The Texas Real Estate Commission met on August 7 and adopted amendments to existing rules and proposed several more. View the meeting materials packet, which provides more details about all the changes, on TREC’s website. Here’s a breakdown of a proposal related to forms. Find a list of other rule changes proposed by TREC here.

TREC has proposed changes to Paragraph 5 of the TREC contracts to require that earnest money be delivered within three days after the effective date of the contract. Time is of the essence and if the buyer fails to deliver the earnest money in time, the seller can terminate the contract, pursue Paragraph 15 default remedies, or both before the buyer deposits the earnest money. Currently, if the buyer fails to deliver the earnest money, the buyer may be in default.

In Page 9 of the contract, the proposed changes create three separate receipt boxes for earnest money, the contract, and additional earnest money.

Other proposed changes include Paragraph 6D, Title Policy and Survey, to clarify aspects of the curing obligation and Paragraph 20 to add language that elaborates on the definition of a foreign person.

Proposed changes to the Farm and Ranch contract

TREC has proposed changes to Paragraph 2F so that reservations cannot be included in special provisions and instead should be addressed in a separate addendum.

Proposed changes to the Residential Condominium Contract (Resale)

TREC’s change clarifies that the seller is required to deliver documents, such as bylaws, and the resale certificate at the seller’s expense.

Share your feedback on proposed rule changes with TREC

The earliest these proposed rule amendments could be adopted is during the next TREC meeting, scheduled for November 13.

You can provide comments about these proposed rule changes for at least 30 days after they are published in the Texas Register by emailing general.counsel@trec.texas.gov. The proposals from the August 7 meeting will likely go live August 25; you can enter “Texas Real Estate Commission” in the Agency Name field on this page to read the rules when they’re published in the Texas Register.

Comments made on this blog post will not be read by TREC and do not count as official feedback on proposed rule changes.

Other adopted or proposed rule changes from TREC: