By:  Truan                                            S.B. No. 1605
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to the request of certain elderly or disabled tenants for
    1-2  a landlord to deactivate or not install a keyless bolting device.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Subsection (e) of Section 92.153, Property Code,
    1-5  is amended to read as follows:
    1-6        (e)  A keyless bolting device is not required to be installed
    1-7  at the landlord's expense on an exterior door if:
    1-8              <(1)  the dwelling is part of a multiunit complex in
    1-9  which the majority of dwelling units are leased to tenants who are
   1-10  over 55 years of age or who have a physical or mental disability;>
   1-11              <(2)> (1)  <the> a tenant or occupant in the dwelling
   1-12  is over 55 years of age or has a physical or mental disability; and
   1-13              <(3)  the landlord is expressly required or permitted
   1-14  to periodically check on the well-being or health of the tenant as
   1-15  a part of a written lease or other written agreement.>
   1-16              (2)  the tenant requests in writing that the landlord
   1-17  deactivate or not install the keyless bolting device and certifies
   1-18  in the request that the tenant or occupant meets the requirements
   1-19  of this subsection.  The request must be in a separate document and
   1-20  may not be included as a part of a lease or rental agreement.  The
   1-21  tenant's request and the landlord's deactivation or noninstallation
   1-22  must be bona fide and not for the purpose of evading a duty of the
   1-23  landlord under this subchapter.
    2-1        SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
    2-2  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
    2-3  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
    2-4  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
    2-5  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
    2-6  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
    2-7  passage, and it is so enacted.