Resources
Primary sources only. Where I could not verify something from an official source, it says so rather than guessing — a confidently wrong court address helps nobody.
The law itself
S.B. 38 as enrolled
The 2025 act that rewrote Texas eviction procedure, effective 1 January 2026. Read this before trusting any older summary.
Property Code ch. 24
Forcible entry and detainer. Notice to vacate, trial setting, service, appeal, and writs of possession now live here.
Property Code ch. 92
Residential tenancies — including the lockout and utility interruption penalties at § 92.0081 and § 92.008.
Property Code ch. 52
Judgment liens. Abstracts of judgment, what they must contain, and how long a lien lasts.
Texas Rules of Civil Procedure
The Rule 500–510 series still governs justice court practice, though S.B. 38 moved much of the substance into the Property Code.
Gov't Code ch. 27
Justice court jurisdiction, including the $20,000 civil limit and corporate representation without an attorney.
While verifying this site I found a widely-used third-party statute site still serving the pre-S.B. 38 text of Property Code chapter 24 well into 2026, including the repealed door-posting provision. For anything that matters, use statutes.capitol.texas.gov or the enrolled bill text directly.
Filing
- eFileTexas.gov — the statewide e-filing portal. E-filing is mandatory for attorneys. Self-represented filers are encouraged but not required to e-file, and only some justice courts accept e-filed cases. Confirm with your court before relying on it.
- Texas Judicial Branch self-help — official self-represented litigant resources.
- SCRA / DMDC military status check — the federal site for the military-service verification you will need before any default judgment. 50 U.S.C. § 3931
Williamson County
I deliberately do not publish specific court addresses, precinct boundaries, clerk phone numbers or fee schedules here. Those change with redistricting and annual commissioners' court orders, and I was unable to confirm current details from an official source when building this page. A stale court address is worse than no court address.
Go to the county's own site and work from there: wilcotx.gov.
What to ask, and who to ask
- Which precinct covers the property. Venue is the precinct where the property physically sits. Tex. Prop. Code § 24.0041 Confirm it against the property address — not your own address, and not where your business is registered.
- The justice court clerk for that precinct: current filing fee, whether they accept e-filed evictions, what the writ request must look like, and the earliest date they will accept one.
- The constable's office for that precinct: service fee for a citation, service fee for a writ, whether an hourly charge applies past a set number of hours, what payment methods they take, and whether they keep a referral list of set-out crews.
Clerks are generally generous with procedure questions and correctly refuse legal ones. Ask "what form do you need and by when," not "do I have a good case."
Free legal help for tenants
Listed prominently because a guide that only helps one side is a worse guide. See also the tenant page.
- TexasLawHelp.org — free plain-language guides, current court forms including the Statement of Inability to Afford Payment of Court Costs, and a legal-help finder. The best single starting point in Texas.
- Texas RioGrande Legal Aid — free civil legal services across much of Texas including Central Texas.
- Lone Star Legal Aid — free civil legal services in a large part of the state.
- Volunteer Legal Services of Central Texas — volunteer attorneys in the Austin and Central Texas area.
- State Bar of Texas — lawyer referral service and reduced-fee information.
For landlords
- Texas Judicial Branch self-help — forms and procedural guidance from the courts themselves.
- Your county's justice court clerk. Genuinely the highest-value phone call available to a self-represented filer, and free.
- A licensed attorney, if the case becomes contested, a jury is demanded, or it goes up on appeal. That is the point where the maths changes.
Help keep this current
The most useful contribution to this site is a correction with a primary source attached — a fee that has changed, a precinct boundary that moved, a rule that was amended.
Open an issue on GitHub, or see About for how the site is put together.