Can I sue my apartment complex after an injury or an assault?

Two ways a complex becomes a defendant

The first is the ordinary premises path: a stair tread that had been reported for months, a railing that gave way, a walkway light out over broken pavement, an unfenced or unmaintained pool. Tenants and their guests are invitees, owed reasonable care against unreasonable risks the complex knew or should have known about, and the complex's own records, work orders, inspection logs, tenant complaints, usually contain the knowledge. The second path is negligent security, and it answers the question victims of crime rarely think to ask: whether the property that collected rent while crime festered shares responsibility with the criminal who attacked you.

When crime becomes the landlord's problem

Texas law starts from the rule that no one must protect another from third-party crime, then carves the exception that carries these cases: one who controls premises owes invitees ordinary care against criminal acts when the risk is both unreasonable and foreseeable. The Texas Supreme Court measures foreseeability by prior crime, its proximity to the property, how recent and frequent it was, how similar to the attack in question, and how aware management was or should have been. The Texas Supreme Court's Del Lago decision added a second route: conduct unfolding right in front of management, an escalating confrontation, can make violence foreseeable with no prior history at all. What the doctrine never requires is a perfect fortress; it asks whether a complex that knew looked away.

Where the proof lives, and how fast it dies

Foreseeability is built from records: police calls-for-service to the address, obtained through public records requests and purged by agencies on retention schedules; incident reports management wrote and filed away; work orders showing the access gates broken for a year and the cameras that were props; courtesy-officer logs; and the marketing that promised a gated, patrolled community. Layered over it is the ownership maze, a single-purpose entity holding title, a management company operating it, sometimes a security contractor, each pointing at the others, and suing the right ones is its own investigation. Surveillance video, as always, overwrites in days. These cases are won by the side that starts collecting first.

What to do this week

Report the incident to police and to management in writing, and keep your copy. Photograph the broken gate, the dead lights, the failed lock, before the sudden repairs that follow serious incidents. Save every prior complaint you or your neighbors made. Then get counsel moving on preservation demands and records requests while the paper still exists. Silver Key Law handles apartment injury and negligent security cases across the Houston area, and the review of yours is free.

Injured in Arizona? Some rules on this page are Texas-specific. Arizona differs on points that change outcomes, including pure comparative fault and government-claim deadlines. See our Arizona answers or call (888) 508-6967.

Related: Premises Liability · Hurt in a Store or on Property · Submit Your Case · All Common Questions

This page is general information about Texas law, not legal advice about your specific situation. Deadlines and outcomes depend on facts; talk to a lawyer about yours.