A Texas foreclosure list starts with one record: the notice of trustee's sale. State law makes every county post these notices online, free to view, so the raw material costs nothing. The work is turning a month of scanned notices into a list of properties and owners before the auction on the first Tuesday. This guide covers where notices are posted, the sale calendar, reading a notice, matching it to a parcel, which counties Propertiz reads, and reaching owners before the sale.
What goes on a Texas foreclosure list
Most Texas home loans are secured by a deed of trust, so the lender forecloses through a trustee sale instead of a lawsuit (Property Code §51.002). For a residence, the servicer first sends a notice of default by certified mail, giving the borrower at least 20 days to cure (§51.002(d)). The law doesn't require that letter to be filed or recorded, so you won't find it in county records. The record you can see comes next: the notice of trustee's sale, or substitute trustee's sale. At least 21 days before the sale, the notice has to be posted at the courthouse door, filed with the county clerk and sent by certified mail to each borrower on the debt (§51.002(b)). Under §51.002(f-1), the county must also post every filed notice on its website, where anyone can view it without paying or registering, along with the sale's date, time and place. Those postings are your list.
Two kinds of foreclosure need more than the postings. Home-equity loans, home-equity lines of credit included, can be foreclosed only by court order (Texas Constitution art. XVI, §50(a)(6)(D)), so the lender must get that order before the trustee can sell. A few lenders foreclose through an ordinary lawsuit. Unpaid property taxes lead to a separate sale run by a sheriff or constable after a tax judgment (Tax Code §34.01). Treat tax sales as their own list.
Sale timing: the first Tuesday
Trustee sales are public auctions on the first Tuesday of each month. Bidding runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (§51.002(a)). The sale takes place at the county courthouse, in the area the commissioners court designates, or in another public place near the courthouse that the commissioners court designates (§51.002(h)). When the first Tuesday is New Year's Day or the Fourth of July, the sale moves to the first Wednesday of the month (§51.002(a-1)).
That calendar shapes the list. Every notice belongs to a sale month, so the natural unit is "all notices for next month's sale." The 21 days are a minimum, and notices often go in weeks or months earlier. Notices also go stale fast. Once the sale date passes, clerks are allowed to dispose of the notices (§51.002(f)), so many postings only show upcoming sales. Pull each month's notices before its sale day, and keep your own copy.
Building the list, step by step
- Find the county's posting. Every county has to post, but the format varies. The Harris County Clerk has a search by sale month or filing month. The Dallas County Clerk posts scanned PDF bundles grouped by city and month. In Tarrant and Denton counties, the clerks say the postings are neither indexed nor searchable and are destroyed after the sale.
- Collect every notice for the coming sale.
- Read each notice for the borrower, the deed of trust and the property, as described below.
- Match the notice to one parcel on the appraisal district roll.
- Add the owner from the roll: name, mailing address and homestead exemption. The roll has no sale price, because Texas doesn't disclose them.
- Clear the list after each sale day and start on the next month's notices.
Reading a notice of trustee's sale
Notices come from the law firms that handle foreclosures for lenders, and their layouts vary. Look for four things:
- The borrower. The names on the deed of trust being foreclosed. Use them to check the match against the owner on the appraisal roll.
- The deed of trust. The notice usually identifies the loan's deed of trust by its recording number at the county clerk. With that number you can look up the recorded deed of trust in the clerk's records.
- The property. Usually a street address, sometimes only a legal description: lot, block and subdivision.
- The sale. The date, the earliest time the sale will begin and the place. Harris notices print the address of the Bayou City Event Center, where the county holds its trustee and tax sales. Don't mistake the venue's address for the property's.
Matching a notice to a parcel
The appraisal district roll is the parcel list. Each county's central appraisal district keeps one, with the site address, the owner, the mailing address and the legal description of every account.
- By address. Compare the notice's street address with the roll's site address. Watch unit numbers on condos and townhomes.
- By legal description. When there is no address, match lot, block and subdivision against the roll's legal description lines.
- Check the names. If the borrower and the current owner don't match, look at the deed date on the roll. The property may have changed hands since the loan.
A wrong match puts a foreclosure letter in a stranger's mailbox. Propertiz ties each notice to exactly one parcel, and anything it can't match with confidence waits for review.
Which Texas counties Propertiz reads
Propertiz reads notices of trustee's sale in Houston. Its Texas coverage today is Harris County (Houston) and Dallas County (Dallas), and each county page lists what's included: Houston (Harris County) and Dallas (Dallas County).
Houston foreclosure list (Harris County)
Every notice filed in Harris County appears in a free search on the County Clerk's site, which lists the document number, sale date, filing date and page count. The property is only on the scanned image, which has no text, so the notice has to be read with text recognition before it can be matched to a parcel. The Harris County page lists what Propertiz includes there.
Dallas County
The Dallas County Clerk's bundles are scanned images with a text layer, several notices to a file, so each bundle has to be split into its notices before matching. The Dallas County page lists what Propertiz includes there, and the Texas page has the state overview.
Every Texas lead is underwritten at your purchase price with value from the appraisal district's market value, rent from HUD market rents and a DSCR. Equity shows as unknown, because there is no public sale price to estimate the loan from. For the full process from default to auction, read Texas trustee sales on the first Tuesday; for what each county includes, Houston and Dallas distressed owners.
See the properties with a trustee sale coming up in Houston, matched to owners and underwritten.
Reaching owners before the sale
From posting to auction can be as little as three weeks, so start early. Check the homestead exemption: an owner who lives in the house is in a different position from a landlord about to lose a rental. Write plainly, say who you are, and lead with the owner's options. They can ask their servicer about reinstatement or a loan modification, and HUD-approved housing counselors help for free. Propertiz gives you the owner's mailing address from the appraisal roll, with no phone numbers or skip tracing.
Contact owners respectfully. Mail first. Texas requires telephone solicitors to register with the Secretary of State unless exempt (Bus. & Com. Code ch. 302); follow it, the Texas no-call list and federal rules (TCPA, Do Not Call) for calls and texts.
No leaseback or "save your home" offers to owners in foreclosure. If you assign contracts, Texas requires you to disclose the nature of your contract interest in writing to the seller and to every potential buyer (Occ. Code §1101.0045).
Not legal advice. This is a general overview of the Texas trustee-sale process. Laws change, and every notice and property has its own facts. Check with a local real-estate attorney and a title company before you contract on a property.