Selling a Rental Property With Bad Tenants in Lubbock

The short answer

Yes. You can sell a rental property with bad tenants in Lubbock without finishing an eviction or waiting out the lease. What changes is what the buyer gets: the house plus the tenancy. A financed buyer usually cannot take that on. A cash buyer can.

Selling does not end your tenant’s lease

No Texas statute says a lease survives a sale in those words; the Property Code assumes it. Under Tex. Prop. Code Sec. 92.105(a), if the owner’s interest “is terminated by sale … the new owner is liable for the return of security deposits according to this subchapter from the date title to the premises is acquired.” A buyer also takes subject to a lease it has notice of, and a tenant in plain sight is notice.

The 30-day myth

You will read that a new Texas owner owes the tenant 30 days. That is a foreclosure rule. Sec. 24.005(b) attaches it to a building “purchased at a tax foreclosure sale or a trustee’s foreclosure sale under a lien superior to the tenant’s lease,” where the tenant “timely pays rent and is not otherwise in default under the tenant’s lease after foreclosure,” and only “if the purchaser chooses not to continue the lease.” An ordinary sale is none of that.

Month-to-month notice

Month to month is not 30 days either. Under Sec. 91.001(b), where the rent-paying period is at least one month, the tenancy ends on the later of the day given in the notice or one month after notice is given — and Sec. 91.001(e) says that does not apply where the parties “have agreed in an instrument signed by both parties on a different period of notice … or that no notice is required.” Read your lease first.

The security deposit is the thing that follows you

Sec. 92.105(a) puts the deposit on the new owner from the date title is acquired, and Sec. 92.105(b) makes the new owner give the tenant a signed statement “specifying the exact dollar amount of the deposit.” Then read Sec. 92.105(b-1): the former owner “is liable for a security deposit received while the person was the owner until the new owner has received the deposit or has assumed the liability for the deposit, unless otherwise specified by the parties in a written contract.” You do not shed it at closing by default. Credit it to the buyer, in the contract.

If you evict first, here is the clock the statute sets

We will not tell you an eviction here takes 30 to 90 days. No verified Lubbock County cycle time exists, and anyone quoting one is guessing. Here is what the statute sets, as rewritten effective January 1, 2026:

• Notice to vacate. At least three days in writing “unless the parties have contracted for a shorter or longer notice period in a written lease or agreement” (Sec. 24.005(a)). A tenant terminated solely for nonpayment who “was not late or delinquent in paying rent to the landlord before the month in which the notice is given” gets a notice to pay rent or vacate. A holdover suit “must also comply with the tenancy termination requirements of Section 91.001.” Sec. 24.005(f-3) now governs delivery.
• Filing, service, trial. A sworn petition (Sec. 24.00505); a “diligent effort to serve … not later than the fifth business day after the date the petition is filed” (Sec. 24.0051(f)); trial no earlier than the 10th and no later than the 21st day after filing, and no earlier than the fourth day after service (Sec. 24.0051(g)). New in 2026: a sworn motion for summary disposition can win judgment without trial unless the tenant responds within four days and the court finds “genuinely disputed facts” (Sec. 24.005106).
• Appeal and writ. Five days after the judgment is signed to appeal (Sec. 24.005107(a)). No writ before the sixth day after judgment absent an approved possession bond (Sec. 24.0061(b)), served within five business days (Sec. 24.0061(b-1)), after a warning posted on the front door at least 24 hours ahead (Sec. 24.0061(d)(1)). Weekends count (Sec. 24.0042).

Those are floors, not ceilings, and nothing in the statute promises a date.

Which Lubbock court, and who actually shows up

Sec. 24.0041, new in 2026, reads: “An eviction suit must be brought in the justice precinct in which the real property is located.” The precinct follows the house: a rental in Tech Terrace and one in Slaton are two precincts, two filings. All four Lubbock County Justice of the Peace courts sit in the county courthouse at 904 Broadway downtown: Precinct 1 in Suite 110, Precinct 2 in Suite 113, Precinct 3 in Suite 111, Precinct 4 in Suite 121. The four Constables, who serve the citation and execute the writ, are all in Room 120 of the same building. Here the Appraisal District, not the Tax Assessor-Collector, issues the tax bills — start at LCAD.

Do not change the locks

Sec. 92.0081(b) says a landlord “may not intentionally prevent a tenant from entering the leased premises except by judicial process” unless the exclusion results from bona fide repairs, construction or an emergency; from removing the contents of premises abandoned by a tenant; or from changing the locks on the door of a tenant “who is delinquent in paying at least part of the rent.” That last one is narrower than it sounds. Sec. 92.0081(d) allows it only if the right is in the lease, the tenant is actually delinquent, and you gave advance written notice stating, “in underlined or bold print, the tenant’s right to receive a key to the new lock at any hour, regardless of whether the tenant pays the delinquent rent.” Sec. 92.0081(f) then makes you hand over that key on demand. It buys you nothing.

What a lockout costs you

Get it wrong and Sec. 92.0081(h) gives the tenant possession or termination plus “a civil penalty of one month’s rent plus $1,000, actual damages, court costs, and reasonable attorney’s fees,” less what they owe you; (i) adds another month’s rent if you refuse the key; (j) voids any lease clause waiving it. Cutting utilities carries the same exposure under Sec. 92.008(f). And note that selling is not among the retaliatory acts listed in Sec. 92.331(b), though filing an eviction can be.

You still owe a seller’s disclosure on a house you never lived in

Sec. 5.008(a) covers “a seller of residential real property comprising not more than one dwelling unit located in this state,” and the exceptions in Sec. 5.008(e) include none for renting it out. The relief is Sec. 5.008(d): “if the information required by the notice is unknown to the seller, the seller shall indicate that fact on the notice, and by that act is in compliance with this section.” Not knowing is an answer. Guessing in your own favor is not.

When a cash offer is not your best move

• The tenant is the only problem and the house is fine. A clean, financeable rental usually nets more listed than we can pay.
• You have a paying tenant and you are just tired. That is a management problem, not a sale.
• You can carry it empty for a few months. Get possession, do the turn, sell it clean, keep the spread.
• A live legal fight, no lawyer yet. Selling does not make a claim disappear.

We are the right call when the repair list has outrun the rent, or when you are running a Lubbock rental from Dallas or Denver. A rental also costs more to hold: Tex. Tax Code Sec. 11.13(j)(1)(D) requires a residence homestead to be “occupied as the individual’s principal residence by an owner,” so a rental carries no homestead exemption. Related reading: behind on property taxes, code violations, a vacant house, and your options for selling a house fast around Lubbock.

How our process works on an occupied rental

• Tell us what is going on. Call 806-630-0875 or fill out the form: the address, the lease, the deposit amount, what is owed, and whether anything is filed. A case number up front gets you a firm price.
• We look at it. Inside if we can get in. If not, we price off the exterior, the age of the house, comparable sales and what you tell us.
• You get a number and the reasoning. Including how the tenancy and the deposit factored in, under Sec. 92.105. “No” is a complete answer.
• You pick the closing date. When speed matters we can close in as little as 7 days on the right deal, and when you would rather line it up with a hearing date, we work to that. We cover all closing costs on purchase.

Electrum Properties has bought houses around Lubbock County since 2019 and is BBB accredited with an A+ rating. We sometimes close in our own name and sometimes assign the contract, and we will tell you which. Jarrod Frankum holds a Texas real estate license, and when we buy your house we aren’t acting as your real estate agent — we are the buyer, across the table.

Questions Lubbock landlords ask us

Get a cash offer on your Lubbock rental

Send us the address and the truth about the tenant. We buy as-is: no repairs, no cleanout, no commissions. We cover all closing costs on purchase. You pick the closing date. When speed matters we can close in as little as 7 days on the right deal. Call 806-630-0875 or read how we buy houses. Landlords know landlords: our referral program pays $500 per closed deal.