New bill filed in Texas house

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State Rep Walle (whom I’m not familiar with) has put forth a bill that would change landlord tenant law in Texas and give people much more protection. I’m sure every landlord in the state will complain and hopefully they don’t manage to kill this because some of the changes include:

1. Any payments regardless of method are to be applied to any owed or past due rent first and not to any fee or charges 

2. A late fee can only be 10% or monthly rent or $75 and no more daily fees which only serve to put people more in debt 

3. No late fees can be applied to anything other than rent 

4. Additional charges like utilities or monthly fees must be included in the rent price and not tacked on after the person signs the lease. So when you say rent is $800, that means it’s $800. Not $800 but then $50 for pets and $25 for trash and $85 for water. $800. 

5. a person cannot be rejected for a rental in any way because of any eviction action that occurred during the pandemic disaster declaration or for 180 days after it ends 

6. Tenants must be given an opportunity to cure a violation or no payment. They must be given 10 days to pay and then 14 days to vacate before eviction can be filed. 
7. a tenant must be given a chance to pay and not be removed all the way until the writ of possession is executed but this can only be done once every 12 months 

8. Seals eviction records when a tenant wins or the case is dismissed. And doesn’t post the filing until 60 days after it’s filed. Info is only available to the people involved, anyone they designate to receive the info, journalists doing a story for which the info is relevant, credit unions or if it is in the interest of public safety

9. Eviction records for anyone for any reason sealed after three years 

10. Evictions cannot be used by credit agencies or tenant screeners as a basis to deny. These agencies cannot disclose eviction info unless the plaintiff wins and it’s been less than three years or if the eviction was for an issue of safety or criminal activity. 
11. simply being accused, arrested, charged, put on deferred adjudication or pre trial diversion is no longer grounds to terminate for default 

12. Tenants must be notified if the property is in a flood zone 

13. If not renewing or terminating any lease for any term whether written or oral a reason must be given and the person given a 15 day notice 

14. Prorated rent for any month a tenant did not live in the unit for the entire month

15 qualification criteria must be provided in writing before issuing an application and collecting a fee. An applicant has the right to submit any and all documentation showing that there are errors, inaccuracies, or that they have been rehabilitated for criminal issues or resolved debt issues.  
16. No more blanket bans and refusals for people with a criminal background. Only if it’s in the interest  or public safety and the screener must examine the context of the conviction 

17. No one can be denied because of something that didn’t result in conviction. Or anything pending. 
18. drops the six month timeframe for retaliation 

There’s also some stuff about repairs and liability but these are the major changes. I know a lot of my fellow Texans are on this site and I’m really curious what all of you think of this. 
I mean I know most of you probably disagree with every single part of this but I’d love to know why some of this is so bad. To be honest, I don’t agree with all of it either. I summarized a lot  but there’s some stuff criminal records that concerns me and I worry that some of these things will just inspire some landlords to come up with ways to cheat the system. 
but the current laws have screwed so many renters over the years and it would be nice to see some more protections for tenants since they have much more to lose in these situations than landlords do.