There’s no doubt about it…evictions are a nightmare. No landlord wants to ever have to evict a tenant, but if you own rental property long enough, it’s going to happen. Landlords have to evict tenants for a wide variety of reasons, including failure to pay rent, damaging the rental property, moving in unauthorized tenants, subleasing or subletting without permission, and more. If you’re a landlord in Dallas, and you’re evicting a tenant for the first time, the process can seem overwhelming.
The Texas Evictions Process
The first step in evicting a tenant is to notify them of your intent to evict them and the reason for said eviction. This notification must be in writing and is known as a Written Notice to Vacate. In almost all cases in Texas, this written notice must give the tenant at least three days to vacate the property, unless their lease or rental agreement specifies a different term.
After the Written Notice to Vacate is delivered to the tenant and the appropriate amount of time has passed, the landlord can then file an eviction lawsuit. After the suit is filed, a copy of the summons and complaint must be served to the tenant.
If either the tenant or landlord decides to appeal the decision made by the judge for the eviction suit, then notification of that appeal would also need to be served to the opposing party.
Finally, after the eviction lawsuit and appeal are heard, the final judgment is issued. If it is in favor of the landlord, they may then request a Writ of Possession to be served on the tenant by law enforcement. Law enforcement must provide a 24-hour notice to the tenant to leave the property before entering and removing the tenant and their belongings. After this is complete, the landlord may change the locks on the property and take back control.
Accurate Serve® Can Help You During the Evictions Process
There are several points during the eviction process where notification needs to be delivered to the tenant(s), whether it be something issued by the court or that initial Written Notice to Vacate. Because evictions can turn into mud-slinging contests pretty quickly, we recommend using a professional private process server to deliver each and every document and notice in your eviction’s lawsuit. This prevents the tenant from claiming that they never received a certain notice or were improperly served by the landlord. Claims like this can drag an eviction case out for months or years while costing the landlord lost rental revenue. When a private process server delivers these documents, they provide verifiable proof of service to the court to back up your claims that proper notification was made.
Reputable Process Servers in Dallas
If you are a landlord who needs to handle an eviction case in Dallas and isn’t sure where to turn, give Accurate Serve® a call at (469) 518-9581 or send us a work request online. We’ll work with you to make sure your eviction case is handled as smoothly and expeditiously as possible.
