What a Landlord Cannot Do in Texas
The main limits Texas law puts on landlords — lockouts and utility shutoffs, entering without notice, retaliation, deposits, fees and discrimination — each with the statute or official source.
In short: a Texas landlord cannot evict without a court order, cannot punish a tenant for asserting legal rights where state law protects them, and must follow the state's rules on entry, deposits and fees shown below.
| Lockouts & utility shutoffs | Landlord may not intentionally exclude a tenant except by judicial process, with narrow exceptions including a lock change for rent delinquency if allowed by the lease and preceded by written notice (5 days if mailed, 3 days if hand-delivered/posted), and a new key must be available 24 hours a day regardless of payment. Remedy: possession or termination, plus one month's rent + $1,000, actual damages, costs and attorney's fees. Interrupting utilities (except for repairs, construction, emergency, or authorized submetered electric cutoffs) carries the same one month's rent + $1,000 remedy. Utility section: https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PR/htm/PR.92.htm#92.008. Submetered/allocated electricity may be cut for nonpayment only under the conditions in Sec. 92.008(h) and following. |
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| Landlord entry notice | No statute Chapter 92 has no general notice-of-entry requirement; entry terms are governed by the lease. Source: Tex. Prop. Code ch. 92 |
| Landlord retaliation | Landlord may not, within six months after a tenant in good faith exercises a legal right, gives a repair notice, complains to a code-enforcement or other agency, or participates in a tenant organization, file an eviction (except on statutory grounds), deprive use of the premises, decrease services, raise rent, terminate the lease, or engage in bad-faith interference. Remedy: one month's rent + $500, actual damages, court costs and attorney's fees. Not retaliation if, e.g., tenant was delinquent in rent when notice was given or the suit filed (Sec. 92.332(b)). |
| Security deposit limit | No statutory cap. Subchapter C regulates refunds but sets no maximum amount. A landlord may offer a fee in lieu of a security deposit (Sec. 92.111). |
| Penalty for withholding | Bad-faith retention: $100 + three times the portion wrongfully withheld + reasonable attorney's fees. Bad-faith failure to itemize: landlord forfeits the right to withhold any portion and to sue for damages, and owes attorney's fees. Failure to refund or itemize within 30 days is presumed bad faith. Landlord bears the burden of proving retention was reasonable (Sec. 92.109(c)). A tenant who in bad faith withholds last month's rent on the ground that the deposit covers it is liable for three times the rent withheld plus attorney's fees (Sec. 92.108). Source: Tex. Prop. Code Sec. 92.109 |
| Late fees | Allowed only if notice of the fee is in a written lease, the fee is reasonable, and rent remains unpaid two full days after the due date. Safe-harbor reasonable fee: up to 12% of monthly rent (buildings with 4 or fewer units) or 10% (buildings with more than 4 units), or more if it does not exceed the landlord's uncertain damages. Violation: $100 + three times the improper late fee + attorney's fees. Initial and daily fees combined count as a single late fee. Source: Tex. Prop. Code Sec. 92.019 |
| Rent control / increase limits | No statewide rent control. Cities may adopt rent control only if the governing body finds a housing emergency due to a disaster and the governor approves the ordinance. |
| Statewide ban on refusing Section 8 / source of income | No. There is no statewide source-of-income protection, and cities and counties are barred from adopting ordinances that prohibit refusing a tenant because the tenant's income includes federal housing assistance (e.g., Section 8 vouchers). Local protections for veterans' income and voluntary voucher-incentive programs are still allowed. |
| Cameras & privacy | No landlord-specific statute. Criminal laws apply: it is a state jail felony to photograph or record, without consent and with intent to invade privacy, another person in a place where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, which the statute says includes a bathroom, bedroom and changing room; posting a sign does not establish consent. Intercepting oral, wire or electronic communications is a crime unless a party to the communication consents (one-party consent), so audio recording of tenants' conversations is restricted. Sec. 21.15 was amended by H.B. 1465 (Acts 2025, 89th Leg.), eff. Sept. 1, 2025. Sec. 16.02 text: https://tcss.legis.texas.gov/resources/PE/htm/PE.16.htm. Landlord entry rules are set by the lease; ch. 92 has no general notice-of-entry statute. |
| Other rental fees | No general statute limiting move-in, convenience or other rental fees or requiring total-cost-of-rent disclosure. Specific rules: late fees (limited by Sec. 92.019; tenant may request a written statement of late fees owed, Sec. 92.0191) and fees in lieu of a security deposit (Sec. 92.111). Checked the section list of ch. 92; no general fee-disclosure or junk-fee provision found. |
Can I sue my landlord in Texas? · All Texas tenant rights
General legal information, not legal advice. Laws change and local rules can differ; check the linked official source or talk to a lawyer about your situation.