Texas Landlord-Tenant Law: What Agents Must Know (2026)

Texas landlord-tenant law lives almost entirely in Property Code Chapter 92, and it applies to every residential lease in the state regardless of property type, lease length, or whether a licensed agent was involved. The rules that matter most for a working agent are the ones with hard numbers attached: landlords have 30 days after a tenant surrenders the unit to refund a security deposit under Section 92.103, tenants get a rebuttable 7-day presumption of "reasonable time" to fix a health-or-safety repair under Section 92.056, and a landlord who retaliates against a tenant within 6 months of a good-faith complaint faces a legal presumption of retaliation under Section 92.331. None of this is optional reading for an agent who lists rental property, manages a landlord's portfolio, or simply wants to avoid giving a client bad advice at the kitchen table. Texas landlord-tenant law is also one of the named Special Topics on the state portion of the TREC sales agent exam, tested alongside community property, homestead protections, and the Deceptive Trade Practices Act — so the same statutes that keep an agent out of trouble in practice are the ones showing up on test day. Two more numbers worth memorizing up front: a landlord who unlawfully locks a tenant out or cuts off utilities faces a penalty of one month's rent plus $1,000 under Sections 92.0081 and 92.008, and a late fee is presumed reasonable only up to 12% of one month's rent under Section 92.019.

Texas Property Code Section 92.103 requires a landlord to refund a tenant's security deposit on or before the 30th day after the tenant surrenders the premises — 30 calendar days, not business days, and the clock isn't paused for weekends or holidays. The landlord isn't required to send the refund or an itemized deduction list until the tenant provides a written forwarding address, but a tenant's failure to supply one doesn't forfeit the deposit; it just holds the clock until the address arrives. Section 92.104 requires any deduction to come with a written, itemized description of damages and prohibits landlords from charging a tenant for normal wear and tear. Miss the 30-day deadline or fail to itemize, and Section 92.109 flips a presumption of bad faith onto the landlord — the tenant can then recover three times the wrongfully withheld portion of the deposit, plus $100, plus reasonable attorney's fees. For an agent fielding a call from a landlord client who "just forgot" to send the deposit back, that's not a minor slip — it's a statutory penalty that can turn a $1,500 deposit dispute into a $4,600 claim before attorney's fees are even added.

A tenant seeking repairs has to clear four hurdles under Section 92.056 before any remedy kicks in: give the landlord notice (written notice, if the lease requires it), show the condition materially affects physical health or safety, allow a reasonable time to repair after notice, and prove the landlord didn't make a diligent effort to fix it. Texas law presumes 7 days is a reasonable repair window, though a landlord can rebut that presumption with evidence — a backordered part or a scheduled contractor visit, for example. If the landlord blows through that window, Section 92.0561 lets the tenant repair the problem and deduct the cost from a future rent payment, without going to court first. The timeline compresses fast for urgent conditions: a tenant can act immediately on sewage backup or flooding from broken pipes, and after just 3 days on a total loss of potable water or on inadequate heating or cooling that materially affects health or safety. If the tenant instead sues under Section 92.0563, the available judgments include an order compelling repair, a proportional rent reduction until the condition is fixed, a judgment for one month's rent plus $500, actual damages, and court costs and attorney's fees — remedies that stack, not substitute for each other.

Subchapter F of Chapter 92 requires a smoke alarm in specific locations in every rental unit, and Section 92.257 gives the landlord exactly 7 days after a tenant's written request to install, inspect, or repair one. Miss that window and the tenant can sue or terminate the lease without a court order first — one of the few self-help termination rights Chapter 92 hands directly to a tenant. Section 92.006 lets landlords and tenants waive or expand most Chapter 92 duties by written agreement, but the duty to install a smoke alarm in the first place can never be waived; only the ongoing inspection-and-repair duty can be modified, and only in writing. Security devices work on a similarly hard clock. Sections 92.153 and 92.156 require a landlord to rekey (or otherwise change) every keyed, carded, or coded security device at their own expense no later than the 7th day after each change in tenants. Skip it, and the tenant can sue for a court order bringing the landlord's units into compliance, actual and punitive damages, a $500 civil penalty, one month's rent, court costs, and attorney's fees. Agents managing turnover on an investor's rental portfolio should treat both deadlines as calendar items, not landlord courtesies — they carry the same statutory teeth as the security-deposit rules.

A Texas landlord cannot force a tenant out by changing the locks, pulling a door off its hinges, or hauling away landlord-furnished appliances — Section 92.0081 prohibits removing a door, window, attic hatchway cover, or any lock, latch, hinge, or doorknob from the leased premises, and bars removing landlord-furnished furniture, fixtures, or appliances, except for a bona fide repair or replacement. A landlord who does lock a tenant out anyway must, on request, provide a new key at any hour regardless of any rent owed — the statute does not let unpaid rent excuse a lockout. Cutting off the lights is equally off-limits: Section 92.008 bars a landlord from interrupting a utility service the tenant pays for directly, unless the interruption is for a bona fide repair, construction, or an emergency. Both violations carry the same penalty structure — the tenant can recover possession or terminate the lease, plus actual damages, one month's rent plus $1,000, reasonable attorney's fees, and court costs, reduced by any rent or other sums the tenant actually owes the landlord. For an agent managing a difficult tenant situation on behalf of an owner-client, that penalty is exactly why Texas requires landlords to use the courts — filing for eviction under the notice-to-vacate process described below — instead of taking self-help measures that feel faster.

Late fees aren't unlimited just because a lease says so. Section 92.019 presumes a late fee is reasonable if it doesn't exceed 12% of one month's rent on a property with four or fewer units, or 10% on a property with more than four units; a landlord can charge more only if the higher fee reflects the landlord's actual uncertain damages from the late payment (mortgage late charges, collection costs, and the like). Charge an unreasonable fee, and Section 92.019 makes the landlord liable for $100, plus three times the improperly collected fee, plus the tenant's attorney's fees. Sections 92.331 through 92.335 protect a tenant who complains in good faith about needed repairs, contacts a health or building inspector, or exercises certain other legal rights — a landlord who retaliates (raising rent, cutting services, or filing eviction) within 6 months of that protected act faces a legal presumption of retaliation. And no landlord can skip straight to eviction: absent a longer or shorter period set in the lease, Section 24.005 requires at least 3 days' written notice to vacate before a landlord can even file a forcible-detainer suit, and a tenant current on rent the month before generally must get a chance to pay before being told to leave. A landlord (or an agent advising one) who tries to route around any of these protections with fine print in the lease is also flirting with a Deceptive Trade Practices Act claim on top of the Chapter 92 penalties — a false or misleading statement about a tenant's rights is exactly the kind of unconscionable conduct the DTPA was built to punish.

TREC requires licensees to use its promulgated forms for most residential sales contracts, but it has no equivalent mandatory form for a residential lease — Texas contracts and forms rules that govern listing agreements and purchase contracts simply don't reach leasing. In practice, most Texas leases are drawn from Texas REALTORS® forms or an attorney-drafted template, and Chapter 92's default rules fill in anywhere the lease is silent (or, where the statute allows waiver, anywhere the lease doesn't affirmatively change the default). That's a meaningful contrast with the sales side, where Day One's guide to TREC-promulgated contract forms covers why the state locks down contract language so tightly for a sale but leaves lease drafting largely to the private market. For an agent, that gap is exactly why memorizing Chapter 92's default rules matters more in Texas than in a state with a state-mandated lease: whatever the lease doesn't override, Chapter 92 controls by default, and an agent who doesn't know the statute can't tell a landlord client which lease clauses are enforceable and which ones are void the moment a tenant challenges them.

Landlord-tenant law is one of the Special Topics tested on the state-specific portion of the Texas sales agent exam, grouped with community property, homestead protections, the DTPA, foreclosure, mechanic's liens, and similar state-only subjects. That state portion runs 40 scored questions in 90 minutes with 70% required to pass — 28 correct answers — and Special Topics collectively make up roughly 15% of that section, so landlord-tenant questions are worth studying by statute number, not by vibe. Expect exam questions to test the numbers directly: the 30-day deposit deadline, the 7-day repair presumption, the 6-month retaliation window, and the distinction between what a landlord must do (install a smoke alarm) versus what a lease can waive (the inspection schedule). Day One generates fresh, full-length TREC practice exams that mirror the exact weighting of the real state-portion exam, so Special Topics questions like these show up in the same proportion they do on test day instead of getting buried under national-portion content.