Texas Mobile Home Park Eviction Process: A Step-by-Step Guide

Nonpayment of rent: the 10-day cure notice (§94.206)

In a Texas manufactured home community you cannot treat a late-paying lot tenant like a delinquent apartment renter. Before you can terminate the lease and evict for nonpayment, three things must be true under Tex. Prop. Code §94.206: the tenant must be behind by an amount that in the aggregate equals at least one month's rent, you must notify the tenant in writing that the payment is delinquent, and the tenant must have failed to tender the delinquent payment in full before the 10th day after the date the tenant receives the notice.

In practice that is a 10-day pay-or-cure window that runs from when the tenant receives your written delinquency notice, not when you mail it. If the tenant pays the full delinquent amount inside those 10 days, the ground for eviction disappears. Only after the 10 days lapse without full payment may you move to terminate and evict. This is the single biggest divergence from an ordinary Texas residential eviction, where a landlord can often serve a 3-day notice to vacate the moment rent is late.

Keep the §94.206 delinquency notice separate in your file from the notice to vacate that later starts the court case. They serve two different statutes, and a justice of the peace will want to see that you satisfied both.

Other lease and rule violations (§94.205)

For non-rent problems — unauthorized occupants, junked vehicles, an unmaintained lot, breaches of the written community rules — your authority is Tex. Prop. Code §94.205: a landlord may terminate the lease agreement and evict a tenant for a violation of a lease provision, including a manufactured home community rule incorporated in the lease. Read that last clause carefully: a community rule is only enforceable this way if it is actually incorporated into the signed lease. Rules posted only on the clubhouse wall are far weaker ground.

Unlike the nonpayment section, Chapter 94 does not fix a statutory number of days to cure a general lease or rule violation the way §94.206 sets 10 days for money. That means any cure period comes from your lease. Spell out the cure window for rule violations in the lease itself; if the lease is silent, you are relying on the §94.205 violation ground plus the Chapter 24 notice to vacate.

One MHP-specific timing rule is worth flagging: if you are ending tenancies because you are changing the use of the land — redeveloping or closing the park — §94.204 requires notice not later than the 180th day before the date the land use will change, plus a conspicuous posted notice in the community. That 180-day runway is unique to manufactured home communities and has no apartment equivalent.

Filing the eviction (forcible detainer) (§94.203)

You can never self-help a manufactured home tenant off the lot. Tex. Prop. Code §94.203(a) is explicit: a landlord may prevent a tenant from entering the lot, evict a tenant, or require removal of a manufactured home only after obtaining a writ of possession under Chapter 24. Chapter 24 is the ordinary Texas eviction (forcible detainer) process, filed as a suit in the Justice of the Peace court for the precinct where the park sits.

Before you file, serve the Chapter 24 notice to vacate. Under §24.005 the landlord must give at least three days' written notice to vacate before filing the forcible detainer suit, unless the lease contracts for a different period. So the full nonpayment sequence is: the §94.206 written delinquency notice plus its 10-day cure, then a §24.005 notice to vacate (at least 3 days unless the lease says otherwise), then the suit.

Two documentation duties are specific to the manufactured-home context. First, if the tenant disclosed a lienholder under §94.054, you must give written notice of the eviction proceedings to the lienholder not later than the third day after you file for possession (§94.203(b)) — miss this and you can unwind your own case. Second, the court cannot grant the eviction if it finds you initiated it to retaliate against the tenant (§94.203(c)), and it must notify the tenant of any default judgment by first-class mail within 48 hours (§94.203(e)).

What happens to the home — the resident owns it (§94.203, §94.252)

In almost every MHP eviction the tenant owns the physical home and only rents the lot, so winning possession of the lot is not the same as owning the structure sitting on it. You may not remove the home until the writ of possession issues and is executed (§94.203(a)).

Chapter 94 builds in post-judgment breathing room for the home. Under §94.203(d), a court may not issue a writ of possession before the 30th day after the judgment for possession is rendered if the tenant has paid the rent due under the lease for that 30-day period. In an ordinary Texas eviction the writ can issue as early as the 6th day after judgment; here, a tenant who keeps paying lot rent can hold the writ off for up to 30 days — typically the window used to arrange moving or selling the home.

The resident also has a statutory right to sell the home in place rather than move it. Under §94.252 the owner may sell a home located on the leased premises if the purchaser is approved in writing by the landlord and signs a lease, and you generally cannot force the owner to use you as the sales agent or to pay you a commission. Chapter 94 sets no flat remove-within-X-days deadline. But if you do move the home after executing the writ, §94.203(f) requires you to send written notice of the home's new location to the tenant (and any disclosed owner) not later than the 10th day after the home is removed. Because relocating a home, lienholder rights, and any storage or abandonment claim get complicated fast, this is the stage to have counsel involved.

Typical timeline in Texas

• Day 0 — rent one month behind
  You may act once unpaid rent and other lease charges in the aggregate equal at least one month's rent (§94.206(1)).
• Written delinquency notice + 10-day cure
  Serve the written delinquency notice; the tenant has until the 10th day after receiving it to pay in full before you may terminate (§94.206).
• Notice to vacate — at least 3 days
  After the cure period lapses, serve a Chapter 24 notice to vacate: at least three days' written notice unless the lease sets a different period (§24.005).
• File forcible detainer; hearing ~10-21 days out
  File in the Justice of the Peace court; under the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure the hearing is generally set 10 to 21 days after filing. Notify any disclosed lienholder within 3 days of filing (§94.203(b)).
• Judgment + short appeal window
  General Texas eviction procedure gives the tenant a few days (about 5) to appeal before a writ can issue; exact timing varies by court and is not set by Chapter 94.
• 30-day stay of the writ
  The court cannot issue the writ before the 30th day after judgment if the tenant pays lot rent for that 30-day period (§94.203(d)) — the practical window to move or sell the home.
• Writ executes; 10-day home-location notice
  If you remove the home after executing the writ, send written notice of its location to the tenant/owner within 10 days (§94.203(f)).

Operator best practices in Texas

• Fold your community rules into the signed lease
  §94.205 only lets you evict for a rule violation if the rule is incorporated in the lease. Posted-only rules are weak ground — put them in the lease you both sign.
• Keep the delinquency notice and the notice to vacate separate
  The §94.206 10-day cure notice and the §24.005 notice to vacate are different documents serving different statutes; a JP will look for both, so don't try to collapse them into one.
• Capture lienholder info at move-in and notice them on time
  If a lienholder is disclosed under §94.054 you must notify them within 3 days of filing (§94.203(b)); missing that step can get your case unwound.
• Plan for the home, not just the lot
  Winning the lot does not give you the home. Respect the 30-day stay (§94.203(d)), the owner's right to sell in place (§94.252), and the 10-day relocation notice (§94.203(f)). Cash-for-keys offers to speed a voluntary move are market practice, not statutory — price them to the local cost of moving a home.
• Build a relationship with a Texas MHP attorney
  Chapter 94 diverges from ordinary Chapter 24/92 residential eviction at nearly every step, and a home you don't own plus a local justice court raise issues worth a lawyer's review before you file.