What a Landlord Cannot Do in Texas: Lockouts, Utilities, Deposits

In Texas, a landlord cannot lock you out, shut off your utilities, keep your deposit without an itemized accounting, retaliate against you for complaining, discriminate against protected groups, charge unreasonable late fees, ignore health-and-safety repairs, or seize your belongings outside strict legal limits. Most of these restrictions sit in Chapter 92 of the Texas Property Code, and violating them exposes a landlord to penalties that often include a month’s rent, a flat statutory amount, your actual damages, and your attorney’s fees. Here is what the law takes off the table.

Lock You Out or Evict You Without a Court Order

A landlord cannot push you out by removing doors, windows, locks, or hardware, and cannot haul out appliances or furniture they supplied unless it is for a real repair. Even then, any lock or door has to be restored before nightfall. Texas Property Code § 92.0081 is explicit about this.¹

There is one narrow exception for unpaid rent. The landlord can change the lock on your unit’s entry door, but only during regular business hours, and only if a written notice on your door tells you where and when to get a new key. You are entitled to that key at any hour, paid up or not. A landlord who skips these steps owes you one month’s rent plus $1,000, actual damages, court costs, and attorney’s fees.¹

No matter how far behind you are, the landlord has to use the court system. That means a written notice to vacate, delivered in person, by mail, or by posting on your door, giving you at least three days before any eviction suit can be filed, unless your lease sets a different timeframe.² Intimidation, harassment, or physically barring you from the property is an illegal self-help eviction.

Cut Off Your Utilities

Your landlord cannot shut off water, gas, electricity, or wastewater to pressure you into paying rent or moving out. Section 92.008 allows interruptions only for genuine repairs, construction, or emergencies, and the ban applies whether you pay the utility company directly or the landlord bills utilities as part of rent.³ Any lease clause that tries to waive this protection is void.

If a landlord does cut off service illegally, you can either recover possession or terminate the lease, and you can sue for actual damages, one month’s rent plus $1,000, attorney’s fees, and court costs. One narrow exception exists: a landlord who submeters or allocates electricity may interrupt electric service for an unpaid electric bill, but only after specific written notice and only in months when a disconnection would not endanger health through extreme heat or cold.³

Punish You for Complaining or Asking for Repairs

Section 92.331 bars retaliation against tenants who exercise their legal rights. Filing a repair request, calling a building code inspector, reporting a utility problem, or joining a tenant organization are all protected. If the landlord responds by filing to evict, raising your rent, cutting services, or ending the lease, that counts as retaliation.⁴

Timing matters. If any of those actions happen within six months of your protected activity, the law presumes the landlord retaliated, and the landlord has to prove a legitimate unrelated reason, like a genuine lease expiration or a documented violation unconnected to your complaint.⁴ A tenant who wins can recover a civil penalty of one month’s rent plus $500, actual damages, court costs, and reasonable attorney’s fees.⁵ If your rent is subsidized, the penalty is based on fair market rent, not the subsidized amount.

Discriminate Against You or Your Family

Federal fair housing law applies to every Texas landlord. Under 42 U.S.C. § 3604, it is illegal to refuse to rent, set different lease terms, or otherwise make a dwelling unavailable because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability.⁶ The ban also covers discriminatory advertising, occupancy caps designed to exclude families with children, and charging higher deposits or extra conditions based on a protected characteristic.

Familial status violations are among the most common. A landlord cannot advertise “no children,” set age minimums for residents, or impose unreasonably low occupancy limits that effectively keep families out.⁶

Disability Accommodations and Assistance Animals

A landlord must allow reasonable modifications you need to use the home, such as grab bars or a widened doorway, at your expense. The landlord can require you to restore the unit when you leave, but cannot refuse the modification outright.⁶

A “no pets” policy does not override a disability-related need for a service animal or emotional support animal, and the landlord cannot charge pet fees or pet deposits for them. The tenant needs documentation of the disability-related need from a qualified professional, but the landlord cannot demand details about the nature or severity of the disability.

Keep Your Security Deposit Without Explanation

Texas does not cap deposit amounts, but return rules are strict. Section 92.103 requires the landlord to refund the deposit within 30 days of your move-out, as long as you have provided a forwarding address.⁷ If any amount is kept, § 92.104 requires a written, itemized list of every deduction sent with whatever balance remains. The landlord cannot deduct for normal wear and tear.⁸

Missing the 30-day deadline or skipping the itemized list creates a legal presumption of bad faith. A bad-faith withholding costs the landlord $100 plus three times the amount wrongfully kept, plus your attorney’s fees. A bad-faith failure to send the itemized list is worse: the landlord forfeits the right to keep any part of the deposit and loses the ability to sue you for property damage at all.⁹ Most deposit disputes are handled in justice court.

Charge Excessive or Early Late Fees

Section 92.019 sets three conditions before a late fee is legal: it has to be written into the lease, it has to be reasonable, and rent has to be at least two full days overdue.¹⁰

What counts as reasonable depends on the size of the property:

Four units or fewer: the late fee cannot exceed 12 percent of one rental period’s rent.
Five or more units: the cap is 10 percent.

Charging more than the cap, or charging any late fee that is not in the written lease, costs the landlord $100 plus three times the illegal fee, plus your attorney’s fees. Any lease clause trying to waive these protections is void.¹⁰

Ignore Serious Repair Problems

Section 92.052 obligates your landlord to make a diligent effort to fix any condition that materially affects the health or safety of an ordinary tenant. That includes sewage backups, lack of drinkable water, broken security devices, and failure to supply hot water of at least 120 degrees Fahrenheit.¹¹ To trigger the duty, you must give notice to the person or address where you pay rent, and you must be current on rent when you give it.

Seven days is presumed reasonable to complete the repair, though that presumption can be rebutted based on severity and the availability of materials or labor. If the landlord does nothing after proper notice, § 92.0563 gives you several options:

A court order forcing the landlord to make the repair.
A proportional rent reduction from the date of your first notice until the condition is fixed.
A civil penalty of one month’s rent plus $500.
Actual damages for out-of-pocket costs caused by the condition.

¹²

For true emergencies like sewage or flooding, you can arrange the repair immediately after giving notice. For conditions like loss of drinkable water or no heat or air conditioning, you can arrange a repair if the landlord has not acted within three days. The cost comes out of your next rent payment, capped at one month’s rent or $500, whichever is greater.¹³ Keep the bill and receipt; you have to give copies to the landlord with the reduced payment.

One boundary worth knowing: Texas has no statute requiring the landlord to give 24 hours’ notice before entering the unit. Entry is governed by whatever your lease says. Your right to quiet enjoyment still limits unreasonable or harassing entries, and a landlord can always enter in a genuine emergency.¹⁴

Seize Your Belongings Freely

Texas is one of the few states that still gives landlords a statutory lien on tenant property for unpaid rent. Section 54.041 attaches the lien to nonexempt property inside the home or in a storage room.¹⁵ But the list of items the landlord cannot touch under § 54.042 is long:

Clothing
Tools and books related to your profession
Schoolbooks
Family portraits, pictures, and a family library
One couch, two living room chairs, a dining table and chairs
Beds and bedding
Kitchen furniture and utensils
Food, medicine, and medical supplies
One car and one truck
Children’s toys
Agricultural equipment

¹⁶

Even for nonexempt items, seizure is only legal if the right is written into your lease, and the landlord has to accomplish it without any breach of the peace. Immediately after taking property, the landlord must leave a written notice inside the home listing every item removed, the amount of unpaid rent, and contact information for retrieving the items upon payment.¹⁷ A landlord who willfully violates these rules owes you actual damages, return of the property or the sale proceeds if it was sold, one month’s rent plus $1,000, and reasonable attorney’s fees.¹⁸

Skip Required Disclosures or Deny Military Lease Breaks

If the property was built before 1978, 42 U.S.C. § 4852d requires the landlord to disclose any known lead-based paint hazards before you sign, to hand you the EPA’s “Protect Your Family from Lead in Your Home” pamphlet, and to give you up to 10 days to inspect for lead hazards if you choose.¹⁹ Knowingly skipping these disclosures can cost up to $10,000 per violation and triple the tenant’s actual damages.

Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, 50 U.S.C. § 3955, active-duty military members can end a residential lease early after entering service, receiving permanent change-of-station orders, or deploying for 90 days or more. The tenant provides written notice and a copy of the orders. The landlord cannot charge an early termination fee or concession penalty, has to prorate rent through the termination date, and has to refund any prepaid rent covering the period after that date.²⁰ Enforcing an early termination clause against a servicemember using SCRA rights is a federal violation.

1
State of Texas. Texas Code PROP 92.0081 – Removal of Property and Exclusion of Residential Tenant
2
State of Texas. Texas Property Code PROP 24.005 – Notice to Vacate
3
State of Texas. Texas Property Code Section 92.008 – Interruption of Utilities
4
State of Texas. Texas Property Code Section 92.331 – Retaliation by Landlord
5
State of Texas. Texas Property Code Section 92.333 – Tenant Remedies
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 3604 – Discrimination in the Sale or Rental of Housing and Other Prohibited Practices
7
State of Texas. Texas Property Code Section 92.103 – Obligation to Refund
8
State of Texas. Texas Property Code Section 92.104 – Retention of Security Deposit
9
State of Texas. Texas Property Code Section 92.109 – Liability of Landlord
10
State of Texas. Texas Property Code Section 92.019 – Late Payment of Rent
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State of Texas. Texas Property Code Section 92.052 – Landlord’s Duty to Repair or Remedy
12
State of Texas. Texas Property Code Section 92.0563 – Tenant’s Judicial Remedies
13
State of Texas. Texas Property Code Section 92.0561 – Tenant’s Repair and Deduct Remedies
14
Office of the Attorney General of Texas. Renters Rights
15
State of Texas. Texas Property Code Section 54.041 – Lien
16
State of Texas. Texas Property Code PROP 54.042
17
State of Texas. Texas Property Code Section 54.044
18
State of Texas. Texas Property Code Section 54.046 – Violation by Landlord
19
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 4852d – Disclosure of Information Concerning Lead Upon Transfer of Residential Property
20
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 USC 3955 – Termination of Residential or Motor Vehicle Leases