Can a builder use its own contract instead of a TREC form?

Yes. A production builder that owns the property it is selling can lawfully present its own purchase contract, and no Texas Real Estate Commission promulgated form is required. The reason sits in 22 Texas Administrative Code §537.11, the rule that makes TREC forms mandatory for license holders, and in the 2018 amendment that narrowed the operative word in that rule from "principal" to "property owner." The requirement binds license holders. It does not reach a contract form prepared by the property owner, and a builder selling its own inventory is the property owner.

This page is written from the builder's side. What a buyer gives up by signing a builder form is a separate question, and it belongs on its own page rather than buried in this one.

Where does the promulgated-form requirement come from?

22 TAC §537.11 is titled "Use of Standard Contract Forms; Unauthorized Practice of Law." Its function is twofold. It requires a license holder to use the contract forms TREC has adopted when those forms are appropriate to the transaction, and it keeps license holders on the correct side of the line between real estate practice and the practice of law. A real estate license is not a license to draft contracts, and §537.11 is the rule that says so.

The rule contains exceptions. The one that matters to a homebuilder is the exception for a form prepared by the property owner, or prepared by an attorney and required by a property owner. That exception is why builder contracts exist in Texas at all.

What did the 2018 amendment change?

TREC adopted changes to §537.11 in November 2017 that took effect May 15, 2018. The rule had previously spoken of a form prepared by a principal to the transaction. The amendment replaced that word with property owner, aligning the rule with the language of the Real Estate License Act.

"Principal" is broad. In a real estate transaction both the buyer and the seller are principals, and read literally the older wording could be taken to let a buyer's side produce a form and require a license holder to use it. "Property owner" is narrow and one-directional. After the amendment, the party who may prepare a contract form or an addendum outside the promulgated set is the owner of the property — or an attorney, where the form is required by a property owner.

For a production builder holding title to the lot and the improvements, the practical effect is direct and favorable: your form is the form, and a license holder representing a buyer in your community is not violating §537.11 by transacting on it. The same logic covers your addenda — options and upgrades, construction schedule, warranty, HOA, district disclosures, arbitration provisions where you use them.

What may a license holder do with the builder's form, and what may they not?

The line is between filling and drafting. Completing blanks a form was built to receive is real estate practice. Composing terms is legal practice, and a license holder who does it is exposed under §537.11 regardless of whose form is on the table. If your sales counselors hold licenses, this is worth a standing internal instruction: no handwritten clauses, no "we'll just add a line," no marked-up paragraphs. Send it to counsel and issue a company addendum.

Who is allowed to prepare the builder's form?

The property owner, or an attorney the property owner engages. In practice that means your general counsel or outside real estate counsel drafts and maintains the document, and the sales organization uses it as issued. It does not mean a regional manager can assemble a form from three prior versions, and it does not mean a title company can write it for you and have it count as an owner-prepared form.

There is a related structural point that gets missed. The exception attaches to the property owner. If the entity signing the contract is not the entity that owns the lot — a marketing entity, a management company, a different single-purpose entity than the one on the deed — the premise the exception rests on is weaker than the org chart suggests. Confirm that the contracting party and the record owner line up.

What does using your own form not get you?

The freedom is real and it is narrow. A builder contract does not displace statute, and every obligation below applies with the same force it would on a TREC form.

1. District disclosure. Property Code §5.014 for a public improvement district and Water Code §49.452, with the form prescribed by §49.4521, for a MUD and other Chapter 49 districts. Both are keyed to the moment before a binding contract exists. Building your own contract does not move that moment.
2. Construction defect procedure. Property Code Chapter 27, the Residential Construction Liability Act, governs the notice-and-opportunity-to-repair process regardless of what your form says about disputes.
3. Warranty and repose. Civil Practice and Remedies Code §16.009 as amended by House Bill 2024, 88th Legislature, ties the shortened repose period to specific written warranty terms. If your form promises warranties, those promises interact with that statute and should be drafted with it in front of you.
4. Advertising rules. TREC's rules on misleading advertising reach a license holder marketing your community even though the contract is yours.
5. Fair housing. Nothing about form selection changes federal or Texas fair housing obligations in how homes are marketed, shown, or sold.

What changes when a brokerage works your community on your form?

It changes less than builders expect and more than brokerages admit. Because your form governs, the brokerage's job is not to negotiate paper — it is to bring qualified traffic, to describe your document accurately without crossing into legal advice, to get your disclosures executed in the right order, and to send anything that needs drafting back to your counsel rather than improvising at the desk.

What we ask a builder for at the start of an engagement is simple: the current form, the current addenda set, the date each was last reviewed by counsel, and a named person who is allowed to approve a change. When those four things exist, the sales floor stops generating contract risk. When they do not, it generates it every week.

If you are structuring a program around a new community, see what a development sales and marketing partnership delivers and the disclosure mechanics on MUD and PID disclosure. If you are still upstream of that, plat approval timing and impact fees set the schedule and the per-lot cost your form will eventually recite. And because Texas has no state homebuilder license, the contract and the warranty terms inside it carry more of the weight here than they would in a licensing state.

How we sourced this

Written from 22 Texas Administrative Code §537.11, the Texas Real Estate Commission rule on use of standard contract forms and unauthorized practice of law, including the amendment adopted in November 2017 and effective May 15, 2018 that replaced "principal" with "property owner"; and from Texas Property Code §5.014, Texas Water Code §49.452 and §49.4521, Texas Property Code Chapter 27, and Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §16.009. Verified August 2026 and current as of that date. TREC rules are amended on a rolling basis; confirm the current text of §537.11 at trec.texas.gov before you rely on it. This is general information, not legal advice, and nothing here substitutes for review of your form by your own counsel.

The Agency Dallas is independently owned and operated by Damon & Megan Williamson. Damon Williamson, Broker-Owner · Licensed Real Estate Agent, State of Texas. Dallas, Dallas County, Texas 75225. Equal Housing Opportunity. Texas Real Estate Commission Information About Brokerage Services and Consumer Protection Notice are available at trec.texas.gov. This is not intended as a solicitation of property currently listed for sale.