Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Texas

Securing Possession and Collecting Rent Owed.

For Specific Legal Advice in TX, you need to consult with a TX attorney.

If you posed this question in GA (which is common), the rules here are the landlord (LL) must wait 10 days to enforce the Writ of Possession. The LL must pursue the collection of rent owed just like any unpaid depatment store would if not paid. The bad news is you simply have a court order, it is completely up to you to enforce it. In GA the sheriff will not evict. We have to hire private crews to evict, while the sheriff merely eats donuts and makes sure no "breach of the peace" occurs. The collection of unpaid rent is usually accomplished by force by forced garnishment of wages from their job (if your former tenants are lucky enough to have a steady job). Good Luck.

Check Texas Internet sites on LL/T for forms. Our forms are all GA based.

You must almost certainly find local counsel.

You've done well getting as far as you have, I think,without local counsel. Did defendents just not show up for the trial?

You usually have to wait more than 5 days to start theenforcement processes. There are two. First, you usually hire a sheriff or constable AND probably some movers (who youpay in advance and sometimes you have to pay the first month ormore of the storage company's storage fees!) to make the movehappen. The sheriff actually gives the tenants a few days noticeso they have a chance to just move voluntarily.

The process of collecting the back rent, expenses, etc. is very much harder. IF you find out where the tenants have moved to, and if youhave their social security numbers, then you have a shot at success,particularly if they have some assets you can attach (e.g., automobiles!).It's very helpful to know where they work, too.It is a long process, and very frustrating, if they don't voluntarily pay, and is almost useless if they haven't got very much money and their jobs don't pay well because a judge can't even order them to pay a weeklypayment if their income is too low. And if they frustrate your attemptsto collect by not showing for hearings at the court house, you have to come up with the money to spend ($200 and up) to hvae them grabbed by a special sheriff / constable to bring them in, usually after swearing to the court that they have the assets to move on. I just got a notice todayabout such a case I'm bringing, and with 50 to 100 evictions being processedeach week in Boston, how many do you suppose have gone on to the next step of collecting back rent / fees, etc. for all of 1998? I'm number13 for the year. That's 13 filed during a time when perhaps 800 eviction cases were being brought where a landlord even bothered to try to seek a judgment. How many of them are experienced and how many arefirst-timers who don't know any better? I don't know, but Isuspect it's more of the former because the big landlords own hundreds or thousands of apartments and apparently don't botherwith the process at all.