After a violent crime in a Texas property, the cleanup bill lands on the owner or the family. There is money available for part of it, and it is worth understanding exactly what that money is before anyone signs a contract — because the rules decide the order in which you should be making calls.
The number is $2,250, and it has conditions
The Crime Victims’ Compensation Program is run by the Office of the Attorney General. Its published wording on cleanup is direct:
The CVC Program will pay up to $2,250 for crime scene clean-up costs for crimes after July 14, 2016. For crimes before this date, different limits may apply.
The provider-facing page gives the older figure: up to $750 for crimes between December 5, 2002 and July 14, 2016. Either cap covers cleanup and hazardous waste disposal fees together — not two separate allowances — and emergency or after-hours surcharges can be reimbursed as long as the total stays within it.
It pays last, not first
This is the rule that most changes what you should do today:
By law, the program is a last-resort option. If you qualify for compensation from other sources, like homeowners’ or renters’ insurance, that must be used before the CVC Program.
So the first call is to the insurer, not to the Attorney General. The program also asks for your insurance declaration page — or a statement that you have no insurance — as part of the claim, and “missing insurance verification” is the first item on the program’s own list of reasons claims are delayed or denied.
It applies to violent crime
Eligibility is for victims of violent crime; the program introduces its list of qualifying crimes with “including”, so the list is not exhaustive. The program states plainly that it cannot help with identity theft, ordinary car accidents or property crime. The practical consequence: an unattended natural death is not a crime, so this money does not reach it. A suicide is not an offense in Texas either. If you have been told that state money will cover the cleanup after a death that was not a crime, check that before you rely on it.
What it will not cover
The provider-facing page lists the exclusions:
Structural repairs or restoration work; replacement of stolen or damaged property; costs beyond the program’s maximum reimbursement.
That matters in practice. Removing contaminated flooring is cleanup. Replacing the floor afterwards is restoration, and this program does not pay for it. On a serious job, the reimbursement is a contribution, not a solution.
It also decides how the invoice has to be written. The program lists, among its common reasons for delays or denials, invoices that “are not itemized to separate the eligible clean-up from the ineligible restoration work”. If one company is doing both, ask for two sections on the invoice before the work starts, not after the claim comes back.
A second, separate allowance: property taken as evidence
Police often take bedding, clothing or a phone from a crime scene as evidence, and families are rarely told that the same program can pay to replace it. The Attorney General publishes it as a separate covered cost:
The CVC Program will pay up to $1,000 for property seized by law enforcement as evidence in crimes that occurred after July 14, 2016.
The examples it gives are bedding, sheets, clothing, cell phones, other personal property, and property rendered unusable during evidence collection. Two things it does not cover: property lost, damaged or stolen during the crime itself, and property not verified in the offense report — so ask the officer to list what is being taken.
Doing it yourself changes what you get back
You can choose to clean the scene yourself or hire a licensed crime scene cleanup company. If you clean it yourself, you’ll only be reimbursed for cleaning supplies. If you hire a licensed company, their service costs may also be reimbursed.
One wrinkle worth knowing: the Attorney General’s page uses the phrase “licensed crime scene cleanup company”, but Texas does not license this trade at all. The state’s licensing body publishes its regulated professions — mold assessors and remediators, sanitarians, code enforcement officers among them — and crime-scene or biohazard cleanup is not one of them. Read “licensed” as meaning a legitimate business you hired, and judge companies on insurance, training and waste handling instead.
The deadline, and what to keep
Claims are filed within three years of the crime, unless good cause can be shown for the delay. Keep, from the start:
- the bill or receipt from the cleanup company, itemized;
- an itemized cost of any supplies you bought, with an explanation of what was done;
- your insurance declaration page, or a statement that there is no insurance;
- the police report details, since eligibility rests on the crime being reported.
Payment can be made directly to the cleanup company if the documentation is complete and the family has not already paid — worth asking the company whether it will bill the program directly.
The order of calls that usually works
- Police report number, if there is not one already.
- Insurer — ask specifically whether the policy covers biohazard or trauma cleanup after a covered event, and whether they will pay the contractor directly.
- Victim services at the police department or the district attorney’s office in your city. Helping with these claims is part of their job, so ask them to.
- The compensation program, on (800) 983-9933, for what insurance does not cover.
- The cleanup company, with the written estimate in hand before work starts.
Each city site on this network lists the victim services offices for that city, with their own published numbers.
This is general information about a Texas program, not legal advice. The Attorney General’s own pages, linked below, are the authority.
Two guides pick up where this one stops: what the work actually costs in Texas, and what changes if you clean it yourself — the program reimburses cleaning supplies only in that case, which is the detail that catches families out.
Each city on this network has its own page with that county’s offices, the local numbers and the rules that apply there, with the sources. Find your city.