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Faustino Ybarra shows the lease termination letter he received at Bonnie Apartments in Dallas\u2019 Oak Cliff neighborhood, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. Ybarra and his family have lived at the complex for over 20 years. Residents received a letter Friday telling them their leases had been terminated, and they had three days to leave the property.<\/p>\n
Juan Figueroa\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n
Getting an eviction notice can be scary, advocates say. And more people are getting them than ever before.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Eviction filings in Dallas County<\/a> rose to their highest level in 2024, reaching more than 50,000<\/a>, according to the latest data. In August, residents in two apartment complexes were told to vacate their homes after a gas explosion destroyed a nearby building<\/a>.<\/p>\n Related: Longtime Bonnie residents race to find home after 3-day notice to vacate<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Getting an eviction notice starts a legal process, but doesn\u2019t mean people have to leave their home immediately. Here\u2019s what to know about the eviction process, from the notice to vacate to available resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n What is a notice to vacate?<\/p>\n If a resident has stopped paying rent or overstayed their lease, a landlord may give them a notice to vacate.\u00a0<\/p>\n The notice might say a resident has to leave within 72 hours, or sooner. That doesn\u2019t mean someone is going to come kick them out immediately, said Mark\u00a0Melton, a partner at Holland & Knight and board chair of the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAll that notice does is start the legal process,\u201d Melton said. \u201cIt doesn’t finish it.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Landlords generally have to give tenants a three-day notice, unless the lease says landlords can give a shorter notice, according to the Texas Property Code<\/a>. The notice offers a small chance to resolve the issue, Melton said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe state has an interest in making sure these notices get out, because that gives the tenant at least some small chance to try to negotiate with their landlord, or borrow money from a family member, or get to a paycheck or whatever it is,\u201d Melton said.<\/p>\n What makes landlords nervous is when a tenant doesn\u2019t pay or communicate with the landlord, he said. Talking with the property manager doesn\u2019t work every time, but it works more than doing nothing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tenants have a limited right to make up late rent<\/a> before they can be evicted, according to Texas Law Help. If it’s a tenant\u2019s first month being late and they are only late on one month of rent, the landlord must give them an option to pay or vacate. Otherwise, landlords can choose to give a notice to vacate without an option to pay.\u00a0<\/p>\n What is an eviction filing?<\/p>\n After the notice, if a tenant has not moved out or resolved the situation, the landlord can file an eviction lawsuit.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n A notice is a private note from the landlord to the tenant, but once a landlord files an eviction there is a public record. It can be hard to get a new apartment after an eviction filing, Melton said, because other landlords can see it when they pull credit histories and other information.<\/p>\n In 2024, Dallas County landlords filed 50,117 evictions<\/a>, the highest level in 25 years of available data, according to a report from the Child Poverty Action Lab<\/a>.<\/p>\n Related: Eviction filings in Dallas County surged in 2024 as housing costs spiked, report says<\/a><\/p>\n There were an estimated 478,162 renters in Dallas County in 2024, meaning 10.5% of the renter population would have had an eviction filed against them if no repeats occurred, according to the report.<\/p>\n After a landlord files, a court hearing has to occur within 10 to 21 days<\/a>, according to the Texas State Law Library.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n What happens at an eviction hearing?<\/p>\n Dallas County Government Center where Justice of the Peace, Precinct 2-1 are, Wednesday, September 7, 2022 in Garland, Texas.<\/p>\n Rebecca Slezak\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n Who shows up for a hearing can determine the result.\u00a0<\/p>\n About 52.2% of cases resulted in a favorable outcome for landlords \u2014 the majority of those cases were decided because the tenant didn\u2019t show up \u2014 according to the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n If both the landlord and tenant are at the hearing, Melton said excuses don\u2019t work. Either you\u2019re behind on your rent or not.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The defense that works the most often is if a landlord didn\u2019t give tenants a notice or didn\u2019t follow the eviction process in some other way, Melton said.<\/p>\n If a judge rules in favor of the landlord, they can ask the judge for a writ of possession to remove the tenant from the home, according to the Texas State Law Library. If the case is dismissed for any reason, the tenant isn\u2019t evicted.<\/p>\n During the last legislative session, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 38<\/a>, which streamlined the timeline for evictions. The entire process can happen over the course of about three to four weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n Why are two Dallas apartments telling residents to move?<\/p>\n Men help residents move at the Bonnie Apartments in Dallas\u2019 Oak Cliff neighborhood, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2026. Residents received a letter Friday telling them their leases had been terminated, and they had three days to leave the property.<\/p>\n Juan Figueroa\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n People can also be told to leave their apartment because of uninhabitable conditions or a management decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Residents at The Bonnie apartments and The Baxter apartments were told in August they would have to leave their homes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Residents at The Bonnie \u2014 the complex next to the Oak Cliff building destroyed<\/a> in a deadly gas explosion earlier this year \u2014 were told to vacate the property<\/a> within three days.\u00a0<\/p>\n The notice was filed by the complex owner in response to a case opened to address \u201coutstanding code violations at the property,\u201d the Dallas City Attorney\u2019s Office Community Prosecution Section said. City staff said the landlord agreed to postpone eviction filings until the end of the month.\u00a0<\/p>\n Residents previously told The Dallas Morning News they had been living without gas service<\/a> for over a month after the explosion.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, residents at The Baxter apartments in far northeast Dallas were told they need to transfer<\/a> to a sister community or vacate their apartment, signaling the complex would close.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sometimes notices don\u2019t matter. In 2019, residents had to evacuate after a crane collapsed on an apartment building near downtown Dallas. After that happened, residents weren\u2019t allowed into the building<\/a>. In cases like that, there\u2019s not much anyone can do to change the situation, Melton said.<\/p>\n What happened to COVID aid?<\/p>\n Informational handouts about eviction help at Harmony Community Development Center on Thursday, June 24, 2021, in Dallas. (Juan Figueroa\/The Dallas Morning News)<\/p>\n Juan Figueroa\/Staff Photographer<\/p>\n During the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were more protections<\/a> and funding for renters.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Texas Rent Relief Program \u2014 which used federal funds to provide assistance for tenants at risk of eviction because of the pandemic \u2014 ended in 2023 after all of the available funds were distributed, according to the Texas State Law Library<\/a>. The Texas Eviction Diversion Program, which allowed tenants waiting for rent assistance to pause eviction cases, also ended in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n Federal moratoriums on certain types of evictions ended in 2020 and 2021, according to the library.<\/p>\n Where can I find resources?<\/p>\n People who get an eviction notice can reach out to the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center<\/a> for specific advice on their situation, Melton said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Organizations like Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas<\/a> and Stop TX Eviction<\/a> have resources for renters facing eviction on their website. Texas Law Help<\/a> lists links to local legal aid organizations across the state.<\/p>\n Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas lists a contact number for landlord tenant issues at 855-548-8457. Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center\u2019s general number is 469-436-2704.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Faustino Ybarra shows the lease termination letter he received at Bonnie Apartments in Dallas\u2019 Oak Cliff neighborhood, Tuesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,89138],"class_list":["post-412960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-dallas-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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