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Senate adopts House changes to anti-squatting and property-recovery bills
Summary
The Senate concurred with House amendments to bills aimed at expediting property recovery from unauthorized occupants, adopting changes on notice delivery, identification for off-duty officers, venue transfer, and limiting expedited summary disposition to forcible entry and detainer (squatting) cases.
Senator Bettencourt moved that the Senate concur with House amendments to Senate Bill 38, calling the measure an "anti-squatting bill." The debate described multiple House floor amendments that revised notice procedures and limited expedited processes.
Key adopted changes to SB 38 include requiring that notices to pay rent or vacate and notices to vacate left on premises be placed in a conspicuous location; hand-delivered notices must be delivered to someone on the premises at least 16 years old; and off-duty law enforcement officers serving citations or executing writs must display appropriate identification so tenants can identify them. The House removed a transfer-of-venue provision that would have allowed eviction cases to be transferred to an adjacent JP precinct if the sheriff could not complete service within five days. A House amendment also generally requires landlords to issue notices to pay rent or vacate for first-time late payments rather than a notice to vacate, with discretion to issue either notice if the tenant had been late previously. Finally, the House limited summary disposition (an expedited process) to forcible entry and detainer cases under the property code, which the floor summary characterized as targeting true squatting cases.
Separately, Senator Hughes moved that the Senate concur with House amendments to Senate Bill 1333, described as another tool to help property owners remove occupants who never had a lease or permission to be on the property. The Senate adopted both motions to concur. SB 38 passed the Senate concurrence roll call 23 ayes and 8 nays; SB 1333 passed concurrence 27 ayes and 4 nays.
Why it matters: The package alters eviction-related procedures and narrows expedited remedies to cases the law defines as forcible entry and detainer, changing how landlords and local courts handle unauthorized occupants and certain nonpayment situations. Several amendments were described as responses to stakeholders, including tenant groups, apartment associations and local officials.
