The Texas Senate passed a bill to speed up evictions, but critics argue it could harm tenants’ rights.
MESQUITE, Texas — It has been almost a two-year nightmare.
“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.
Boyette has yet to move back into her home because, while away in 2023 visiting her mother, a squatter took over the house.
“If you ever watch Hoarders, that’s what it looked like, and probably smelled like,” Boyette said.
She said police told her it was civil matter. She got a lawyer to start an eviction. The process took months before the squatter was finally evicted in March 2024.
“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.
This nightmare is one others face too.
“I’m just wondering when you might start giving a damn about taxpayers in Texas,” Boyette said.
The Texas House is considering a bill that would speed up the process to evict tenants. Thursday, the State Senate passed one of their own.
“The current process is so broken that it punishes the rightful property owners while rewarding trespassers who know how to game the system,” Texas Sen. Paul Bettencourt said in a statement. “You can’t make these up, as squatter horror story after horror story was told.”
Bettencourt’s statement said the bill would require courts to act within 10 to 21 days of property owners filing a notice of vacate. He also said it would crack down on appeals that stall evictions.
“Nothing in the bill deals with squatters,” said Mark Melton, Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center Founder.
Melton said the bill would instead violate real tenants’ rights.
“This bill includes a provision that allows for a landlord to file a lawsuit and then evict the tenant without a hearing call,” said Melton.
He told WFAA the proposed bill doesn’t give tenants enough time to get legal representation and would only increase Dallas County’s unhoused population.
“Part of the problem with this is 85% of the people that are being subjected to eviction in Dallas County are under 200% of federal poverty lines,” Melton said. “If you count four days, if you fall behind on a Thursday, day one is a Friday. Day three and four is Saturday and Sunday. And you get to Monday, and you’ve got to file this response. That’s not time enough to find a lawyer to help you even if you knew how to look for one to help you in the first place.”
Melton said, out of about 20,000 evictions cases that his group has worked on, only about 10 were legitimate squatters.
“They are not as prevalent as they’re being made out to be,” he said. “This is political theater in a lot of ways. It’s not to say squatting isn’t real. There are squatters, but it’s not the epidemic. That was just a political story so that they can pass this bill to harm actual tenants.”
While Boyette is dealing with a real case, she, too, said the bill doesn’t effectively address the issue. Boyette said she wants to see stricter laws like those in Georgia and Florida.
“Florida passed the anti-squatting bill and their bill is if somebody’s squatting in your house and the sheriff goes out and they can’t produce a lease, then you’re removed from the home,” Boyette said. “There’s not enough direction for the court, and again, no consequences for people who are trying to break the law.”
The bill, SB 38, will head to the House next. The current legislative session runs through June 2. If the House’s bill, HB 32, passes, the law would go into effect Jan. 1, 2026.
