AUTHOR'S / SPONSOR'S STATEMENT OF INTENT
Many people are impacted in a natural disaster, including apartment/rental residents.
After a natural disaster, an apartment or property management company often relocates a resident to another unit if the unit the tenant is renting is uninhabitable.
After a recent natural disaster, the April 3, 2012, tornado in Lancaster, Texas, an apartment management company tried to require impacted residents to sign new leases at a term longer than that of their existing lease term before they would relocate them.
This bill prohibits an apartment or property management company from requiring a displaced resident to sign a new lease at a term longer than the existing lease term before relocating the resident to a habitable unit.
As proposed, S.B. 1120 amends current law relating to a residential tenant's lease obligation after the loss of the leased premises resulting from a natural disaster.
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS
SECTION 1. Amends Subchapter B, Chapter 92, Property Code, by adding Section 92.062, as follows:
Sec. 92.062. LEASE TERM AFTER NATURAL DISASTER. Prohibits a landlord that relocates a tenant to another property owned by the landlord, if a premises is, as a practical matter, totally unusable for residential purposes as a result of a natural disaster such as a hurricane, tornado, flood, extended freeze, or widespread windstorm, from requiring the tenant to execute a lease for a term longer than the term remaining on the tenant's lease on the date the premises was rendered unusable as a result of the natural disaster.
SECTION 2. Makes application of this Act prospective.
SECTION 3. Effective date: September 1, 2013.