§ 15.0115.Landlord-Tenant

Mandatory venue for lease disputes, in the county where all or part of the real property is located.

"Lease" is defined broadly — any written or oral agreement between a landlord and tenant establishing or modifying the terms, conditions, or provisions relating to the use and occupancy of the property. An oral month-to-month arrangement counts, and so does a side agreement that merely modifies an existing written lease.

The section yields to another statute prescribing mandatory venue, so a more specific provision displaces it.

It reaches disputes arising under a lease generally — unpaid rent, security deposits, habitability, holdover, and lease breaches — rather than only possession. Eviction itself is a justice court matter with its own precinct rule elsewhere in this chapter.

The rule keeps lease litigation local to the property, which matters most for tenants. Without it, a tenant could be sued in the county where a distant landlord or management company keeps its office, turning a small rent dispute into a trip across the state.

"All or a part" answers the property that straddles a county line, and answers it in the plaintiff's favour: either county will do.

Note that it applies to suits by the tenant as well. A tenant suing over a withheld deposit or an uninhabitable unit files in the property's county too — which is usually where they live, and so is convenient rather than burdensome.

A forum selection clause in the lease cannot displace it. This is mandatory venue, and the major-transaction provision that lets parties fix venue by agreement is confined to transactions of at least $1 million.