This is written for both sides, because the same facts decide it either way and both parties tend to misunderstand the same points.
The landlord's duty, and its conditions
Under the Texas Property Code, a landlord must make a diligent effort to repair a condition that materially affects the physical health or safety of an ordinary tenant.
That duty is conditional. Three things have to be true.
The tenant gave notice. Written notice is what starts the clock and what can be proved later. A conversation in the parking lot is not evidence of anything.
The tenant is not delinquent in rent. This is the condition tenants most often destroy themselves. Withholding rent to force a repair generally removes the protection rather than applying pressure.
The condition was not caused by the tenant. A building defect, a plumbing failure or inadequate ventilation is the landlord's. Damage from the tenant's own conduct or negligence is not.
Where those hold, the landlord has a reasonable time to repair, and what counts as reasonable depends on severity and on what the repair involves.
What tenants should do, in order
1. Report it in writing. Email or the maintenance portal, not a text to a leasing agent who may not still work there. Keep a copy. Include the date, the location, what you can see and smell, and how long it has been there.
2. Photograph it before touching it. With something for scale. A photograph of a wall you already scrubbed is worth much less.
3. Keep paying rent. The single most damaging mistake. The repair duty depends on the tenant not being delinquent.
4. Give reasonable access. Refusing entry then complaining about delay does not work.
5. Document the response. When somebody attended, what they said, what was done. If it recurs, that record is what shows the repair was inadequate rather than the problem being new.
6. Get advice before escalating. Texas A&M Student Legal Services helps students free of charge, and there are tenant advice resources for non-students. The remedies available under the Property Code have procedural requirements, and getting them wrong forfeits them.
What landlords and managers should do
Capture notice in writing even when the tenant calls. Your own intake record is the start of your timeline.
Attend and assess quickly, even if the repair takes longer. Diligent effort is the standard, and attending within days then scheduling is a diligent effort. Silence for three weeks is not.
Get the cause established independently where responsibility is in question. An assessment with moisture readings that shows a failed shower pan, or shows a bathroom with no working extract fan and four occupants, is what resolves the argument about who pays.
Do not over-scope to satisfy a complaint. Containment for surface growth on grout is a cost to the owner and it teaches the tenant that every spot is an emergency.
Do not under-scope to save money. A recurring problem that was never diagnosed compounds and becomes the expensive version.
Keep the file. Notice, response dates, assessment, scope, photographs, clearance. That file is the defence if this ever escalates.
Who pays, in practice
It turns on cause, and cause is usually determinable.
Landlord's responsibility: a plumbing leak, a roof leak, a failed shower pan, an air conditioning condensate failure, missing or non-functional ventilation, a building envelope defect.
Tenant's responsibility: damage from their own conduct — an overflow left unreported, a window left open in a storm, blocking a return vent, and in some circumstances a persistent failure to ventilate.
Genuinely contested: surface growth in a bathroom that has an extract fan which the tenant never uses. This is the argument that recurs most often, and the honest answer usually involves both sides. The fan being undersized or clogged is the owner's; not using it is the tenant's.
The specific College Station situation
A few things about this market change the picture.
Occupancy above design. A unit built for a family of three housing four adults produces several times the bathroom moisture the ventilation was specified for. Nothing is broken and there is still a problem, which sits awkwardly in a framework built around defects.
The lease calendar. Most tenancies turn over in the same summer weeks, and problems reported in April get held for the turnover. That is understandable and it is also where a reasonable time to repair starts to look unreasonable.
Parents in the conversation. Frequently the person calling is not the tenant. Managers should note that responding to a parent may raise privacy issues, and parents should note that the tenant is the one who has to give notice.
Guarantors and deposits. Disputes about mold damage frequently surface at move-out as a deposit deduction. The photographs taken at move-in are worth more than any argument made at move-out.
The turnover inspection, which prevents most of this
Almost every dispute described above is cheaper to prevent than to resolve, and the prevention takes about twenty minutes per unit.
At turnover: moisture readings on any wall with a history, a look under every sink and behind every toilet, the extract fan tested for actual airflow and traced to confirm it terminates outside, the air conditioning condensate line cleared and the pan and float switch checked, and the tub and shower sealant inspected and re-run where it has failed.
In a market where most leases turn over in the same few summer weeks, that window is where the year's problems are either found cheaply or missed expensively. A fan replaced in August costs a fraction of a wall opened in February, and it removes the argument about ventilation before it starts.
For owners it is also the documentation that matters most. A record showing the unit was inspected and the ventilation confirmed working at the start of a tenancy changes the conversation entirely if a complaint follows six months later.
What is genuinely a problem
Being clear about this saves both sides money.
Dark spotting on shower grout and sealant is common, is a cleaning and ventilation matter, and is not usually a repair obligation.
Growth that returns within days of cleaning, a musty smell with nothing visible, staining on a ceiling or at the base of a wall, or soft drywall — those are building conditions and they need reporting and assessing.
See student rental inspections, services for property managers, and apartment and multifamily remediation.
This is general information about how these situations usually work, not legal advice. For a specific dispute, talk to a lawyer.
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