Clearing an Estate House in Dallas: The Bill Arrives on the Water Account

Dallas does not refuse the estate cleanout. It prices it — and then sends the invoice somewhere a representative administering an estate may never think to look. The charge for an oversized or non-compliant set-out is assessed on the dwelling unit's water bill, at a property where the water account is often in a dead person's name.

Ten Cubic Yards, and a Relief Valve That Needs an Occupant

Section 18-4(f)(1) sets the ordinary allowance: "The quantity of brush and bulky trash set out during a collection week may not exceed 10 cubic yards, unless the service unit has designated their monthly collection as their one time per year oversized collection." Subsection (f)(2) lets the director of sanitation lift limits temporarily for matters concerning public health and safety.

The annual exception in subsection (g) is the obvious tool for a house clearout, and it comes with a word that matters here as it has in every other city in this series. Subsection (g)(1): "The occupant of a residence or duplex may request one oversized brush and bulky trash collection per year to occur during one of their normal collection months."

An oversized collection "may not exceed 20 cubic yards or consist of more than 10 cubic yards of bulky trash", and subsection (g)(3) requires the request to be submitted online or by phone through the city's 311 system "before the beginning of an occupant's normally scheduled collection week in order to avoid an excessive volume service fee." Twenty cubic yards is not a house; it is a room or two. And whether a representative of an estate may make a request the subsection gives to the occupant is a question worth putting to Sanitation rather than assuming.

Sixty Dollars Per Five Cubic Yards, on the Water Bill

Subsection (h) is the part to read before a crew arrives, because it describes two separate charges at the same rate.

Two features of that deserve a representative's attention. The first is the billing route: the fee lands on the water account for the dwelling unit. On an estate property the water account is frequently still in the decedent's name, sometimes on autopay from an account nobody is watching, sometimes closed with a balance that resurfaces at closing. A charge that would be obvious to a resident can be invisible to an executor for months.

The second is that (h)(2) charges by the volume of the whole set-out, not by the offending item. One television left on top of an otherwise compliant pile makes the pile non-compliant, and the rate is applied in five cubic yard increments to what is there.

What Counts as an Excluded Item

Section 18-2(3)(B) defines bulky trash as "Furniture, appliances (freon removed, if applicable), mattresses, small household trash that is bagged or containerized, and other household objects too large for routine placement in normal compaction-type collection vehicles via the provided rollcart", and then excludes a list:

• Household garbage, bagged or un-bagged, and wet solid waste
• Construction debris
• Automotive parts
• Soil, rocks and stones
• Tires
• Electronics
• Household hazardous waste, for example chemicals, paints and fuel
• Other items designated in writing by the director of sanitation

The construction debris line is the one that catches clearouts, because section 18-2(8) defines it broadly — brick, concrete, masonry, stone, glass, drywall, framing and finishing lumber, roofing materials, plumbing fixtures, HVAC equipment and ductwork, insulation, and "wall-to-wall carpeting". It then carves out "incidental waste from small home repairs (e.g. replacing a toilet, sink, small amounts of carpet or lumber, fence panels, or doors)."

So a few feet of carpet from a repair is fine; the carpet out of a whole house is construction debris, excluded from bulky trash, and under (h)(2) its presence in or near the pile makes the entire set-out chargeable. On an estate property where the building is being prepared for sale, that distinction decides whether the clearing and the make-ready can share a pile. They cannot.

And Note the First Four Words of the Definition

Section 18-2(3) opens: "Brush and bulky trash originating from the dwelling unit (residence or duplex) being serviced by sanitation services." Material from elsewhere is not brush and bulky trash at this address, which forecloses consolidating two estate properties into one set-out — and section 18-4(e) separately requires the pile to be behind the curb line "of the street abutting the property from which the brush and trash originated."

Where the Pile May Not Go, and When

Subsection (e) is unusually specific about placement, and several of its prohibitions are easy to breach on a narrow residential street.

• Not out for collection earlier than the Thursday preceding the collection week, or later than 7:00 a.m. on the Monday of the collection week
• Not within five feet of a rollcart, mailbox, fence or wall, water meter, telephone connection box, or parked cars
• Not under low hanging tree limbs or power lines
• Not in an alley, paved or unpaved
• Not in front of a vacant lot or business
• Not in any manner interfering with vehicular or pedestrian traffic or with solid waste collection service

The five-foot rule and the vacant-lot rule interact badly with estate properties in particular: an older lot with a fence close to the kerb, a water meter in the strip, and an empty parcel next door leaves very little compliant frontage. Containers themselves run on a different clock under subsection (c)(1) — placed no earlier than 6:00 p.m. of the afternoon preceding collection day, and removed "to a point at the side or rear of the structure" not later than 8:00 a.m. of the day following collection.

Collecting Waste From a Residence Is Itself an Offence

Section 18-4(a)(2) contains a provision that most people hiring a cleanout crew have never read: "A person commits an offense if he collects dry or wet solid waste, including salvageable newspaper or any other recyclable material, from a residence or duplex." It is then followed by a closed list of defences — that the person was the owner or occupant; was employed or under contract with the city and performing official duties; was a charitable organisation gathering clothes, salvageable newspapers or other recyclable material; was "hauling away brush, bulky trash, or yard trash from the residence or duplex as a service that was incidental to a maintenance, delivery, lawn, or home improvement service being provided by the person to the residence or duplex"; or was providing recycling services under a written agreement.

Note the shape of the fourth defence. It protects hauling that is incidental to a maintenance, delivery, lawn or home improvement service being provided — not removal as the service itself. Which defence a particular arrangement falls within is a question for counsel on the facts, and it is a question worth asking in Dallas before engaging a contractor whose only service is hauling. Section 18-4(a)(3) separately allows the city to contract, through competitive bid, with a franchised private collection service for designated areas.

The Texas Layer

Texas Estates Code § 351.101 states the representative's duty without an application or a dollar gate: "An executor or administrator of an estate shall take care of estate property as a prudent person would take of that person's own property, and if any buildings belong to the estate, the executor or administrator shall keep those buildings in good repair, except for extraordinary casualties, unless directed by a court order not to do so."

And § 351.102(a) sets the order of operations for everything inside the building: "Immediately after receiving letters testamentary or of administration, the personal representative of an estate shall collect and take possession of the estate's personal property, record books, title papers, and other business papers." The contents are estate property to be taken possession of, not merely volume to be disposed of — which, against Dallas's ten-cubic-yard week, is an argument for sorting and removing in stages rather than emptying a house onto the kerb in one weekend.

The full Texas provisions and the six other states' answers are in an executor's duty to maintain estate property in Texas.

Planning the Job Backwards

• Find out whose name the water account is in before the first visit, because that is where an excessive or non-compliant volume charge will appear
• Keep clearing and make-ready separate: wall-to-wall carpet and fixtures are construction debris, and their presence near the pile makes the whole set-out chargeable
• Plan to ten cubic yards per collection week and sort in stages, rather than relying on an annual oversized collection the code gives to the occupant
• If the oversized route is used, submit the 311 request before the collection week begins - the subsection ties the fee to the timing of the request
• Check the frontage against the five-foot rule, the alley prohibition and the vacant-lot prohibition before deciding where material goes
• Ask counsel which defence under 18-4(a)(2) the proposed hauling arrangement relies on
• Photograph contents and condition before anything moves, and inventory before you discard - § 351.102(a) requires possession of the personal property, not its disposal

For the clearing work itself see what a trash-out is, and for the eviction version, the eviction property cleanout process. The same job runs on different rules in Houston, where the record owner is presumptively liable and intent is no defence; Cleveland, where staging at the tree lawn is itself the offence; Columbus, where bulk may only be scheduled at a dwelling unit with an occupant; Cincinnati, where a pile of small items is not bulk refuse by definition; Pittsburgh, which bills the overflow at a published hourly rate; and Philadelphia, where a street dumpster is unlicensable across much of Center City. The statutory duties by state are collected at estates, probate and fiduciary.