AUSTIN, Texas — Giving power to renters when the power is out is the goal of a bill in the Texas Legislature. If passed, the bill would allow renters more rights in the event of a utility outage.

Spectrum News 1 Texas spoke with renters, tenant rights advocates and housing nonprofits who say this legislation will help balance the power between landlords and tenants.

Texas is widely known as a “landlord-friendly” state, while tenant rights are much weaker. Even so, landlords say that this bill is not only unfair, it’s unhelpful.  

“An act pertaining to a tenant’s right to terminate a residential lease,” Adam Sadovsky said, reading over House Bill 1173. “Right to vacate and avoid liability.”

The legislation would let renters terminate their lease if there’s an outage of electricity, natural gas or water for more than 48 hours.

“This is absolutely insane!” Sadovsky exclaimed.

To him, it doesn’t make any sense. The landlord has been renting in Austin since 2011. He doesn’t own big apartment complexes, just two houses. One of the houses lost power in the most recent ice storm, but not in 2021. Sadovsky wasn’t so lucky.

“We ended up sleeping in a tent because it was so cold,” he said. “[The power] went out at my own home for two and a half days that time, three and half this time.”

Sadovsky says these outages are out of landlord’s hands and 48 hours is not enough notice.  

“Why should it be the landlord’s burden to shoulder that?” he said.

In 2021, numerous apartments, low-income and public housing properties issued lease termination and evictions because of storm damage and outages. Texas state Rep. Terry Meza, D-Irving, says that’s why she introduced HB 1173.

“If the landlords can say to the tenant, 'You have to leave because we need to fix utilities,' then the tenants can say, 'I need to leave,'” Rep. Meza said.

Texas property code, section 92.054, already allows renters to terminate leases in the event of utility disruptions or damages causing major repairs during a disaster. However, lawyers tell Spectrum News this statute would speed up the process and avoid drawn out legal disputes for landlords and tenants.

Rep. Meza says this is just the first step to solving a widespread problem.

“So this is just to allow some balance of power between landlords and tenants when they’re unable to provide utilities that tenants need to continue living there,” she said.  

For small-time landlords like Sadovsky, losing just one renter has a big impact.

“Without the rent coming in, it puts me at risk of losing the property because I use that money to pay the mortgage,” he said.

He agrees tenants shouldn’t be evicted or terminated from their lease unfairly or without proper notice, but letting renters do the same isn’t the solution. Sadovsky says the responsibility should be on the electric companies, not landlords who have no power over utilities.

A judge determined numerous evictions and lease termination cases at properties in Central Texas were unlawful, but many families didn’t have support or the knowledge to fight for their rights.