Sell a house with code violations in Houston

Most cities control what a lot can be used for through a zoning ordinance. Houston never adopted one. What a Houston lot can be used for is governed instead by deed restrictions — private covenants recorded against the subdivision — and Texas law gives a city without zoning the power to enforce those covenants itself. The city may sue to enjoin or abate a violation of a restriction, unless a property owners' association with enforcement authority gets to the courthouse first.

The practical effect is that a Houston house can be in trouble on two separate fronts at once: with the city over the condition of the building, and with the city or the civic club over what the lot is being used for. A garage apartment rented out in a single-family-restricted subdivision is a deed restriction problem. A collapsing roof on the same house is a code problem. They are handled by different people under different rules.

Day-to-day code enforcement in Houston is handled by Community Code Enforcement, which now sits inside Houston Public Works after moving out of the Department of Neighborhoods. Complaints reach it through 311. If a neighbor has reported the property, that is the department the notice came from.

Texas gives every city the power to order a building vacated, secured, repaired, removed, or demolished when it is dilapidated, substandard, unfit to live in, or open to entry. The statute requires the city to give proper notice to the owner and to hold a public hearing before it decides whether the building meets the standard. In Houston that hearing is held by the Building and Standards Commission, which the city says typically meets the first and third Wednesday of the month at the City Hall Annex.

If the commission finds against the building, the order goes to the owner and to any lienholder or mortgagee of record. The default expectation under the statute is that the owner will, within 30 days, either secure the building from unauthorized entry or repair, remove, or demolish it — unless the owner shows the work cannot reasonably be done in that time. Anything the city allows beyond 90 days has to be backed by detailed plans and a showing that the extra time is genuinely needed.

If nothing happens, the city can do the work itself — vacate, secure, remove, or demolish — at its own expense, and then assess that expense against the property as a lien. This is the point at which a neglected house stops being a nuisance and starts consuming its own equity.

The overgrown-lot and junk-and-debris cases are simpler and, in some ways, more dangerous to an absent owner, because they move quickly and the amounts compound. Texas lets a city require an owner to keep a property free of weeds, brush, and conditions that amount to a public nuisance. If the owner does not, the city can do the work and assess the cost against the real estate.

That assessment becomes a lien when a statement of expenses is filed with the county clerk, it carries interest at 10 percent from the date the city paid, and by statute it ranks behind only tax liens and street-improvement liens. On a house that has sat empty for two or three summers, that can be several separate liens from several separate mowings, each with its own interest running.

Houston's own guidance says plainly that when the city takes corrective action it will impose and file a lien against the property for the cost, unless a hearing is requested in time. If you are holding a stack of those letters, they are not idle.

A great deal of what carries a Houston mailing address is not inside Houston. Spring is unincorporated Harris County. Most of what people call Katy and Humble is outside those small cities. Kingwood is inside Houston; Atascocita, next door, is not.

The dangerous-building power described above is a municipal power. It belongs to a city. Outside city limits, a nuisance complaint goes to the county, and the county operates under different statutes with different procedures and different remedies. We do not describe the county process here because it varies by county and precinct and we would rather check the specific case than generalize.

What this means for you: the first thing we do with a code case is establish which body actually has it. That single fact decides what the notice can require, how fast it can move, and what it costs to resolve.

We buy the house with the case open. You do not need to make the repairs, attend the commission hearing, or pay off the lot liens before closing.

The title company's search turns up every recorded lien, and those are paid from the sale proceeds at closing the same way a mortgage payoff is. An unrecorded pending assessment — work the city has done but not yet filed — is the thing we ask about directly, because it will surface after closing and we would rather price it in than argue about it.

Any order that is still open at closing becomes ours to satisfy. We have a contractor for the work, and we know the hearing calendar. If the building is under a demolition order, tell us. It changes the number, and it does not change whether we make an offer.

Every letter from the city, especially anything with a hearing date or an order on it. Any lien statements the county clerk has sent. If you know the subdivision's deed restrictions, or the name of the civic club that enforces them, that helps too. If you do not have any of it, tell us the address and we will pull what is on record.