Texas’s reputation for commitment to property rights has let it escape, so far, the growing national conversation about squatting. But should it? Some Texans, both rural and urban, who find themselves on the losing end of adverse possession claims—or squatter’s rights—would say that it’s a debate the Lone Star State desperately needs.
Terri Boyette is one. The state senate’s Local Government Committee recently invited Boyette to testify at a hearing on squatting. As of her testimony, 11 months after discovering the squatter in her home (and about two months after he was finally evicted), Boyette has yet to move back into the property because of the damage inflicted on it in her absence. “I was homeless during this entire time. I paid utilities, taxes, water and homeowner’s insurance as well as my mortgage to try to save my home because it was considered tenant harassment if I didn’t.” She even maintained the exterior so she wouldn’t receive homeowners’ association fines.
Boyette had lived in her home in Mesquite, Texas, for two years before her parents got sick. In June 2023, she left for three weeks to care for her mother in Florida and heard from a friend later in the month that someone was living in her home. Despite promptly calling the police and starting the eviction process, she couldn’t get a court date until December. The judge ruled in her favor but gave the squatter a 30-day extended appeal time. The final notice to vacate wasn’t posted until February 2024; by then, the house was unlivable.
The situation destroyed Boyette financially. The squatter sold her furniture, left mold and water damage, ripped out her air conditioner, refrigerator, washer, and dryer, and then held a garage sale. Boyette says that she is $150,000 in debt. Since she still can’t live in the home, she is staying with her mother in Florida and traveling back to Texas for the hearing. Making matters worse, though she now has a job, she didn’t have one during the eviction process, and Texas wouldn’t let her file for unemployment, since she wasn’t living in the state full-time—because of the squatter. “I’m trying to live the American Dream and somebody can walk in and destroy everything I have worked for. I’m starting over,” Boyette testified.
In March, as videos of squatters taking over homes in California and Florida flooded social media, Texas governor Greg Abbott tweeted:
In Texas, anyone “squatting” in your home is breaking the law.
These are criminals violating TX laws like criminal trespass & criminal mischief (Tex. Penal Code 30.05 & 28.03).
Also, the Castle Doctrine empowers Texans to use force to defend themselves & their property.
But Texans are far from safe, and the problem is growing. A squatter needs only to show police color of title—essentially posing as a tenant—to stop the initial removal process and shift the burden of proof to the property owner. “From the date an eviction is filed, you have 21 days to have a hearing, and then if it’s appealed, that may be three or four months,” says Judge Lincoln Goodwin, presiding judge for Harris County Justices of the Peace. Goodwin says that people have gotten “sophisticated” in squatting. They target foreclosures, probate documents, or homes listed for lease or sale for an extended period.
Some policing agencies, such as Harris County Constable Jerry Garcia’s Precinct 2, won’t just accept a lease as presented. “I don’t know what other departments do but we go above and beyond,” Garcia said. “We see who the owner is. We contact them, ask them if they rented it out. We don’t just assume that the person is telling us the truth. We investigate.” But with so many competing interests and limited resources, it’s often harder to identify owners than just to refer the matter to eviction court.
Even if the squatters don’t show color of title, if a property isn’t properly willed to a family member, or for some other reason the property owner cannot immediately prove ownership, the burden is on the owner to file for eviction, which, according to a representative from the Texas Apartment Association, costs at least $5,000, primarily in legal fees.
This happened to Jennifer Hebert, whose mother owned a home in southeast Houston. Prior to her death in 2017, Hebert’s mother never completed the legal process to will the property to Jennifer upon her death, though unofficial documents did exist. Hebert had long thought that her brother, with whom she had fallen out of touch, was living on the property, but a call from Constable Garcia’s office notified her that squatters had occupied the property, and that they had turned on the utilities.
Hebert’s city council member, Fred Flickinger, along with the constable and others, tried to find a solution, but the constable’s office couldn’t issue a “no-trespassing” violation or remove the squatters, even though they weren’t technically claiming residence. It took three months, undercover surveillance, and discovery of the squatters’ prior arrest warrants to force them out.
Linda Giang found a family of five living in her rental property, which she had thought vacant. The family squatting in the house, which Giang had listed for rent at $3,600 per month, showed Giang a lease to “prove” that they rented the home, though neither Giang nor anyone else associated with the property was listed on it. Police deemed it a civil matter and said that she would have to go through the courts.
Squatting has two elements: taking up residence on someone’s property, and then actually trying to take ownership of that property. Some rural Texas landowners face the second scenario, having fallen victim to bad-faith adverse possession claims in recent years.
For a squatter in Texas to pursue outright ownership of someone’s property, as opposed to halting removal, they must either occupy it for three years with a color-of-title lease; occupy it with an actual deed in their name, pay property taxes, and cultivate the land for five consecutive years; or occupy the property and improve the land for at least ten years. They must also meet five requirements: no valid lease agreement; live on the property; live openly, not in hiding; not share the property with anyone else; and live continuously on the property for three to ten years. Adverse possession can be a useful tool in cases where property has been informally willed to an heir but the intention is clear or to get efficient use out of vacant, unkept, or abandoned land, but its legal complexities allow room for abuse.
Consider a dispute over 37 acres of pastureland in Menard County near San Antonio. The acreage, previously owned by the Texas General Land Office, was deeded to Kody Kothmann’s grandmother in 1952, passed down to his parents, and then to him. The Menzies family had owned an adjacent tract since the 1930s and had a fence surrounding their property, plus the 37 acres they did not own. In 1960, Kothmann’s family tried to remove the fence and reconstruct it on the true property line, but that led to the Menzies threatening to fight the Kothmanns if they didn’t leave. They stopped the removal, and the fence was left in place.
In 2015, both families agreed on replacing the fence, keeping it in the same location but splitting the costs. Five years later, the Menzies claimed that they had obtained the land through adverse possession. Despite the hostile takeover in the 1960s, a trial court ruled in their favor. A court of appeals affirmed the ruling, granting ownership to the Menzies.
In a separate case, a district court awarded title to 345.9 acres in Wilbarger County, just outside of Wichita Falls, by way of adverse possession, following a 17-year court battle. In 2004, the Brumley family sued the McDuff family to “quiet title”—that is, to clarify ownership interests. They were not seeking adverse possession, partly because they believed they already owned the land. The McDuffs launched their own “quiet title” lawsuit in response.
After the trial, the court instructed the jury not to consider the quiet title claim but instead to evaluate whether the Brumleys had obtained the land through adverse possession. The court believed that the facts indicated adverse possession, so it decided to issue the jury charge accordingly, and the jury sided with the Brumleys. An appeal from the McDuffs to the Amarillo Court of Appeals resulted in the court saying that the trial court had “erred” in submitting a jury charge that the petitioner had not requested and ruled on the original “quiet title.” Later, the Texas Supreme Court stepped in, and in 2021 the Brumleys were granted the 345.9 acres.
In his dissent, Senior Justice Jack Pirtle wrote:
The majority opinion in this case perpetuates an injustice foisted upon the Appellants by a legal system that has failed them. . . . Appellants and their “out-of-town” lawyer got “home-towned” in a complex real property dispute. . . . Because I believe our legal system failed Appellants on every level, from the justice of the peace court on up, I passionately, but respectfully dissent.
There’s no comprehensive data on squatting in Texas, though David Howard, CEO of the National Rental Home Council, said that a recent survey of members found at least 475 cases in the Dallas–Fort Worth area alone, making it the second-highest metropolitan area in their survey after Atlanta. Judge Goodwin has seen more squatting cases in the past 18 to 24 months than he has for the past decade in his courtroom. Constable Garcia said, “It just seems like lately they’re just popping up everywhere. It’s tough.” Another constable testified at the state senate committee hearing to seeing hundreds of cases in the Houston area.
Some property owners hope to see the state create an expedited court docket that would allow squatting cases to move more rapidly through the judicial system, rather than waiting months, or even years, as in the case of Brumley v. McDuff. They’re also considering criminal penalties. “The penalties for this behavior have to be increased,” says State Senator Paul Bettencourt of Houston, chair of the Local Government Committee.
A primary concern is how to enable officers to remove squatters from homes immediately, minimizing the impact to the property owner, damage to the home, and disruption to neighbors. One possibility the committee discussed was to provide for same-day removal with an ex parte hearing, at which the homeowner could go to a court that day, provide a sworn affidavit, and have the judge issue something like a writ of re-entry, which normally forces landlords to let tenants back in but in this case would keep the squatters out.
Houston City Council Member Flickinger isn’t waiting for the state to act. He is working to provide clinics on wills for aging residents to ensure that, upon a property owner’s death, no confusion exists about who the new homeowner is. While it won’t fix the broader issue with squatting, it will empower law enforcement officers who go the extra mile, like Constable Garcia, to identify the real property owner quickly and either get a criminal trespassing affidavit signed or immediately begin the eviction process without the extra time needed to prove ownership.
If Texas is to safeguard the property rights its residents hold dear, it must protect homeowners from the risks of squatting through faster legal processes and stronger deterrents. Honest property owners deserve swift justice.
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