Yes, in almost every case. Texas Property Code §5.008 requires a seller of residential property with no more than one dwelling unit to give the buyer a written disclosure notice.

It has to be delivered on or before the effective date of the contract. The standard here is honesty, not omniscience: you complete it to the best of your belief and knowledge as of the date you sign it. Texas imposes no duty to investigate. If you genuinely do not know something, "Unknown" is a legitimate answer and marking it is compliance.

Most Texas agents use the Texas REALTORS® form, which asks more than the statutory minimum. TREC's minimum-compliant version is Form OP-H.

Fill it out before you list, not the night you go under contract. Rushing this document is how sellers create liability they never intended.

The buyer gets a free exit, and it can land well after the option period has closed.

§5.008(f) is direct about it: if a contract is entered without the seller providing the required notice, the buyer may terminate the contract for any reason within seven days after receiving it.

Read that timing carefully. The seven days run from delivery, not from the effective date. Deliver the disclosure three weeks into a contract and you have just handed the buyer a fresh, no-fault termination window at the worst possible moment.

Possibly. §5.008(e) lists the exemptions, and the ones that come up most often are transfers by a fiduciary administering an estate, guardianship, or trust, transfers between spouses under a divorce decree, transfers pursuant to a court order or foreclosure, transfers between co-owners or to a spouse or lineal relative, and transfers of a new residence never previously occupied.

Being an investor is not an exemption. That misconception circulates constantly and Texas REALTORS® has corrected it repeatedly.

The exemption removes the form requirement. It does not remove your duty not to deceive. An exempt seller who conceals a known defect still faces fraud and DTPA exposure. Many exempt sellers provide the form voluntarily for exactly that reason.

Deaths. §5.008(c) provides a specific safe harbor: a seller has no duty to disclose whether a death by natural causes, suicide, or accident unrelated to the condition of the property occurred there. Note the limit, though. That safe harbor covers deaths unrelated to the property's condition. A death caused by a defect in the property is a different question and could still be a material fact.

Flooding. This changed significantly after Hurricane Harvey. For contracts executed on or after September 1, 2019, the disclosure asks whether the property lies wholly or partly in a 100-year or 500-year floodplain, floodway, flood pool, or reservoir, whether it has ever flooded, whether you have filed a flood insurance claim or received FEMA or SBA assistance, and whether flood insurance is currently in force.

Those are separate questions. A home can sit partly in a 500-year floodplain and have never taken on water. Answer each one accurately rather than answering the one you think they are really asking.

This is the highest-liability item on the page, and it is worth being blunt about.

A seller who knows of a material defect and stays silent or misstates it can face statutory fraud under Business and Commerce Code §27.01, common-law fraud by nondisclosure, and claims under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

The DTPA is the one that gets attention. Under Texas Supreme Court precedent, a DTPA claim does not require proving intent. A false representation that causes damage is enough. Remedies include economic damages, up to treble damages where conduct was knowing, plus attorney's fees.

An "as-is" clause does not save you. It limits exposure for unknown or future conditions. It does not shield a seller who concealed something they knew. Disclose the repaired foundation. Disclose the roof leak you fixed. Documented and disclosed is a negotiation. Discovered later is a lawsuit.

Yes. What changed is where it happens, not whether it can.

Since August 17, 2024, under the NAR settlement, offers of buyer-broker compensation are prohibited on the MLS and all compensation fields were removed. Sellers may still offer it, negotiated and communicated off the MLS, broker to broker. Your listing broker must disclose any such payment to you and obtain your approval.

There is a second tool worth understanding. A buyer concession, meaning a seller credit toward the buyer's closing costs and not designated to their broker, can still be advertised on the MLS.

That distinction is a live marketing lever in a market where builders are advertising rate buydowns down the street. A concession you can put in front of every buyer searching the MLS competes with a builder incentive in a way a private broker-to-broker arrangement cannot.

Not directly. Texas Senate Bill 1968, effective January 1, 2026, is a buyer-side agency statute. It repeals subagency, clarifies showings to unrepresented buyers, and requires an agent to have a written agreement with a buyer before showing residential property or making an offer.

The effects you will notice as a seller are indirect. Buyers touring your home now have written representation agreements in place, which tends to mean better-prepared buyers. The Information About Brokerage Services form was revised effective January 1, 2026 and is still delivered to you at first substantive contact. And the "compensation is negotiable and not set by law" language is reinforced throughout.

SB 1968 imposes no new obligation on sellers. If someone tells you it does, ask them which section.

Because Texas is a non-disclosure state, and most sellers have no idea what that means for them.

Sale prices in Texas are not public record. Confidentiality is grounded in Tax Code §22.27 and Government Code §552.149, and governmental entities including county appraisal districts cannot compel disclosure of what a home actually sold for.

Automated valuation models lean heavily on public records and assessor data. In Texas, that data does not contain the sold price, so the model extrapolates from list prices, assessments, and property characteristics. Sold prices are reported to the MLS, which is why an agent or an appraiser works from a materially more complete picture than any public website.

Zillow publishes its own accuracy numbers. For Dallas-Fort Worth, the median error on off-market homes runs above six percent. On a $400,000 house that is a swing of roughly $24,000 in either direction. Price from a CMA built on MLS-verified closed sales, not from a number an algorithm guessed.

The owner's title policy is customarily seller-paid in Texas. That is convention and it is negotiable, not law. Premiums are set by the Texas Department of Insurance, so the rate is identical at every title company in the state. TDI ordered a rate reduction effective March 1, 2026, the first since 2019.

Commission, which is fully negotiable and, since 2024, must be conspicuously disclosed as not set by law.

Prorated property taxes. Texas taxes are paid in arrears, so at closing you credit the buyer for the days you owned the property this year, and the buyer pays the full bill when it arrives. It is a reallocation, not an added cost. One practical note: closing earlier in the calendar year means a smaller credit owed.

Two things you do not pay. Texas has no state real estate transfer tax and no state income tax, which means no state capital gains tax on the sale. Sellers relocating from states with both are often surprised by how much that changes the net.

Other line items, escrow fee, survey, HOA transfer and resale certificate fees, recording, vary by title company and association.

Most sellers of a primary residence do not. Under IRC Section 121, you can exclude up to $250,000 of gain if single and $500,000 if married filing jointly.

The tests: you must have owned and used the home as your main residence for at least two of the last five years. The two years need not be continuous. The full exclusion cannot be claimed more than once in any two-year period.

A partial exclusion is available even if you fall short, when the sale is primarily due to a change in employment, health, or unforeseen circumstances such as death, divorce, job loss, or multiple births from one pregnancy. It prorates by qualifying months.

The trap worth knowing: if the home was ever a rental, or you claimed a home office, depreciation taken after May 6, 1997 is never excludable and is taxed at a maximum 25 percent rate. That surprises people who converted a rental back to a residence.

A 1031 exchange applies to investment property only, never a primary residence. And Texas has no state capital gains tax. Confirm your own situation with a CPA. This is education, not tax advice.

Yes. During the option period the buyer holds an unrestricted right to terminate, but you are not obligated to make any repair you do not agree to.

You have four real options: make the repair, offer a price reduction, offer a closing cost credit, or decline and accept the risk. A credit is frequently the cleanest outcome, because it removes you from managing contractors and warranting work you did not do.

Whatever you agree to gets documented on the TREC Amendment to Contract, currently Form 39-10, which also handles changes to price, dates, and financing.

One provision that caps your exposure: under the TREC contract, neither party is obligated to pay for lender-required repairs, including treatment for wood destroying insects, unless otherwise agreed in writing. If those repairs exceed five percent of the sales price, the buyer may terminate and recover earnest money.

Four paths: hold firm and ask the buyer to bring cash for the gap, reduce to the appraised value, split the difference, or request a Reconsideration of Value.

What you cannot do is pressure the appraiser. Dodd-Frank and the Appraiser Independence Requirements make it unlawful to coerce an appraiser toward a number.

What is expressly permitted is asking the appraiser to consider additional appropriate comparable sales, to provide further substantiation, and to correct factual errors. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac formalized structured Reconsideration of Value processes effective August 2024, with FHA following that September.

Here is where the non-disclosure state cuts in your favor. Because Texas sale prices are not public, a listing agent who supplies MLS-verified closed comparables is handing the appraiser information they may not otherwise have. That is not pressure. It is data, and it is the single most useful thing a listing agent does after a low appraisal.

Yes, with real constraints. The lease survives the sale. A fixed-term lease binds the new owner until it expires, at the existing rent and terms. A tenant cannot be removed early just because the property changed hands. A month-to-month tenancy can be ended with proper notice, generally 30 days in Texas.

Showing access is governed by your lease, not by statute. Texas has no law setting a required entry notice period. Where a lease is silent, 24 hours' written notice is the widely accepted reasonable standard. If your lease says 48 or 72 hours, that controls.

The security deposit transfers to the buyer at closing, and the new owner becomes liable for returning it.

Practically speaking, a cooperative tenant is worth more than a legal argument. Uncooperative showing access will cost you more in days on market than almost anything else.

The first question is not about the house. It is about who holds clean title, and the title company will decide what they need before they will insure the sale.

With a valid will, transfer often runs through muniment of title or independent administration. Without a will, heirship has to be established first.

An Affidavit of Heirship under Estates Code Chapters 202 and 203 is a sworn statement recorded in county deed records establishing the chain of title. It does not itself transfer title, though under §203.001 it becomes prima facie evidence after five years on file. Title companies often accept a properly drafted affidavit, but each sets its own requirements, so ask early.

A Small Estate Affidavit under Chapter 205 is narrower, available only when there is no will and the estate meets statutory limits.

One piece of good news on taxes: an inherited home's basis resets to fair market value at the date of death, so selling soon after inheriting often produces little or no capital gain. Texas has no inheritance or estate tax. Talk to a Texas estates attorney before you list.

Under Texas Property Code §207.003, on proper written request the association must deliver the restrictions, the bylaws and rules, and a resale certificate prepared no earlier than the 60th day before delivery.

The association has 10 business days to deliver. Statutory fee caps are $375 for the certificate and $75 for an update. Condominiums run under §82.157 with a similar 10 business day requirement.

Separately, §5.012 requires you to give the buyer written notice of the mandatory association membership obligation.

The statutory penalty for late delivery falls on the association, not on you. But a late certificate stalls your closing and can hand the buyer termination rights, and none of that helps you. Order it the day you go under contract.

Compare net proceeds, not fee percentages. That single discipline answers the question most of the time.

An independent February 2026 study of more than 500 transactions found Opendoor offers averaged 8.79 percent below the home's eventual resale price, and Offerpad averaged 13.89 percent below. That is the discount before service fees, which typically run around five percent and can reach eight, and before repair deductions that are often non-negotiable.

The real benefits are real: speed, a closing date you choose, no showings, and certainty. For a seller managing an estate, a relocation, or a property they cannot prepare for market, those can be worth paying for.

Before you accept, get the repair deduction estimate in writing, and run the comparison against a traditional listing net of commission and concessions. If the gap is small, take the certainty. If the gap is tens of thousands, you are paying a lot for convenience.