across the Texas consumer law guides and the rest of our guides to Texas law.