Getting Repairs Made as a Texas Tenant

Subchapter B of chapter 92 of the Texas Property Code obliges a landlord to fix serious problems, but it pays the tenant nothing for being right. It pays for following a sequence: notice, a waiting period, sometimes a second notice. Only then do the remedies unlock, and a tenant who skips a step, such as by holding back rent, forfeits all of them.

What the landlord must fix, and the three conditions attached

Under section 92.052(a), a landlord owes a "diligent effort" to repair or remedy a condition when three things are all true at once: the tenant has specified the condition in a notice to the person to whom, or the place where, rent is normally paid; the tenant is not delinquent in rent when the notice is given; and the condition either materially affects an ordinary tenant's physical health or safety, or arises from failure to maintain a device supplying hot water of at least 120 degrees Fahrenheit. All three, or no duty.

Section 92.052(b) excuses conditions caused by the tenant, an occupant, a family member, or a guest, unless the damage is normal wear and tear. Under 92.052(d), the notice must be written only if a written lease requires it.

The notice ladder that unlocks every remedy

The duty and the remedies are two different thresholds. Section 92.056(b) makes the landlord liable only when six conditions are all met. One, 92.056(b)(2), repeats that the condition must materially affect an ordinary tenant's physical health or safety, this time with no hot-water alternative. The other five form a ladder.

1. Give the first notice where the rent goes

   Specify the condition in a notice to the person to whom or the place where rent is normally paid. Certified mail with return receipt, registered mail, or any tracked mail or delivery service pays off at step four.

2. Keep rent current at every notice

   Section 92.056(b)(6) requires that the tenant not be delinquent when any required notice is given. Either notice can break the chain.

3. Allow a reasonable time to repair

   Section 92.056(d) presumes seven days is reasonable, rebuttably by the date the notice arrived, the severity and nature of the condition, and the availability of materials, labor, and utilities. Under 92.056(c), an attempted Postal Service delivery counts as receipt.

4. Send a second written notice, unless the first was tracked

   Section 92.056(b)(3) requires a subsequent written notice after a reasonable time, unless the first went by a tracked method from step one.

5. Liability attaches

   If a reasonable time passes after the final required notice with no diligent effort made, section 92.056(e) opens.

One boundary carries over: for an insured casualty, section 92.054 delays the repair period until the insurance proceeds arrive.

The menu at the top of the ladder

Once the landlord is liable, the tenant may do any of four things under 92.056(e): terminate the lease; have the condition repaired or remedied under section 92.0561; deduct the repair cost from rent, without judicial action, under the same section; or obtain judicial remedies under section 92.0563. Termination has its own price in 92.056(f): a pro rata refund from the later of termination or move-out, deposit offset rights without suit, and forfeiture of repair-and-deduct and the first two judicial remedies.

Repair and deduct, with its cap and qualifying events

Section 92.0561 is the self-help remedy. A deduction may not exceed one month's rent under the lease or $500, whichever is greater, and total repairs and deductions in any one month are held to the same ceiling. For government-subsidized tenancies the one-month figure means the fair market rent, not the subsidized payment.

Repairs may be made only if the section 92.052 duty exists and has not been waived in a written lease under section 92.006(e) or (f), at least one notice states an intent to repair and reasonably describes the work, and a qualifying event has occurred, each with its own clock: sewage backup or flooding inside the dwelling, immediately after the notice of intent; total cessation of potable water the lease obliged the landlord to furnish, after three days; inadequate output from lease-furnished heating or cooling equipment, after three days once a local housing, building, or health official or other official having jurisdiction has told the landlord in writing that the failure affects health or safety; any other qualifying condition, after seven days once such an official has given that written notice.

Section 92.0562 lets the landlord pause this clock: an affidavit for delay, sworn and delivered before the tenant contracts for the repairs, obliges the tenant to delay contracting for them. The delay runs 15 days where the failure to repair comes from obtaining necessary parts through no fault of the landlord, 30 days where it comes from a general shortage of labor or materials after a natural disaster, and, across subsequent affidavits, no longer than six months from delivery of the first.

The work must be done by an independent company, contractor, or repairman, licensed where the municipality requires it, and, absent agreement with the landlord, never by the tenant, the tenant's immediate family, employer, employees, or a company the tenant partly owns. Repairs may never be made to the foundation or load-bearing structural elements of a building containing two or more dwelling units.

The courtroom route

Section 92.0563(a) stacks five judicial remedies rather than forcing a choice: an order to repair; an order reducing rent from the date of the first repair notice, in proportion to the reduced rental value; a civil penalty of one month's rent plus $500; actual damages; and court costs and attorney's fees, except fees tied to personal-injury damages. Justice, county, and district courts share jurisdiction; a justice court judgment is capped at $20,000 excluding interest and costs.

The step the statute never offers: withholding rent

Subchapter B authorizes terminating, repairing, deducting a completed repair's cost, and suing. Nowhere does it authorize not paying while the problem sits unfixed. Delinquency at notice time defeats both the duty and the liability, so withholding dismantles the tenant's own case and invites eviction besides. Under section 92.335, a rent deduction lawfully made under the chapter is a defense to nonpayment in an eviction suit, to the extent allowed by the chapter. Unilateral withholding is not.

Retaliation: the shield over the whole sequence

Section 92.331 closes the trap of answering a repair request with an eviction. A landlord may not retaliate against a tenant who in good faith exercises or attempts to exercise a right under the lease, an ordinance, or a statute; gives a repair notice or pursues a chapter 92 remedy; complains in good faith to a code-enforcement entity, a public utility, or a civic or nonprofit agency about a claimed code violation or utility problem; or establishes, tries to establish, or joins a tenant organization.

The protection runs for six months after the protected action. Within that window the landlord may not file an eviction except on the grounds in section 92.332, deprive the tenant of use of the premises except as authorized by law, decrease services, raise rent or terminate the lease, or materially interfere in bad faith with the tenant's lease rights. Under section 92.333 the tenant may recover a civil penalty of one month's rent plus $500, actual damages, court costs, and reasonable attorney's fees, less any delinquent rent or other sums owed.

Section 92.332 keeps the shield from becoming a sword. It lists six grounds that are never retaliation, delinquency first: the landlord may still evict a tenant delinquent in rent when the landlord gives notice to vacate or files the eviction action, and the other grounds reach intentional property damage or threats to personal safety, material lease breaches beyond holding over, and three holdover situations. The landlord may also increase rent under a written escalation clause for utilities, taxes, or insurance, or increase rent or reduce services as part of a pattern applied to an entire multidwelling project. The rest of a Texas tenancy is mapped across our renters' rights guides, and every claim on Texas Legal Answers links to the statute behind it.