Texas Landlords are Required to Let You Know About Flood Risks

HOUSTON, TX — If you live in a rental property or looking to get one in Texas, you should know that there will be significant changes to flood insurance in the state. This generally covers apartments and those who rent a property from landlords. 

Today, we want to talk about the new law in Texas requiring landlords to basically disclose and notify renters of flood risks on their rental property before having these potential individual or family sign their lease. We also want to talk about how this can help provide more protection on flood risks and unwanted flood loss.

What's New?

When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, it dumped more than 40 inches of rain over a short amount of time and flooded properties that had never been flooded before. Areas that were told they didn't need flood insurance got hit hard with flooding at that time. A lot of these areas were flooded because they sat between two reservoirs. 

Starting on January 1st, 2022, landlords are expected to notify potential people who are looking to rent their properties: from apartment to a single-family home, renters will get an idea and insight on the expected flood risks on the property you're looking to buy.

This is great news for more families in Harris County since most of these people rent properties. In a way, this is like a security deposit in a way that the renter will be aware of how much property damage they can expect once Texas gets flooded. 

Basically, if the property you're looking to rent got flooded at least once in the last five years or lives in the 100-year flood plain, your landlord has to give you a notification in writing as said by Texas Representative Armando Walle. The landlord failing to do so entitles the renter to break the lease agreement if the apartment gets flooded or substantially damaged due to floodwater. 

Why Change Now?

Now, most people would ask why is now the good time to have this law out there? Well, as we get through Hurricane Harvey, and now we've gotten through a whole year of back and forth with floods in Texas due to consistent heavy rainfall, this law is really coming in the right place at the right time.

As we fix these flooded properties or maybe some that are getting flipped when real estate investors buy them, they're going to have to disclose the flooding history of the property. This really does a great job protecting a consumer or buyer in the rental market. Now that we've addressed that side of the market, it's only fair that two years after we also provide the same amount of protection to renters.

A renter named Kenny Ryman was able to recall that during Hurricane Harvey, his apartment was flooded and he didn't have any clue about it. Despite living for 56 years in the rental property, he wasn't informed that the area flooded and caused a lot of property damage to Ryman.

Will this have an impact on the apartments and rental market in areas like Houston in Texas? Absolutely since these rental properties may not sell as much as they did before because you're having to notify whether or not these properties were flooded or not recently. 

So we just wanted to do a quick rundown on this Texas law change as this will definitely change the course of the rental market in Texas as well as directly impact the flood insurance premiums for these houses.

If you have more questions on this Texas law change, federal flood insurance, the insurance industry in general, how the National Flood Insurance Program works, or anything about floods. Reach out to us by clicking the link below.

You can also visit our Flood Learning Center where we try to answer your most common flood insurance questions.

Remember, we have an educational background in flood mitigation and we want to help you protect the value of your property long-term.