16 Days to Fix It: HB 1135 Cuts Your County Nuisance Notice

The county sends you a letter about your property. Today you get 31 days to fix it or ask for a hearing. A bill filed in Austin would cut that to 16.

Plain English

On November 12, 2026, HB 1135 was filed in the Texas House. Texas Legislature Online lists the author as Rep. Gervin-Hawkins. (FACT, HB 1135 bill history)

The caption: "Relating to authority and procedures for a county to abate a public nuisance." (FACT, HB 1135 as filed)

This is the law counties use in unincorporated areas. Out past the city limits. Where a lot of East Texas lives. (FACT, Health and Safety Code 343.011(a): "This section applies only to the unincorporated area of a county.")

Here is what the bill changes.

Shorter deadlines. A first notice to fix a nuisance would give you until the 16th day after it is served. Today it is the 31st day. If you already got a notice on that property before, it drops from the 10th business day to the 5th. (FACT, HB 1135, Sec. 2, amending 343.022(c)(2))

Shorter time to ask for a hearing. Your right to a hearing stays. But the window to put your request in writing shrinks the same way: 16 days instead of 31, or 5 business days instead of 10. (FACT, HB 1135, amending 343.022(c)(5))

New ways to give notice. When the county cannot serve you in person or does not know your address, today it posts the notice on the property and runs it in the newspaper two times within 10 consecutive days. The bill shrinks that to five days, or lets the county post the notice at the courthouse and on the county website instead of the paper. (FACT, HB 1135, amending 343.022(d))

A new abatement power. The county could abate a nuisance if it "constitutes a serious threat to the health or environmental safety" of a resident or the public, and the owner got notice and did not fix it or ask for a hearing in time. (FACT, HB 1135, Sec. 1, new 343.021(c))

Extra time for repeat cases. If you got a notice before and did not fix it, the county may give you up to 60 more days on a new nuisance, on top of the 5 business days. (FACT, new 343.022(g))

It takes effect September 1, 2027, and only covers notices served after that. (FACT, HB 1135, Secs. 3 and 4)

Why it matters

Abatement is not a fine on paper. It is the county coming onto the land to clean it up or tear it down.

The notice already has to warn that failure to act can mean the county abates it, bills the person who caused it, and puts a lien on the property. (FACT, 343.022(c)(3))

So the clock on that notice matters.

Sixteen days is about two weeks. That is short for a working family. Short for a man working a rig rotation. Short for a widow waiting on her son to bring the trailer. Short for anybody whose mail sits at a box in town.

And newspaper notice is how a lot of rural Texans still find out. Moving it to a website and a courthouse wall changes who actually sees it.

The receipt

• HB 1135 as filed: capitol.texas.gov
• HB 1135 history: capitol.texas.gov
• Current law, Health and Safety Code Chapter 343: statutes.capitol.texas.gov

What current law calls a nuisance includes refuse kept in a neighborhood outside a closed container, an unprotected pool on abandoned property, and dumping on county land or utility easements. (FACT, 343.011(c)) Agricultural land as the Tax Code defines it is exempt. (FACT, 343.011(d))

What Ryan says

I am not for junk piles. I am not for an open pool on an empty lot with kids walking by. Nobody in East Texas wants a rat farm next door.

Counties need a tool for that. They already have one.

My question is the clock.

When government wants to come onto your land and bill you for it, you should get real time and real notice. Thirty-one days is not too long. Two weeks is.

If the problem is a true emergency, write an emergency rule for the emergency. Do not cut the time for everybody else.

And keep the notice in the paper. A county website is not where a 78-year-old man in Upshur County checks his mail.

Same county. Same rule. For everybody.

What this does not prove

It does not prove any county is abusing nuisance law today.

It does not prove the bill will pass, or that it will look like this if it does. It was filed. That is all.

It does not mean a county can skip a hearing you ask for. The bill keeps the hearing right.

It does not reach agricultural land the Tax Code covers.

What it does prove

A filed bill would cut the time to fix a nuisance or request a hearing roughly in half, shrink the newspaper notice window, allow website and courthouse notice instead, and add a new "serious threat" abatement power. That is in the text.

The bottom line

Read your county's notice the day it comes. Read HB 1135 the day it gets a hearing. Your land. Your time. Your right to be heard.

This is the record.

Do not threaten anyone. Do not harass anyone. Do not contact anyone in my name. Read it. Share it. Send receipts, evidence, witnesses. Put eyes on the record.