Texas Rent Relief Program
I wanted to see if there was anyone who has first hand experience with the Texas Rent Relief program. I have a tenant who is in the process of applying. How long does it take to be approved? What is the approval rate? This tenant has been habitually late paying rent. I've served 3-day notice to pay or quit on three separate occasions. They have always paid at the 11th hour. Last month I was ready to file for eviction. My plan was to not renew their lease when it runs out in January. I'm concerned if they are approved I will get locked into a lease extension.
My property manager in Tarrant County was at the court on Wednesday to initiate an eviction. Here is word-for-word what he told me:
"Really hard to evict right now. Judge pushing everyone to Texas Rent Relief program. He did not evict anyone yesterday. He gave all tenants a continuance until Monday. This time is supposed to be used for them to finalize assistance with Texas Rent Relief"
This doesn't answer Pete's question about lease extension (I don't know the answer to that). I do know that I have a tenant that is acting like Pete's tenant and we will move forward to evict if the situation with the tenant is not resolved tomorrow.
In case it matters, Pete, our tenant's 1-year lease came to a natural conclusion a month ago. We choose to let it go month-to-month instead of giving them a new annual lease -- we wanted to preserve the right to give them proper notice to end the lease. Perhaps the Rent Relief program would override this, but it doesn't seem sensible. If we give them proper notice per their lease, we are not evicting them at that point.
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@Kyle Mccaw any thoughts here?
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In Wisconsin, we can serve a 14-day notice to vacate if we have already served a 5-day notice to pay or quit within the past year. Texas doesn't have something similar? Might not get you a different result and you could have to evict anyways, but maybe they'd see they don't have the option to bring rent current and move on. Who knows
@Andrew Postell thanks for the tag.
@Pete Harper - My team has a ton of experience with Texas Rent Relief. We have seen it take as long as 6 weeks. Most likely it will be faster. But just prepare yourself for 6 weeks. It's not exactly a sure thing. But it kinda is. We had 1 application declined out of many. The program does not force a renew on the landlord. But you cannot evict them during the term the program has paid for. Most leases convert to a month to month once they expire.
Hope this helps.
Thanks for the advice. I'm thinking I need to wait and see how things play out. I spoke with a representative and was told the program is voluntary. They can not force you to participate. That said the courts are not allowing evictions on people who have applied. Even if I filed the court will sit on it until the application is either approved or not. Looks like I'm stuck for now.
I'm sure the tenant's plan is to say they can't pay November rent but that's OK since they have applied for the program. December will roll around and we will still be waiting on approval. Sorry, can pay December either. Then about mid-December we will know for sure. If they are approved I can get paid for the two months back rent owed. If they are not approved I eat the cost of two months rent and file for eviction in January. The sad part is I have qualified tenants calling me daily for a place to stay. There is a shortage of housing in our area. Last month I posted an add on FB and received 30+ inquiries and a stack of applications to choose from.