Landlord Liability for Damage From a Known Hazardous Tree

Attorney Answer

You may well have a claim, and the strongest fact you have is that they knew about the tree and said they would deal with it — but Texas gives you only two years to bring a property damage suit, and yours has been running since the tree fell.

Start with the deadline, because it is the part that cannot be fixed later. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a) requires suit for trespass for injury to the estate or to the property of another, and for personal injury, to be brought not later than two years after the day the cause of action accrues. In Texas the same two-year period covers damage to your car and any injury, so there is no longer window waiting for the property side of this.

On the claim itself: a landlord's responsibility for a dangerous condition on the property comes from the lease, from Texas landlord-tenant law, and from ordinary negligence principles. The Texas Property Code sets a residential landlord's repair obligations, and a Texas landlord-tenant lawyer should read those provisions against your actual lease. What I can tell you is where the fight in a case like yours usually is: knowledge and opportunity. A property owner who was told about a hazard, who inspected and saw it, who promised to remove it, and who then left it standing for years is in a very different position from one who never knew. Repeated notice over four years, and their own inspection records, are the heart of your case. Get that in writing before memories and documents disappear.

On what you can recover for the car: Texas allows loss-of-use damages, not just repair cost. In J & D Towing, LLC v. American Alternative Insurance Corp., 478 S.W.3d 649 (Tex. 2016), the Texas Supreme Court held that loss-of-use damages are recoverable even when a vehicle is completely destroyed, subject to the usual limits — the loss must be foreseeable, traceable to the incident, not speculative, and measured over a reasonable period. So the cost of a rental car or of being without your vehicle can be part of the claim, not just the body shop bill.

What you can do

1. Photograph everything now, before anything is cleaned up: the fallen tree, the damage to the car, the stump, and any other trees in the same condition.

2. Pull together every written record that they were told: inspection reports, work orders, maintenance requests, emails and text messages. Written notice over four years is the proof that makes this case.

3. Get at least one written repair estimate, and keep receipts for a rental car, rideshares or anything else the loss of the vehicle cost you.

4. Report the damage to your own auto insurer. Comprehensive coverage commonly pays for a tree falling on a car, and if your insurer pays it may pursue the landlord itself.

5. Ask a Texas lawyer to read your lease and send any demand letter for you. What a written demand should say, and what it should not concede, is a legal judgment, not a form-filling exercise.

Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a) sets a two-year limitations period for property damage and personal injury claims, running from the day the cause of action accrues. Exactly when your claim accrued depends on your facts, so have a Texas attorney confirm your dates rather than calculating them yourself.