Landlord Atlas

What must a Texas landlord disclose to a tenant, and what must the lease say?

Verified September 11, 2026 All Texas topics →

A Texas lease must carry underlined or bold repair-remedy language, two early-termination sentences, and, at or before signing, two flood notices that the landlord and the tenant both sign.

Cited to Tex. Prop. Code §§ 92.001, 92.002 § 92.001(3); § 92.002 and 33 more cited sources · Verified September 11, 2026

The landlord must hand over a complete copy of the signed lease within three business days, but need not say who owns or manages the property until the tenant asks, and then has seven days. Texas requires no move-in condition report, no tenant-rights booklet and no state hazard disclosure of any kind: nothing on lead beyond the federal rule, and nothing at all on mold, bed bugs, radon, methamphetamine or asbestos. There is no enumerated roster of banned lease clauses, only a subject-by-subject bar on waiving the deposit, security-device, ownership-disclosure, utility-cutoff, smoke-alarm, repair and early-termination rules and on waiving a jury trial; a prohibited clause is simply ineffective and carries no damages of its own. Attorney's fees go to whichever party prevails in suits under named parts of the chapter, and cities may not add lease-disclosure rules of their own.

Texas lease disclosures at a glance

Which law governs Property Code chapter 92 carries the residential rules and, by its own applicability section, applies only to the relationship between landlords and tenants of residential rental property; it has no unit threshold and no local opt-in. Within it, the general subchapter holds the lease-copy duty, the flood notices, the parking rules, the emergency-number duty, the prescribed early-termination sentences and the non-waiver map; a separate subchapter holds the security-deposit rules, another the ownership and management disclosure, another the smoke-alarm rules, and another the utility-cutoff rules. The statute of frauds for a lease longer than a year sits in Business and Commerce Code section 26.01, and electronic records and signatures are governed by Business and Commerce Code chapter 322. The mandatory lease statements and hand-overs for submetered or allocated water and for submetered electricity are administrative rules of the Public Utility Commission of Texas rather than statutes. Property Code chapter 5's seller's disclosure notice is a sales regime that never reaches a lease, and Property Code section 1.004 is the field preemption that keeps cities out of this subject.
Who is covered Every duty reaches the whole state: no county or city opts in, and the landlord-tenant chapter carries no unit count of its own. The thresholds are per duty. The parking rules bind only a landlord of a multiunit complex, meaning two or more dwellings in one or more buildings under common ownership, managed by the same owner, agent or management company, and on the same or adjacent lots or tracts, so a single-family rental is outside them. The master-metered disconnection notice reaches only property of at least ten dwellings receiving electric or gas service that is master metered but not submetered. The flood notices do not reach a lease of less than thirty days or a pre-closing or post-closing occupancy of ninety days or less, but only for a lease entered into or renewed on or after September 1, 2025. An agreement for repairs at the tenant's expense is open only to a landlord who owns one rental dwelling at the start of the lease term. The twenty-four-hour emergency number binds a landlord with an on-site management or superintendent's office, while every other landlord owes a number without that guarantee. The water and electricity lease statements bind only an owner who bills tenants for submetered or allocated service. The security-device subchapter excludes transient housing, accredited college, university and preparatory-school housing, and pre-closing or post-closing occupancies of ninety days or less.
Written lease, copy and signature rules

No statute requires a residential lease to be in writing beyond the statute of frauds, so an oral tenancy is lawful. The landlord must give the tenant a copy of the signed lease within 3 business days.

No statute requires a residential lease to be in writing. The chapter defines a lease to include any written or oral agreement between a landlord and tenant that sets or changes the terms, conditions, rules or other provisions on the use and occupancy of a dwelling, so an oral tenancy is lawful and the chapter's duties attach to it; a lease for a term longer than one year must be written and signed to be enforceable. Where a lease is signed, the landlord must give at least one complete copy to at least one tenant who is a party to it no later than the third business day after the day it is signed by each party, and a co-tenant who did not receive one has a second three-business-day clock that starts on a written request. The copy may be paper, electronic if the tenant requests that, or e-mail where the parties have communicated by e-mail about the lease. Missing the deadline does not invalidate the lease and does not stop the landlord defending one: the court abates the landlord's action to enforce the lease, other than an action for nonpayment of rent, until a complete copy is given. Texas prescribes no translation or non-English-lease duty, has no plain-language act and sets no general type-size rule; the type rules it does have are tied to particular clauses and are described with them.

Statute of frauds: A lease of real estate for a term longer than one year is not enforceable unless the promise or agreement, or a memorandum of it, is in writing and signed by the person to be charged or by someone lawfully authorized to sign for that person (Business and Commerce Code section 26.01, subsections (a) and (b)(5)).

Electronic leases and signatures: Texas's electronic-transactions act, Business and Commerce Code chapter 322, applies to electronic records and signatures relating to a transaction and carries no residential-lease exclusion: where a law requires a record to be in writing an electronic record satisfies it, and where a law requires a signature an electronic signature satisfies it. The act reaches only transactions between parties who have each agreed to do business electronically, and that agreement is determined from the context and surrounding circumstances, including the parties' conduct. The landlord-tenant chapter adds its own narrower permissions on top: the copy of the lease may be electronic if the tenant asks for that, or may go by e-mail if the parties have communicated by e-mail about the lease, and since September 1, 2025 notices under the security-deposit subchapter may go by e-mail where the tenant and the landlord or the landlord's agent have previously communicated by e-mail. That e-mail permission reaches the security-deposit subchapter alone.
Owner and agent identity

Only on the tenant's request.

On the tenant's request the landlord must disclose the name and either a street or post office box address of the holder of record title according to the county clerk's deed records and, where an entity located off site is primarily responsible for managing the dwelling, the name and street address of the management company. Three routes satisfy it: giving the information to the tenant in writing on or before the seventh day after the landlord receives the request; continuously posting it in a conspicuous place in the dwelling, in the on-site manager's office or on the outside of that office's entry door, again by the seventh day; or including it in a copy of the tenant's lease or in written rules given to the tenant before any request. The first two routes may be taken before the tenant ever asks, and an owner or property manager may give an assumed name where an assumed-name certificate has been recorded with the county clerk. A government official or employee acting in an official capacity gets the same seven-day clock, in writing. No telephone number is required. Liability needs a second step: the tenant gives written notice that remedies may be exercised and the landlord still does not supply the information before the eighth day after that notice. A written lease may require the tenant's initial request to be in writing, and a landlord who used the posting or lease route must correct stale information within seven days of the tenant's written notice. The remedies are a court order directing disclosure, a judgment for the tenant's actual costs of discovering the information, a judgment for one month's rent plus one hundred dollars, court costs and attorney's fees, and unilateral termination of the lease without a court proceeding; a governmental body recovers five hundred dollars instead of the rent figure. Rent owing on the date of the tenant's notice is a defense to the ordinary failure and to a stale-information claim, but not to willfully disclosing incorrect information or willfully failing to correct information known to be wrong. A second consequence runs automatically and is the real reason to disclose early: unless the owner's name and business street address have been furnished to the tenant in writing, the management company, the on-premise manager or the person who collects the rent is the owner's agent for service of process and for governmental health, sanitation, safety and nuisance notices. The duty may not be waived. There is no unit count, no owner-occupancy carve-out and no statewide landlord or rental registration.

If the landlord fails to comply: the non-complying manager or agent becomes the landlord's agent for notices and service of process and for performing the landlord's obligations, as the section states; the tenant may recover damages; and the tenant may terminate the tenancy.
Required statements and lease text

No — no state document or statement of tenant rights must be handed over; what the state prescribes is text the lease itself must carry.

Texas publishes no tenant-rights booklet, summary, handbook or agency statement that a landlord must hand over, so the answer rests on prescribed lease text alone. Every written lease must carry the underlined or bold repair-remedy language and two distinct early-termination sentences, and a landlord of a multiunit complex who has parking rules must head them with a prescribed, emphasized title. Two further sets of words are required only because the landlord elects a practice, and they are listed here without counting: the statements and figures that go with billing a tenant for submetered or allocated water or for submetered electricity, and the terms of an agreement to take a fee instead of a security deposit. The copies of the utility commission's own rules that a submetering owner must hand the tenant are subject-specific documents and are described in the utility, fee and payment row rather than counted here.

Required items:

Repair-remedy language — words or content the lease itself must carry. A lease must contain language in underlined or bold print that informs the tenant of the remedies available for the landlord's failure to repair or remedy a condition. The statute fixes the content and the emphasis but not the words, so the landlord composes the sentence. The section states no penalty for leaving it out. Given at signing, inside the lease itself. Typography: Underlined or bold print. Threshold: Reaches a lease executed, entered into, renewed or extended on or after September 1, 1979. (§ 92.056(g))

Family-violence and military early-termination sentence — words or content the lease itself must carry. A lease must carry language substantially equivalent to the sentence the statute sets out: that tenants may have special statutory rights to terminate the lease early in certain situations involving family violence or a military deployment or transfer. The same sentence is commanded twice, once in the family-violence section and once in the military section. Omitting it is not fined; the consequence runs the other way, releasing a tenant who terminates under the family-violence section from all liability for delinquent unpaid rent owed on the effective date of the termination. Given at signing, inside the lease itself. The statute fixes the words. (§ 92.016(f); § 92.017(g))

Sexual-offense and stalking early-termination sentence — words or content the lease itself must carry. A lease must also carry language substantially equivalent to a second and different sentence: that tenants may have special statutory rights to terminate the lease early in certain situations involving certain sexual offenses or stalking. A lease carrying only the family-violence and military sentence does not satisfy this one. Omitting it releases a tenant who terminates under that section from all liability for delinquent unpaid rent owed on the effective date of the termination. Given at signing, inside the lease itself. The statute fixes the words. (§ 92.0161(g))

Parking rules heading — words or content the lease itself must carry. Where a landlord of a multiunit complex puts parking rules or policies in the lease or in an attachment to it, the title of the paragraph containing them must read Parking or Parking Rules and be capitalized, underlined or printed in bold print. The rules or policies must reach the tenant before the lease is executed, and the copy must be signed by the tenant, included in a lease the tenant signs, or included in an attachment the tenant signs that the lease expressly refers to. A failure costs a civil penalty of one hundred dollars plus any towing or storage costs the tenant incurs because the tenant's vehicle was towed, with fees and costs to the prevailing party. Given before signing and at signing. The statute fixes the words. Typography: The paragraph title must read Parking or Parking Rules and be capitalized, underlined or printed in bold print. Threshold: Only a tenant in a multiunit complex, meaning two or more dwellings in one or more buildings under common ownership, managed by the same owner, agent or management company, and on the same or adjacent lots or tracts. A single-family rental is outside it. (§ 92.0131(b)–(c), (f))

Listed, but not a general duty counted above:

Water submetering and allocation statements in the rental agreement — words or content the lease itself must carry. Where the owner bills tenants for submetered or allocated water or wastewater service, the rental agreement must clearly state in writing that the tenant will be billed by the owner for that service; which utility services are included in the owner's bill; that any dispute over the computation of the bill or the accuracy of a submetering device is between the tenant and the owner; where the service is not submetered, a clear description of the formula used to allocate it; the billing information, including meter reading dates, billing dates and due dates; the period within which the owner will repair leaks in the tenant's unit and in common areas that are not submetered; that the tenant may get information from the owner to verify the bill; and, for manufactured home rental communities and apartment houses, the service-charge percentage that will be billed. These words are required only because the owner elects that billing practice, so the item is listed and not counted. Given at signing, inside the lease itself. The statute fixes the substance, not the words. Threshold: Binds an owner who bills tenants for submetered or allocated water or wastewater service; the service-charge item reaches manufactured home rental communities and apartment houses. (16 TAC § 24.279(a)(1)–(3), (5)–(9))

Previous year's average, highest and lowest water bills — a figure the landlord must compute and state in the lease. The same rental agreement must state the average monthly bill for all dwelling units in the previous calendar year and the highest and lowest month's bills for that period, so a tenant can see the range before signing. Required only where the owner elects submetered or allocated billing, so the item is listed and not counted. Given at signing, inside the lease itself. The statute fixes the substance, not the words. Computation: The owner works out three figures from the property's own billing for the previous calendar year: the average monthly bill for all dwelling units, the highest month's bill and the lowest month's bill for that period. The rule prescribes no alternative wording and states no fallback figure for a property with no full previous calendar year of billing. Threshold: Binds an owner who bills tenants for submetered or allocated water or wastewater service. (16 TAC § 24.279(a)(4))

Electricity submetering statements in the rental agreement — words or content the lease itself must carry. Where an owner submeters electricity to apartments, condominiums or manufactured home rental communities, all rental agreements must clearly state that the dwelling unit is submetered, that bills will be issued on that basis, that electricity used in all common areas and common facilities is the owner's responsibility and not the tenant's, and that any dispute over the computation of the bill and the accuracy of the submetering device is between the tenant and the owner. Required only because the owner elects to submeter, so the item is listed and not counted. Given at signing, inside the lease itself. The statute fixes the substance, not the words. Threshold: Binds an owner of an apartment, condominium or manufactured home rental community who submeters electricity. (16 TAC § 25.142(d))

Terms of an agreement for a fee instead of a security deposit — words or content the lease itself must carry. Where the landlord offers a fee instead of a security deposit, the written agreement signed by both sides must clearly specify four things: that the fee is paid only to secure occupancy without a security deposit; that the fee is not refundable unless otherwise specified; that paying it does not eliminate, release or limit the lease's requirements, including rent as it falls due and damages the tenant is legally liable for beyond normal wear and tear; and that it does not pay for insurance covering the tenant or otherwise change the tenant's obligation to pay rent and those damages. Required only because the landlord elects to offer the fee, so the item is listed and not counted. Given before signing and at signing. The statute fixes the substance, not the words. Threshold: Binds a landlord who offers a fee in lieu of a security deposit. (§ 92.111(c), (f))

The alternative security deposit amount in the fee option notice — a figure the landlord must compute and state in the lease. When the fee option is offered, the landlord must notify the tenant in writing of the right to pay a security deposit instead, of the right to end the fee agreement at any time and switch to a deposit, and of the charges for each option — which means stating the deposit figure the landlord would take for the same housing. Required only because the landlord elects to offer the fee, so the item is listed and not counted. Given before signing. The statute fixes the substance, not the words. Computation: The figure is the security deposit amount otherwise offered to new tenants for substantially similar housing on the date the tenant chooses to pay a deposit, so it is worked out afresh from what the landlord is currently offering each time a tenant switches. The statute states no fallback where no substantially similar housing is on offer. Threshold: Binds a landlord who offers a fee in lieu of a security deposit. (§ 92.111(b)(2))

Lease contents the statutes or rules address, each in the circumstance it names:

• Language in underlined or bold print informing the tenant of the remedies available for the landlord's failure to repair (section 92.056, subsection (g)).

• A sentence substantially equivalent to the statutory statement that tenants may have special statutory rights to terminate the lease early in certain situations involving family violence or a military deployment or transfer (section 92.016, subsection (f), and section 92.017, subsection (g)).

• A sentence substantially equivalent to the statutory statement that tenants may have special statutory rights to terminate the lease early in certain situations involving certain sexual offenses or stalking (section 92.0161, subsection (g)).

• Where a landlord of a multiunit complex puts parking rules or policies in the lease or an attachment, a paragraph title reading Parking or Parking Rules, capitalized, underlined or in bold print (section 92.0131, subsection (c)).

• Where the owner bills for submetered or allocated water or wastewater service, nine statements about the billing, including the previous calendar year's average, highest and lowest monthly bills and, where the service is allocated, the allocation formula (16 Texas Administrative Code section 24.279, subsection (a)).

• Where the owner submeters electricity, three statements: that the unit is submetered, that bills will issue on that basis, that common-area electricity is the owner's cost, and that billing and meter-accuracy disputes are between tenant and owner (16 Texas Administrative Code section 25.142, subsection (d)).

• Where a fee is taken instead of a security deposit, the four specified terms of the fee agreement, which may sit in the lease or in a separate signed writing (section 92.111, subsection (f)).

• A requirement that the tenant give advance notice of surrender as a condition of refunding the security deposit works only if it is underlined or printed in conspicuous bold print in the lease (section 92.103, subsection (b); the deposit figures are on the deposits page).

• An agreement that the tenant repairs at the tenant's own expense is valid only if the lease is in writing and the repair agreement is underlined or printed in boldface in the lease or in a separate written addendum, alongside three further conditions (section 92.006, subsection (e)).

• A landlord who wants rent paid by check, money order or another traceable or negotiable instrument rather than cash must say so in a written lease (section 92.011, subsection (a)).
Move-in condition report

No.

No Texas statute requires a move-in condition statement, checklist, inventory or walk-through, and none is a precondition to withholding from a security deposit. The security-deposit subchapter works only at the other end of the tenancy: the landlord must refund within thirty days of surrender and a forwarding address, may not retain for normal wear and tear, and must give a written description and itemized list of all deductions. There is no prior-tenant damage list. Two adjacent notices are not move-in reports and should not be read as one: where no deposit was taken, a landlord who wants to collect damages and charges must notify the tenant in writing on or before the date the claim is reported to a consumer reporting agency or a third-party debt collector, and forfeits the claim otherwise; and under a fee-instead-of-deposit agreement the landlord may not claim on the insurer unless the tenant is told of the indebtedness, with a written description and itemized list of damages and unpaid rent, within thirty days of surrender.

Deposit notice at signing: Texas prescribes no receipt and no statement of where the deposit is held at signing; the thirty-day refund after surrender (section 92.103), the itemized deductions (section 92.104) and the bad-faith liability of one hundred dollars plus three times the wrongfully withheld portion plus fees (section 92.109) are on the deposits page.
Hazard disclosures

No in-force state hazard disclosure duty applies at signing beyond the federal lead-paint rule. No state duty exists for lead, mold, bed bugs, radon, methamphetamine, asbestos, or any other hazard.

Every state duty and every stated absence, hazard by hazard:

Lead (state add-on to the federal rule) — no state duty. Texas adds nothing of its own to the federal lead-paint disclosure: there is no state form, registration, certificate, inspection record or renewal re-disclosure for a landlord. The state's lead chapter is childhood blood-lead surveillance and investigation, and its only lease touchpoint runs the other way, letting the health department investigate a child-occupied facility with the written consent of an adult occupant where the facility is under a lease. The chapter also caps the state: rules for lead investigations must meet, but may not exceed, the requirements the federal environmental agency has adopted.

Mold — no state duty. No Texas statute requires a mold disclosure to a tenant. The one mold-certificate duty runs on a sale: a property owner who sells must give the buyer a copy of each certificate of mold remediation issued for the property during the five years before the sale. The mold chapter otherwise licenses assessors and remediators and creates no duty toward a tenant, at signing or at any other time.

Bed bugs — no state duty. No Texas statute or rule requires a bed-bug disclosure to a tenant. Bed bugs appear nowhere in the landlord-tenant chapter, the public-health chapters or the administrative rule record: there is no history disclosure, no inspection-record duty and no duty owed on the tenant's request.

Radon — no state duty. No Texas statute or rule requires a radon disclosure to a tenant. Radon gas appears in Texas law only as a check item on the seller's disclosure notice, which a seller of residential real property of not more than one dwelling unit gives to a purchaser. That notice does not reach a lease.

Methamphetamine — no state duty. No Texas statute requires a landlord to disclose that a property was used as a methamphetamine laboratory, and Texas does not bar renting such a property instead. There is no contaminated-property registry, no clean-up standard for a former laboratory and no certificate of compliance regime. The word appears in the criminal drug schedules and, again, as a check item on the seller's disclosure notice to a purchaser.

Asbestos — no state duty. No Texas statute or rule requires an asbestos disclosure to a tenant. The asbestos chapter licenses practitioners, and its only notice duty runs to the state department, in writing at least ten days before a removal, encapsulation or enclosure project in a public building. The precision point is that the definition of a public building excludes a private residence and an apartment building of not more than four dwelling units, so an apartment building of five or more units is covered by the project notice to the department — and the occupants still get nothing.

Pesticide, pest-control, ordnance, termite and utility-history notices — no state duty. No Texas statute or rule requires a pesticide-application notice, a pest-control-contract disclosure, a military ordnance or noise-zone notice, a termite disclosure or a utility-shutoff-history disclosure to a tenant. The termite and asbestos-component items in Texas law are check boxes on the seller's disclosure notice to a purchaser, and the single pest-control reference in the landlord-facing chapters is a carve-out from the definition of mold assessment, not a duty.
Flood disclosure

Yes — a statute requires the landlord to disclose both the property's flood-zone status and its flood history to a prospective or current tenant, in a signed acknowledgment.

Texas runs a two-notice regime. Both texts are set out in the statute itself and both are measured by a substantially-equivalent standard, so the wording may be adapted but the content may not be dropped. The first notice is unconditional: the landlord states whether the landlord is or is not aware that the dwelling is in a 100-year floodplain, warns that an unchecked box should be read as meaning the dwelling is in one, adds that a dwelling outside the floodplain may still flood, points the tenant to the federal emergency agency's free address-searchable flood map, and warns that most tenant insurance policies do not cover flood losses. The second turns on knowledge: where the landlord knows that flooding has damaged any portion of the dwelling at least once in the five years immediately before the lease takes effect, the landlord must state whether the landlord is or is not aware that the dwelling has flooded at least once in the last five years. Flooding is defined by cause, covering the overflow of inland or tidal waters, the unusual and rapid accumulation of runoff or surface water from an established water source such as a river, stream or drainage ditch, and excessive rainfall. A 100-year floodplain is an area the federal emergency agency designates as a flood hazard area with a one percent or greater chance of flooding each year. Both notices go in a paragraph of the lease, in an addendum to it, or in a separate written document given to the tenant at or before execution of the lease, and the landlord and the tenant must both sign the document containing a required notice to evidence that it was given and received. The landlord need not disclose awareness that the dwelling is in a 100-year floodplain where the dwelling is raised above the floodplain flood levels in accordance with federal regulations; that carve-out does not excuse the flooding-history notice. The section took effect on January 1, 2022 and was narrowed on September 1, 2025, when short and pre-closing or post-closing tenancies were taken out of both notices and the signature requirement was added, for leases entered into or renewed on or after that date. The sale-side notice is a separate regime that never reaches a lease: it runs from a seller of residential real property of not more than one dwelling unit to a purchaser.

Threshold: For a lease entered into or renewed on or after September 1, 2025, neither notice is required for a lease with a term of less than thirty days or for a temporary residential tenancy created by a contract for sale in which the buyer occupies before closing or the seller occupies after closing for a term of not more than ninety days. A lease entered into or renewed before that date is governed by the earlier law, which carried no such exemptions. No unit count and no owner-occupancy carve-out. If the duty is not met: The remedy is conditional and narrow. Where the landlord violates the section and the tenant suffers a substantial loss or damage to personal property as a result of flooding, the tenant may terminate the lease by written notice given no later than the thirtieth day after the loss or damage occurred; a loss is substantial where the total cost of repairing or replacing the property is fifty percent or more of its market value on the date of the flooding. Termination takes effect when the tenant surrenders possession, and the landlord must refund all prepaid rent and other amounts covering any period after termination no later than the thirtieth day after the termination takes effect. Nothing is owed for a bare failure to give a notice where no flood follows, and the section does not affect the tenant's liability for delinquent rent or other sums owed before the lease ended.
Disclosures about the property's situation No statutory disclosure of this kind
What need not be disclosed

Yes — the statute forbids disclosing the facts the rule names.

Texas has one rule that bars a disclosure rather than requiring one, and it binds the landlord. A person who receives the documentation a tenant supplies when terminating a lease because of certain sexual offenses or stalking may not disclose that information to anyone else except for a legitimate or customary business purpose or as otherwise required by law. There is no matching confidentiality rule in the family-violence section or the military section, and Texas has no statute saying that a death in the unit, a felony on the property or an occupant's illness need not be disclosed.
Utility, fee and payment disclosures Most of the Texas utility and fee duties sit in the Public Utility Commission of Texas's rules rather than the statutes. Water and wastewater: where an owner bills tenants for submetered or allocated service, the rental agreement must clearly state in writing nine things, listed among the required lease contents, and the owner must give the tenant a copy of the commission's submetering and allocation subchapter, or a copy of those rules, at the time a rental agreement is discussed, so the tenant knows the tenant's rights and the owner's responsibilities. The owner may not change the method by which a tenant is billed unless the tenant agrees by signing a lease or other written agreement, and must give notice of the proposed change at least thirty-five days before the new method starts; moving from submetered to allocated billing needs prior written commission approval on a good-cause showing such as equipment failure or meter-reading problems that cannot feasibly be corrected. A rental agreement provision that purports to waive a tenant's rights or an owner's responsibilities under that subchapter is void. Electricity: where an owner submeters an apartment, condominium or manufactured home rental community, all rental agreements must carry three statements, also listed among the required lease contents, and the owner must give the tenant, at the time the lease is signed, a copy of the commission's submetering section or a narrative summary the commission has approved. The commission's tenant guides to submetered and allocated service are official consumer material, not a prescribed form: no rule names them, so handing one over does not satisfy the duty. Cash rent and receipts: a landlord must accept a tenant's timely cash rent payment unless a written lease requires payment by check, money order or another traceable or negotiable instrument, and a landlord who receives cash must give the tenant a written receipt and enter the payment date and amount in a record book; a tenant who prevails recovers the greater of one month's rent or five hundred dollars for each violation plus court costs and fees, and a tenant, a governmental entity or a civic association acting for the tenant may sue for an injunction. Fee instead of a deposit: a landlord who offers one must notify the tenant in writing of the right to pay a security deposit instead, the right to end the fee agreement at any time and switch to a deposit, and the charges for each option; must take a written agreement signed by the landlord or the landlord's legal representative and by the tenant, carrying four specified terms; must charge the fee as a recurring amount of equivalent size payable when each rent payment falls due; and may charge no more than the reasonable cost of obtaining and administering the insurance. The tenant's choice between a fee and a deposit may not be used as a criterion in deciding whether to approve an application for occupancy. Parking and towing: a landlord of a multiunit complex must give the parking rules or policies to the tenant before the lease is executed, under the prescribed emphasized heading, and a failure costs a civil penalty of one hundred dollars plus the tenant's towing and storage costs. Emergency contact: a landlord with an on-site management or superintendent's office must give the tenant a telephone number answered twenty-four hours a day for reporting conditions that materially affect an ordinary tenant's physical health or safety, and must post that number prominently outside the office; every other landlord must give a telephone number for the same purpose, without the twenty-four-hour guarantee. Master-metered property: where a property of at least ten dwellings receives electric or gas service that is master metered but not submetered, the customer must give each tenant or owner a written notice, in the words the statute sets out and with the customer's contact information and the tenant's remedies, no later than the fifth day after receiving a disconnection notice from the provider, and must send the same notice to the municipality by certified mail; the duty falls away if the customer pays and avoids the disconnection. Three lease terms work only if they are set in prescribed type: an advance-notice-of-surrender condition on a deposit refund, an agreement for repairs at the tenant's expense, and the parking heading. Texas requires no rent-concession disclosure, no renter's-insurance disclosure, no smoking-policy disclosure, no rent-reporting disclosure and no rule that every fee be stated in the lease. Late fees are on the late-fee page, application and screening-fee notices on the application and screening-fee page, and deposits on the deposits page.
Lease clauses that are void or prohibited

No enumerated list — Texas has no enumerated roster of prohibited lease provisions. What it has instead is a subject-by-subject non-waiver map in section 92.006, two scattered provisions that declare a clause void, and one flat lease-content prohibition. Section 92.006 makes the security-deposit, security-device, ownership-and-management-disclosure and utility-cutoff duties and remedies non-waivable; protects the smoke-alarm installation duty and its remedies while letting inspection and repair be waived by written agreement; closes the health-and-safety duties except through three narrow channels; protects the early-termination rights against waiver by either side; and bars a jury-trial waiver in any action brought under the chapter. Those duties may be enlarged only by specific written agreement. The provisions reach clauses that cut down the tenant's protections rather than either party's clauses generally, and the chapter carries no unconscionability provision and no strike-the-clause action. A prohibited clause is simply ineffective.

Sanction as the statute states it: Texas attaches no damages figure to using a prohibited clause. The rental-application waiver and the water submetering waiver are declared void; the non-waiver map says the duties and remedies may not be waived; the firearm provision says a landlord may not prohibit and stops there. The money in the landlord-tenant chapter attaches to breaking the underlying duty — one month's rent plus one hundred dollars on the ownership-disclosure remedies, and actual damages plus one month's rent plus five hundred dollars and fees for violating an early-termination section — never to the clause itself. There is no cure window, no rent multiple for deliberate use and no rule voiding the whole lease.

The general provisions:

• A waiver of the landlord's duties or the tenant's remedies on security deposits (section 92.006, subsection (a)).

• A waiver of the landlord's duties or the tenant's remedies on security devices (section 92.006, subsection (a)).

• A waiver of the landlord's duties or the tenant's remedies on the disclosure of ownership and management (section 92.006, subsection (a)).

• A waiver of the landlord's duties or the tenant's remedies on utility cutoffs (section 92.006, subsection (a)).

• A waiver of the duty to install a smoke alarm, of the remedy for not installing one, or of the tenant's limited right of installation and removal; inspection and repair of smoke alarms may be waived only by written agreement (section 92.006, subsection (a)).

• A waiver of the health-and-safety repair duties outside the three channels the statute allows: repairs by the tenant at the landlord's expense; repairs at the tenant's expense by a landlord who owns one rental dwelling, on four conditions including an underlined or boldface agreement; and a short list of tenant-caused damage (section 92.006, subsections (c) to (f)).

• A waiver of the tenant's right to terminate the lease and vacate for family violence, certain sexual offenses or stalking, or a military deployment or transfer; the statute says neither tenant nor landlord may waive it (section 92.006, subsection (g); section 92.016, subsection (g); section 92.0161, subsection (h)).

• A waiver of the tenant's right to a jury trial in an action brought under the landlord-tenant chapter, in a lease or any other written agreement (section 92.006, subsection (h)).

• A provision of a rental application that purports to waive a right or exempt a party from a liability or duty under the application subchapter, which the statute declares void (section 92.355).

• A rental agreement provision that purports to waive a tenant's rights or an owner's responsibilities under the water submetering and allocation rules, which the rule declares void (16 Texas Administrative Code section 24.279, subsection (e)).

• A clause prohibiting a tenant or a tenant's guest from lawfully possessing, carrying, transporting or storing a firearm, a firearm part or ammunition in the unit, in a vehicle in a parking area provided for tenants or guests, or in other landlord-controlled places needed to enter or leave the unit, the premises or such a vehicle, unless state or federal law bars possession; the section states no sanction (section 92.026).
Attorney-fee clauses

A statute awards attorney fees to whichever party prevails in the actions it names, without converting lease clauses.

Texas neither prohibits a one-way landlord attorney-fee clause nor converts one into a mutual right. What it has is a statutory award that runs to whichever party prevails, in named parts of the landlord-tenant chapter: a party who prevails in a suit brought under the general subchapter or under the health-and-safety, ownership-disclosure or smoke-alarm subchapters may recover court costs and reasonable attorney's fees in relation to work reasonably expended. The security-deposit subchapter is not on that list, and deposit fees run through the bad-faith deposit remedy instead. The award does not reach a claim under the ownership-disclosure or smoke-alarm subchapters for damages that relate to or arise from property damage, personal injury or a criminal act. Separately, a party who files or prosecutes a suit under the health-and-safety, security-device, ownership-disclosure or smoke-alarm subchapters in bad faith or to harass owes the defendant one month's rent plus one hundred dollars and attorney's fees. So a lease silent on fees still carries a fee exposure in those actions, and a lease that awards fees to one side only is neither rewritten nor struck.
When, how, and what happens on a failure Timing pegs run across the tenancy. Before the lease is executed: the parking rules of a multiunit complex, and the written notice of the option to pay a fee instead of a security deposit. At or before execution: both flood notices, which the landlord and the tenant must both sign. In the lease itself: the repair-remedy language, the two early-termination sentences, the parking heading, and the submetering statements where they apply. At the time a rental agreement is discussed: the copy of the water submetering and allocation rules. At the time the lease is signed: the copy of the electricity submetering section or an approved narrative summary, and the emergency telephone number. Within three business days of signature by each party: the complete copy of the lease, with a second three-business-day clock on a co-tenant's written request. Within seven days of a request: the owner and management identity, with corrections within seven days of a written notice. At the moment of payment: a written receipt for cash rent. Within five days of the customer's receipt of a disconnection notice: the master-metered notice to each tenant. Only the flood notices, the parking rules and the fee-instead-of-deposit agreement require a signature, and no duty recurs annually or on renewal beyond a new agreement. Delivery permissions are narrow and do not travel: the lease copy may be paper, electronic if the tenant requests it, or e-mail where the parties have communicated by e-mail about the lease; e-mail delivery for notices under the security-deposit subchapter, allowed since September 1, 2025 where the tenant and the landlord or the landlord's agent have previously communicated by e-mail, reaches that subchapter alone and does not carry the flood notice, the identity disclosure or the parking rules. A tenant whose dwelling is not the tenant's primary residence may, at signing or renewal and in writing, redirect notices of lease violations, lease termination, end-of-term rent increases and notices to vacate to a stated primary address. A change to a landlord rule or policy that is not in the lease and affects the tenant's personal property outside the dwelling has its own delivery menu, and the landlord is liable for the tenant's resulting expenses. Remedies are uneven. The identity disclosure carries the strongest package, including unilateral termination without a court proceeding. The flood notices carry a remedy only where a flood actually causes a loss of at least half the personal property's market value. The repair-remedy language, the emergency number, the firearm provision and the master-metered notice each carry no penalty in the section that creates them, and the on-request late-fee statement says in terms that a landlord's silence does not affect what the tenant owes. Omitting an early-termination sentence releases a terminating tenant from delinquent unpaid rent rather than fining the landlord, while violating one of those sections costs actual damages, one month's rent plus five hundred dollars and attorney's fees. No public enforcer polices the lease-content duties; the utility commission enforces its own submetering rules.
Can cities add their own rules Texas expressly preempts local lease-disclosure and lease-content ordinances. Since September 1, 2023, unless expressly authorized by another statute, a municipality or county may not adopt, enforce or maintain an ordinance, order or rule regulating conduct in a field of regulation occupied by a provision of the Property Code, and an ordinance that does is void, unenforceable and inconsistent with the code; the statute names ordinances regulating evictions or delaying a notice to vacate or a possession suit as an example of an occupied field. Because the landlord-tenant chapter occupies the residential lease-disclosure field — the identity disclosure, the flood notices, the prescribed lease sentences, the parking rules and the copy duty — a Texas city may not add a lease-disclosure or lease-content ordinance of its own. Three older subject-specific provisions survive alongside that rule. The ownership-and-management-disclosure subchapter stands in place of the common law, other statutory law and local ordinances on that subject, but allows a local ordinance that conforms to it and adds enforcement provisions. The smoke-alarm and fire-extinguisher subchapter does the same, saving a conforming installation ordinance from before 1981, local fire-safety provisions in a building, fire or housing code, a conforming ordinance with extra enforcement, and a local program of regular alarm inspections, and it caps local retrofit mandates for alarms in older units. A local twenty-four-hour emergency-number ordinance adopted before January 1, 2008 survives if it conforms or is amended to conform. One qualifier belongs beside all of this. The only judgment ever to hold the preemption act unconstitutional was reversed on July 18, 2025 on the ground that the cities' own pleadings negated their standing to sue; rehearing and rehearing before the full court were denied on April 15, 2026 and the mandate issued on June 25, 2026. A petition for review is now pending in the Supreme Court of Texas as cause number 26-0521, filed June 29, 2026, in which the court ordered a response on July 24, 2026 and later extended the response deadline to September 23, 2026. No court has held the act invalid. No Texas city carries a lease packet or disclosure ordinance on this page.
How state law refers to the federal rules Texas law refers to the federal rules in two places rather than adding to them. The flood section defines a 100-year floodplain as land the federal emergency management agency designates as a flood hazard area with a one percent or greater chance of flooding each year under the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968; the prescribed notice sends the tenant to that agency's own free, address-searchable flood map; and the elevation carve-out turns on whether the dwelling is raised above the floodplain flood levels in accordance with federal regulations. The childhood lead chapter runs the other way and caps the state: its rules for lead investigations must meet, but may not exceed, the requirements the federal environmental agency has adopted. That ceiling is the textual reason Texas adds nothing of its own to the federal lead-paint disclosure.
Changes already signed into law No signed act is waiting beyond any not-yet-in-force duty already stated on this page
Leading court decisions The State of Texas v. The City of Houston, The City of San Antonio, and The City of El Paso, No. 03-23-00531-CV (Court of Appeals for the Third District of Texas, at Austin; 2025; a general statement of law; bears on local authority to add rules): In the challenge to the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act, which added the Property Code's field preemption, the court held that the cities' live pleadings affirmatively negate their standing to sue, reversed the trial court's final judgment and rendered judgment dismissing the suit without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The holding is jurisdictional: it leaves the preemption statute standing and decides nothing about the statute's meaning. The case is a general challenge to that act rather than a residential landlord-tenant dispute, and it matters on this page only because it settles that the preemption provision is enforceable today.

Cite this page: "Landlord Atlas, Texas Lease Disclosure Laws & Required Lease Terms (verified September 11, 2026), landlordatlas.com/laws/lease-disclosures/texas/" — free to cite and quote with a link (how these records are verified). Everything above is cited in the citations section below.

Texas hazard disclosures at a glance

No row below is an in-force state duty to disclose, hand over, attach or post a hazard notice; the federal lead-paint rule still applies to housing built before 1978. Each row's full text, trigger, threshold and remedy are in the table above.

Hazard Status When Form Prescribed document
Lead (state add-on to the federal rule) None — — —
Mold None — — —
Bed bugs None — — —
Radon None — — —
Methamphetamine None — — —
Asbestos None — — —
Pesticide, pest-control, ordnance, termite and utility-history notices None — — —

Federal rules that apply in every state

The federal layer for the lease-disclosures topic, carried once for the whole site. Every row names who it binds: most federal lease attachments bind only a landlord who takes a voucher or holds HUD-assisted or HUD-insured property, and the one rule that binds every landlord (the lead-paint disclosure rule) is a floor that state law may add to. No state record restates these rows; a state record says only where its own law references or extends them. Each row below says who it binds before it says what it requires. The full text of each row, with its citations, is on the 50-state page.

Notes and caveats

Common questions: Texas lease disclosures

Each answer is the verified value from the table above, restated as a direct answer. Free to quote with a link to this page.

Does Texas require a landlord to give the tenant a written statement of tenant rights?
No — no state document or statement of tenant rights must be handed over; what the state prescribes is text the lease itself must carry. Texas publishes no tenant-rights booklet, summary, handbook or agency statement that a landlord must hand over, so the answer rests on prescribed lease text alone.
Does a Texas landlord have to disclose the owner's name and address?
Only on the tenant's request. On the tenant's request the landlord must disclose the name and either a street or post office box address of the holder of record title according to the county clerk's deed records and, where an entity located off site is primarily responsible for managing the dwelling, the name and street address of the management company.
Is a move-in inspection checklist required in Texas?
No. No Texas statute requires a move-in condition statement, checklist, inventory or walk-through, and none is a precondition to withholding from a security deposit. The security-deposit subchapter works only at the other end of the tenancy: the landlord must refund within thirty days of surrender and a forwarding address, may not retain for normal wear and tear, and must give a written description and itemized list of all deductions.
What hazards must a Texas landlord disclose to a tenant?
No in-force state hazard disclosure duty applies at signing beyond the federal lead-paint rule. No state duty exists for lead, mold, bed bugs, radon, methamphetamine, asbestos, or any other hazard.
Does Texas require flood disclosure to renters?
Yes — a statute requires the landlord to disclose both the property's flood-zone status and its flood history to a prospective or current tenant, in a signed acknowledgment. Texas runs a two-notice regime.
Does Texas void or prohibit specific lease clauses?
No enumerated list — Texas has no enumerated roster of prohibited lease provisions. What it has instead is a subject-by-subject non-waiver map in section 92.006, two scattered provisions that declare a clause void, and one flat lease-content prohibition.

Citations

How this record was verified: Direct reading of the Texas statutes on the Texas Legislative Council's Texas Constitution and Statutes site: Property Code chapter 92 read section by section in full, with Property Code chapters 1, 5, 91 and 301; Business and Commerce Code chapter 26 (statute of frauds) and chapter 322 (electronic transactions); Occupations Code chapter 1954 (asbestos) and chapter 1958 (mold); Health and Safety Code chapter 88 (childhood lead poisoning), chapter 341 (public health and sanitation), chapter 343 (nuisances), chapter 361 (solid waste) and chapter 481 (controlled substances); Local Government Code chapters 1 and 250; Water Code chapter 13; and Government Code chapter 2306. The host prints no edition or currency banner, so currency was established three ways that agree: the chapter file's own file date of April 10, 2026; the credit lines in the served text, which run through chapters 78, 365 and 732 of the 2025 regular session, all effective September 1, 2025; and the host's own practice of serving delayed-effective text under an inline caption, which Property Code chapter 92 carries nowhere, so nothing in this topic's home chapter is on the books but out of force. The administrative rules were read on the Public Utility Commission of Texas's own rule files — 16 Texas Administrative Code sections 24.277, 24.279, 24.281 and 25.142 as standalone documents and again in the commission's consolidated chapter compilations, the chapter 24 compilation carrying its own stamp updated 08/19/2026 — and their currency was established on the Secretary of State's Texas Register: the annual Index of Rules for 2019 through 2025, the 2026 second quarterly index covering January 1 to June 26, 2026, and the adopted-rules section of all eleven weekly issues from July 3 to September 11, 2026, enumerated rule by rule against positive controls. The enrolled acts of Senate Bill 2349 and House Bill 2037 of the 89th Legislature were read on the Legislature's own site with their bill-history pages for the signing and effective dates and their applicability clauses. Texas holds no 2026 regular session: the 89th Legislature adjourned sine die on June 2, 2025 and the 90th convenes January 12, 2027, so every act touching this topic is already in the served text. The Third Court of Appeals opinion on the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act was read in full from the court's own posting, and the appellate docket and the Supreme Court of Texas docket in cause 26-0521 were read on the same host. Verified September 11, 2026.

What was read to state each absence on this page: