2025 · Regular session · Senate bill
SB304
SB304 lets a city authorize its municipal court to handle specified civil code-enforcement matters and issue related warrants.
Official caption: Relating to the jurisdiction of municipal courts over health and safety and nuisance abatement ordinances.
Official report lists Senate author(s): Perry. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.
Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.
Bill highlights
Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.
- SB304 lets a city authorize its municipal court to handle specified civil code-enforcement matters and issue related warrants.
- The authorized powers cover civil enforcement of ordinances under the statutes for substandard buildings and junked vehicles; shared jurisdiction with district courts or county courts at law over specified health, safety and nuisance-abatement enforcement; search warrants to investigate those ordinance violations; and seizure warrants to secure, remove or demolish offending property and remove debris.
- This changes which municipal courts may receive these powers, not the underlying definition of every nuisance or the procedural requirements for every enforcement action.
What does it do?
SB304 lets a city authorize its municipal court to handle specified civil code-enforcement matters and issue related warrants. The city’s governing body must first grant the powers by ordinance; the bill does not automatically activate them in every city. It became law without the governor’s signature May 15, 2025 and took effect September 1, 2025. Final law; Official history.
The authorized powers cover civil enforcement of ordinances under the statutes for substandard buildings and junked vehicles; shared jurisdiction with district courts or county courts at law over specified health, safety and nuisance-abatement enforcement; search warrants to investigate those ordinance violations; and seizure warrants to secure, remove or demolish offending property and remove debris. The shared-jurisdiction provision covers the city’s territory and city-owned property in its extraterritorial jurisdiction—the surrounding area where some municipal powers extend. It is not a general grant over all privately owned land outside city limits. Scope of the new jurisdiction.
This changes which municipal courts may receive these powers, not the underlying definition of every nuisance or the procedural requirements for every enforcement action. Existing building rules, for example, require notice and a public hearing; existing junked-vehicle procedures provide a hearing on timely request. SB304 does not itself order demolition or declare an individual property unlawful. Existing substandard-building procedure; Existing junked-vehicle procedure.
What changed along the way?
The new provision in the general municipal-court statute closely tracks authority already available by ordinance to municipal courts of record under Government Code 30.00005(d). It therefore extends that statutory option beyond courts of record rather than inventing municipal nuisance enforcement for the first time. District and county courts at law retain the shared jurisdiction described in the bill. Prior general municipal-court statute; Prior court-of-record authority; New subsection 29.003(a-1).
The introduced, Senate committee, engrossed, House committee and enrolled versions have identical operative language. Only separators and final certification differ. The amendment index lists no amendments; both committees reported it without amendments. The Senate passed it April 10 and the House May 1, 2025. Text versions; Amendment index.
For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.
Official bill versions
Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.
Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?
The March 8, 2025 fiscal note anticipates no significant state or local fiscal impact and assumes state costs can be absorbed with existing resources. It is the only note in the official version index and analyzes the introduced language, which survived unchanged. That estimate is not a promise that a particular city’s enforcement work or a property owner’s compliance will cost nothing. Fiscal note.
Cities choosing to use the authority may gain a more local forum for addressing unsafe buildings and nuisances; neighbors may benefit from enforcement. Property owners can face civil proceedings, compliance expenses and property-related warrants, while cities and courts take on the work of administering those cases. Whether to grant the authority is a local ordinance decision; this review does not establish that any particular city has adopted one.
Official sources
- Bill history and latest recorded action
- Bill versions, analyses and fiscal notes
- Action history and votes
- Amendment index
Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.
