Whether you manage a full pipeline or run your own deals solo, this guide covers how Texas TCs and solo agents navigate TREC requirements: the 3-day earnest money and option fee deadline, option period math, how contract days are counted, and the TREC form updates that took effect July 1, 2026.
Critical Texas deadlines
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Whether you are a transaction coordinator managing ten open files or a solo agent closing your first Texas deal, the rules are the same and the stakes are identical. The Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC) promulgates standard contract forms that license holders are required to use, with limited exceptions in TREC rules, creating a precise, rule-based system where deadline math starts from the contract's Effective Date.
Texas real estate transactions operate under rules set by the Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC). Because license holders must use TREC's promulgated contracts in most residential deals, the same paragraph numbers and deadline structure show up on file after file across the state.
The most critical concept is the Effective Date: the date of final acceptance, which the broker fills in on the contract's signature page. Periods run in calendar days starting the day after it, including the 3-day window to deliver the earnest money and option fee and the option period itself. Since the contract forms that became mandatory April 1, 2021, the option fee is delivered to the escrow agent named in the contract, usually the title company, along with the earnest money, rather than to the seller.
The current resale contract is TREC Form 20-19, required for new contracts from July 1, 2026, replacing Form 20-18. Paragraph 6E(11) requires the seller to provide any certificate of mold damage remediation issued in the 5 years before the sale, Paragraph 6C(1) accepts the Texas Department of Insurance T-47.1 Declaration as an alternative to the T-47 Affidavit for an existing survey, and 20-19 adds a Seller's Water Disclosure provision on groundwater and surface water rights. Farm and Ranch transactions use TREC Form 25-17 and involve additional complexity around mineral rights, water rights, and agricultural development district status.
The earnest money and option fee are delivered to the escrow agent named in the contract, usually the title company, rather than the seller. Closing is coordinated with the title company, which handles document execution and funding.
Navigate Texas's 30-60 days process with precision. Each phase below lists the work it carries and the deadlines that govern it.
Important: TREC counts contract days as calendar days, starting the day after the Effective Date. The only weekend and holiday extension in the resale contract is Paragraph 5A(2), which covers delivery of the earnest money, option fee, and additional earnest money. It does not extend the option period or other deadlines, so check the contract and addenda for each date. Paragraph 5 also states that time is of the essence.
| Milestone | Texas deadline |
|---|---|
| Contract Execution | Day 0, effective date determines every future deadline |
| Earnest Money | Within 3 days after the Effective Date, to the escrow agent; extends past a Saturday, Sunday, or Legal Holiday TREC Form 20-19 Paragraph 5A |
| Option Fee | Within 3 days after the Effective Date, to the escrow agent; same extension TREC Form 20-19 Paragraph 5A |
| Option Period | Number of days negotiated in the contract, notice by 5:00 p.m. local time where the Property is located; no weekend or holiday extension TREC Form 20-19 Paragraph 5B |
| Financing | Buyer Approval deadline per the Third Party Financing Addendum, if used TREC 40-11 Paragraph 2A |
| Survey | Survey deadline per Paragraph 6C if applicable TREC Form 20-19 Paragraph 6C |
| Final Walkthrough | Set by practice and agreement; no TREC contract deadline |
| Closing | Closing Date as specified in the contract TREC Form 20-19 Paragraph 9 |
Quick answers to the TREC deadline questions that come up on every deal, whether you are coordinating for a client or managing your own transaction.
In Texas, the option period is a negotiable number of days written into Paragraph 5B of the TREC resale contract, counted in calendar days from the day after the Effective Date. For the option fee, the buyer has the unrestricted right to terminate for any reason, and the notice must be given by 5:00 p.m. local time where the Property is located on the last day, per TREC Form 20-19 Paragraph 5B. The weekend and holiday extension in Paragraph 5A(2) does not apply to the option period.
If the buyer does not deliver the option fee to the escrow agent on time, Paragraph 5D says the buyer does not have the unrestricted right to terminate. TCs managing multiple files and solo agents closing their own deals face the same deadline.
Ava reads the option period from your uploaded TREC contract and places the end date on your deal timeline for you to confirm. Keep the 5 PM cutoff in the deadline name, since ListedKit deadlines are whole days.
Under Paragraph 5A of TREC Form 20-19, the buyer must deliver the earnest money and the option fee to the escrow agent named in the contract within 3 days after the Effective Date. If the last day falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or Legal Holiday, delivery extends to the end of the next day that is not one. Since the contract forms that became mandatory April 1, 2021, the option fee goes to the escrow agent rather than the seller.
If the earnest money is late, Paragraph 5C lets the seller terminate or pursue remedies before the buyer delivers it. Ava reads the Effective Date and escrow agent on upload, places the delivery deadline on the timeline, and can draft a receipt request to the escrow officer for you to send.
TREC Form 20-19, the One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale), is the Texas Real Estate Commission's promulgated contract for residential resales, required for new contracts from July 1, 2026, replacing Form 20-18. License holders must use TREC's promulgated forms, with limited exceptions in 22 TAC §537.11. Form 20-19 keeps the Paragraph 6E(11) mold remediation certificate requirement and the T-47.1 Declaration option added in 20-18, and adds a Seller's Water Disclosure provision on groundwater and surface water rights.
Ava reads Form 20-19 on upload with no template configuration. The Effective Date, option period, earnest money deadline, and financing terms appear on your deal timeline for you to confirm.
TREC counts contract days as calendar days, starting the day after the Effective Date. The resale contract has one weekend and holiday rule: under Paragraph 5A(2), if the last day to deliver the earnest money, option fee, or additional earnest money falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or Legal Holiday, delivery extends to the end of the next day that is not one. Other deadlines, including the option period, do not get that extension.
TCs who work across multiple states tell us day counting is a common source of miscalculation. Ava places the contract dates on your timeline, and a person should confirm any delivery deadline that lands on a weekend or holiday.
Here is one buyer-side TREC 20-19 file from executed contract to the brokerage compliance file, showing what the TC owns, what Ava prepares, where a person approves, and how finished documents reach the forms and compliance tools Texas teams already use.
The agent drafts and executes the offer in the team's forms platform, commonly Lone Wolf Transact or zipForm (both Texas REALTORS member benefits) or another approved vendor such as SkySlope Forms or dotloop. The TC confirms the Effective Date the broker filled in and that every page is initialed.
When the executed contract reaches the connected inbox or is uploaded, Ava reads it, adds the parties and escrow agent, places the Effective Date, earnest money and option fee deadline, option period end, financing and survey deadlines, and Closing Date on the timeline, and builds the checklist.
The TC checks each date against Paragraphs 5, 6C, and 9 and any addenda. If day 3 lands on a Saturday, Sunday, or Legal Holiday, only the earnest money and option fee deliveries extend. The option period does not, and its 5:00 p.m. cutoff goes in the deadline name.
Ava drafts the under-contract email to the escrow officer with the executed contract attached and a request to confirm receipt of the earnest money and option fee. The TC reviews, edits, and sends it from the team's Gmail or Outlook.
Because TREC forms are public records, the team keeps blank TREC PDFs, such as the Amendment to Contract, in its ListedKit form library. Ava fills the parties, property, price, and dates, assigns the signature fields, and saves a signing draft. Ava does not send it.
The agent approves the negotiated repair terms and any blanks Ava left, then the TC sends the request from the signing editor. Offer and counteroffer exchanges stay in the forms platform.
If the brokerage uses SkySlope, the team gives Ava the transaction's compliance email address, and when a ListedKit signing completes, the executed PDF is emailed there. For Transact, zipForm, or dotloop files, the TC downloads the executed PDF and uploads it to the brokerage file.
ListedKit has no integration with Lone Wolf (Transact, zipForm), dotloop, or SkySlope. Moving documents between them is a manual download and upload, or an email to an address the platform provides. Texas REALTORS forms, such as listing and buyer representation agreements, are licensed to members through approved vendors, so keep them in those platforms. When TREC publishes a new form version, replace the old PDF in your form library by hand.
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Yes. Ava reads TREC contracts as they arrive, with no pre-setup or templates, including the One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale), TREC Form 20-19, required for new contracts from July 1, 2026, and the Farm and Ranch Contract, TREC Form 25-17. It extracts parties, dates, and terms from the contract and its addenda, including provisions such as the Paragraph 6E(11) mold remediation certificate and the T-47.1 Declaration option in Paragraph 6C. A person should confirm the extracted dates against the executed contract.
The option period is a negotiable term: the number of days is written into Paragraph 5B of TREC Form 20-19, and the buyer's notice of termination must be given by 5:00 p.m. local time where the Property is located on the last day. Ava reads the Effective Date and the option period from the contract and places the end date on your deal timeline. Deadlines in ListedKit are whole days, so keep the 5 PM cutoff in the deadline name, and note that the weekend and holiday extension in Paragraph 5A(2) does not apply to the option period. You can add the deadline to Google Calendar or Outlook from its calendar icon and invite the parties you choose.
TREC counts days as calendar days, starting the day after the Effective Date. The resale contract has one weekend and holiday rule, in Paragraph 5A(2): if the last day to deliver the earnest money, option fee, or additional earnest money falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or Legal Holiday, delivery extends to the end of the next day that is not one. That extension does not cover the option period or other deadlines. Ava places the contract dates on your timeline; a person should check any delivery deadline that lands on a weekend or holiday.
Yes. Under Paragraph 5A of TREC Form 20-19, the buyer must deliver the earnest money and the option fee to the escrow agent named in the contract, usually the title company, within 3 days after the Effective Date. Ava reads the Effective Date and the escrow agent from your contract, puts the delivery deadline on the timeline, and can draft a reminder to the buyer or a receipt request to the escrow officer for you to review and send. If day 3 falls on a Saturday, Sunday, or Legal Holiday, delivery extends to the end of the next day that is not one.
Ava reads TREC Form 25-17, the Farm and Ranch Contract, and extracts key terms such as the parties, dates, and the reservations and addenda that apply to the property. It can create tasks from uploaded agricultural tax documentation and draft emails explaining ag-exempt status transitions to buyers for you to review. Farm and ranch deals carry mineral, water, and agricultural valuation issues that should be reviewed by the agents and, where needed, an attorney.
Yes. Ava drafts emails to the title company using your transaction details, including survey results, timeline updates, and closing notes. Give Ava a short prompt, review the draft, and send it from your connected Gmail or Outlook with no AI branding visible to recipients. Ava keeps the title officer, lender, and agents on the same file so their emails land in one place.
Ava reads the contract together with its addenda, including the Third Party Financing Addendum (TREC 40-11), the Seller Financing Addendum, and the Addendum for Property Subject to Mandatory Membership in a Property Owners Association, and places the deadlines they create on one timeline. Addenda can change or add dates, so a person should confirm the final agreed terms against the executed documents before relying on the timeline.
Yes. Ava tracks the survey deadline written into Paragraph 6C of your TREC contract and can draft emails explaining the T-47 Affidavit or T-47.1 Declaration to clients. Under Paragraph 6C(1), a seller furnishing an existing survey provides it with a T-47 Affidavit or a T-47.1 Declaration, both promulgated by the Texas Department of Insurance. The T-47.1 is an unsworn declaration, so it does not need a notary.
Paragraph 6E(11) of TREC Form 20-19, first added in Form 20-18, says that if the Property has been remediated for mold, the seller must provide the buyer each certificate of mold damage remediation issued under Occupations Code §1958.154 during the 5 years before the sale. Ava can create a task from an uploaded certificate and draft an email explaining the requirement to your client for you to review.
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The ListedKit Team builds the AI transaction coordinator that real estate teams use to manage deals from contract to close. Our AI, Ava, has read over 11,000 real estate contracts and helped teams close 2,700+ deals totaling over $1 billion in volume.
Texas is one of the most form-specific real estate markets in the country. TREC publishes standardized contracts that all licensed agents and brokers are required to use, creating a precise, rule-based deadline structure consistent across the state. The rules are exacting: the Effective Date starts a run of calendar-day deadlines, the forms mandatory since April 1, 2021 send the option fee to the escrow agent, and Form 20-19, required from July 1, 2026, is the current resale contract. This guide was checked against the current TREC forms and TREC rules in September 2026.
Per TREC's contract forms page, real estate license holders are required to use the commission's promulgated forms, with limited exceptions in TREC rules. This includes Form 20-19 for residential resale, Form 25-17 for Farm and Ranch, and the associated addenda. Major MLS systems serving Texas TCs include the Houston Association of REALTORS (HAR MLS) in Greater Houston, NTREIS in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, ABoR/Unlock MLS in the Austin-Central Texas market, and SABOR MLS in San Antonio.
Teams using ListedKit AI have closed 2,700+ real estate deals totaling over $1 billion in volume. Ava has read over 11,000 real estate contracts on their behalf, auto-extracting more than 180,000 transaction fields. 71% of teams who close one deal on ListedKit come back to close another (ListedKit data, August 2026).
Don't let Texas's TREC deadline math overwhelm your practice. Join real estate professionals who trust ListedKit AI to streamline their transactions.
This guide is informational only and not legal advice. Real estate laws and practices vary by county and local jurisdiction within Texas. Always consult a licensed attorney in Texas for specific legal guidance regarding your transactions. ListedKit AI provides transaction management tools but does not provide legal advice or replace professional legal counsel.
