Clearing an Estate House in San Antonio: Twice a Year, and the Pile Becomes Yours

San Antonio is the city in this series that does not negotiate about volume. Bulky waste is collected twice a year, the ceiling is eight cubic yards, and above that the code does not bill an excess — it says the material will not be collected. For a house that has to be emptied before it can be sold, those three facts settle the method before anything else is decided.

Twice a Year, Eight Cubic Yards, and No Overage

Section 14-14(a): "Bulky waste collection will take place twice annually by regularly scheduled and approximately evenly spaced cycles as determined by the city." Anything outside those cycles is an out of cycle collection under section 14-15.

Section 14-14(c) sets the ceiling and the consequence in one breath: "Bulky item waste collection shall not exceed eight (8) cubic yards. If material exceeds the eight (8) cubic yard maximum volume limit, material will not be collected."

That is a different posture from the other Texas metros. Dallas collects an oversized set-out and charges sixty dollars per five cubic yards to the water bill. Pittsburgh collects and bills by the hour. San Antonio declines. The material stays where it is, and the clock in the nuisance article starts running on it.

Section 14-14(b) closes the other obvious approach — getting ahead of the cycle. "It shall be the duty of any person to place items for collection only after city notification. It shall be unlawful to place any such items at or near curbside at any time that is outside the time frame noted in the collection schedule." Not merely uncollected: unlawful.

The Sentence That Matters Most on an Empty House

Section 14-16(c) begins by making it unlawful to place brush or bulky items that did not originate at the residence from which they are being collected. Then it adds this:

"Furthermore, all materials placed out for collection, and any additional wastes which might accumulate on or contiguous with said piles, are considered the responsibility of the owner, manager, tenant or occupant of any dwelling, building, or premises in front of which the materials are placed."

Any additional wastes which might accumulate on or contiguous with said piles. A pile at the kerb of an occupied house is a pile. A pile at the kerb of a house nobody has lived in for months is an invitation, and what the neighbourhood adds to it becomes, by the terms of this subsection, the estate's responsibility. Mattresses, tyres and construction debris arrive at piles like that, and every one of them is an item the owner is now answerable for and that will contaminate the set-out.

That single subsection is the argument against the usual approach of emptying a house onto the kerb and waiting. In San Antonio the waiting is the risk.

Contamination Is Defined Broadly

Section 14-1 defines a contaminated pile as "any pile of brush or bulky items containing material not provided for (or specifically prohibited) in its respective definition. It includes piles in which the contaminating materials are commingled with, or placed on top of, the pile, or if such items are placed so close to the pile or in such large amounts that the items cannot reasonably be removed from the pile."

Commingled with, on top of, or merely so close that they cannot reasonably be separated. Combine that definition with 14-16(c)'s allocation of responsibility for whatever accumulates beside the pile, and an unattended set-out can become non-compliant without anyone connected to the estate having touched it.

Section 14-16(d) lists the three ways a pile fails: contaminated; placed curbside in advance of one week prior to the scheduled collection week; or left curbside more than one week after the scheduled collection.

Placement, and the Doors Off the Fridge

Section 14-16(a) places the duty on "the owner, manager, tenant or occupant" — language that reaches a representative administering an estate — and sets out what compliant placement looks like.

• Place only acceptable, non-commingled, non-contaminated brush or bulky item waste out at the curb
• Place it near the curb, clear of overhead obstructions, clear of utility appurtenances, clear of fences, and clear of other personal property such as improvements, trees and other vegetation
• Place it only upon notification by the city
• Remove the door or lids of all refrigerators, freezers and similar airtight appliances for safety, and place the doors or lids alongside the appliances

Subsection (b) prohibits placing brush or bulky items in alleys for collection at all.

Damage Caused By Your Own Pile

Section 14-16(e) carries a liability provision that does not appear in the other cities covered in this series, and it follows directly from the placement rules above.

"The property owner shall be primarily responsible to the city for reimbursement of any and all remediation expenses incurred by the city as a result of damage to personal or real property that may occur during any brush or bulky waste collection action... caused by waste materials obscuring the property or impeding the city's ability to address the waste matter." The section names what that can include: "damage to meters, sprinkler systems, plumbing appurtenances, fencing, mailboxes, automobiles, or any other item of personal or real property."

So a pile that hides the water meter, and a grapple truck that then breaks it, produces a repair bill the property owner is primarily responsible for. On an estate property the meter, the irrigation heads and the fence line are exactly the things a crew unfamiliar with the house cannot see. Walking and photographing the verge before anything is placed is not caution; it is the cheapest form of insurance this section allows.

Violations under section 14-16 carry a fee under the schedule in subsection 14-45(a), a citation and associated penalties, or both.

Seven Days, Then a Lien

If material stays on the property rather than the kerb, the nuisance article applies and it moves quickly. Section 14-61(a)(2) requires that "All lots and parcels of land within the city shall be kept completely free and clear of garbage, trash, debris, rubbish, waste, wood and metal scrap, inoperative or abandoned appliances and furniture." Subsection (b) makes that the duty of the owner, and subsection (c) gives the owner seven calendar days after the date the notice is mailed to abate.

Section 14-64 sets out what follows a failure to comply within those seven days.

Seven days from a mailed notice is a short window on a property whose mail nobody opens, and the end of the sequence is a privileged lien recorded against the estate's real property.

The Texas Layer, and What It Implies Here

Texas Estates Code § 351.101 requires that "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." No application, no dollar gate — the prudent-person test, applied afterwards.

And § 351.102(a): "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."

Those two provisions point the same way as San Antonio's rules do. A representative who waits for a twice-yearly cycle, puts eight cubic yards at the kerb and leaves it is exposed on three fronts at once: the volume that will not be collected, the additions the code assigns to the owner, and the seven-day nuisance clock. A representative who engages an out-of-cycle collection or a private hauler under section 14-15, loads rather than stages, and inventories the contents before disposal is doing what the prudent-person standard describes. The full Texas provisions, and the other six states' answers, are in an executor's duty to maintain estate property in Texas.

Planning the Job Backwards

• Do not plan around the twice-yearly cycle; for a whole house the realistic route is an out-of-cycle collection under section 14-15 or a private commercial hauler, both at the estate's cost
• Load rather than stage - under 14-16(c) anything that accumulates against the pile becomes the owner's responsibility, and under the 14-1 definition it contaminates the set-out
• Walk and photograph the verge before placing anything: meters, irrigation heads, fence lines and mailboxes are the items 14-16(e) makes the owner primarily responsible for if a collection damages them
• Take the doors or lids off refrigerators and freezers and lay them alongside
• Never place material outside the notified window - 14-14(b) makes that unlawful, not merely uncollected
• Keep the mail reaching the representative, because the nuisance clock in 14-61(c) runs seven calendar days from the date of mailing and ends in a lien filed with the Bexar County Clerk
• Inventory and photograph the contents before disposal - § 351.102(a) requires the representative to take possession of the estate's personal property

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 Dallas, where the overage is billed to the water account; 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 hourly; 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.