Warning Signs of a Home-Buyer Scam

No legitimate buyer needs your Social Security number to make an offer

To put a real number on a house, a buyer needs the address, a rough idea of size and condition, whether there is a mortgage and roughly how much is left on it, and whether anyone besides you is on the deed. That is the whole list. Everything beyond it is either premature or a collection exercise.

So treat these requests, made before there is a signed contract and a title company involved, as a reason to stop and ask why:

• Your Social Security number or date of birth.
• Bank account and routing numbers, or online banking credentials, for any reason including a promised deposit.
• A photograph of your driver’s license sent by email, particularly to an address whose domain does not match the company name.
• A full mortgage statement with the complete loan account number, when the balance alone would answer the question.
• A signed authorization with blanks still in it, or one that does not name the specific lender and the specific information being released.

Some of these are needed eventually. The difference is who asks, when, and in what setting. At closing, the title company verifies your identity, and your lender will need written authorization to release a payoff figure. Those requests arrive from the escrow agent handling the file, late in the process, with a settlement statement attached. They do not arrive by text message from a buyer you have not met.

Follow the earnest money, not the number in the letter

The offer price is the easiest thing in a contract to make up. The earnest money is the hardest, because it is the part the buyer actually has to part with.

Under paragraph 5A of the current Texas Real Estate Commission resale contract, form 20-19, the buyer delivers the earnest money and any option fee to the escrow agent within three days after the effective date, payable to the escrow agent. The form allows the two amounts to be paid separately or combined in a single payment. Paragraph 18A says plainly that the escrow agent is not a party to the contract. That is the structural protection: the money sits with someone who is not on either side.

Four details from the same paragraph are worth knowing because they come up in practice:

• Paragraph 5A(2) extends the deadline. If the last day to deliver falls on a Saturday, Sunday or a Legal Holiday, the time to deliver is extended until the end of the next day that is not one of those, and the paragraph defines Legal Holiday by reference to sections 662.003(a) and 662.003(b)(4) and (6) of the Government Code. Count the deadline that way before you treat a payment as late.
• Paragraph 5A(3) applies whatever the escrow agent receives first to the option fee, then to the earnest money, then to any additional earnest money. On a short payment, the order matters.
• Paragraph 5A(4) credits the option fee to the sales price at closing, and allows the escrow agent to release it to the seller at any time without further notice.
• Paragraph 5C gives the seller the right to terminate, or to pursue the paragraph 15 remedies, if the earnest money is not delivered on time, provided the seller gives notice before the buyer delivers it. That is a seller lever with an expiry date on it.

So a buyer who wants the earnest money made payable to itself, or who proposes to hold it in its own trust account, or who offers a token amount on a substantial house, is telling you how little it expects to lose by walking away. That is not necessarily fraud. It is a measurement of how serious the offer is, and it is free to take.

Ask whether they intend to assign the contract, and get the answer in writing

Buying a contract on a house and reselling that contract to someone else is lawful in Texas. It is worth saying clearly, because the practice is often described as though it were illegal, and that framing makes homeowners suspicious of the wrong thing. What the law regulates is not the activity. It is the disclosure.

Occupations Code section 1101.0045(a) allows a person to acquire an option or an interest in a contract to purchase real property, and then sell or offer to sell the option or assign or offer to assign the contract, without holding a real estate license, if that person does two things: does not use the option or contract to engage in real estate brokerage, and discloses in writing the nature of the equitable interest to any seller or potential buyer. Subsection (b) is the teeth. A person who sells or assigns, or offers to, without making that written disclosure is engaging in real estate brokerage.

That matters because of what sits on the other side of the line. Section 1101.004(a) treats a person as engaged in real estate brokerage if, with the expectation of receiving valuable consideration, they perform for another person any of the acts listed in section 1101.002(1), which include offering to sell real estate and procuring a prospect to effect a sale. Subsection (b) pulls the other way and is worth knowing, because it provides that a person is not engaged in real estate brokerage based solely on participating as a principal, partner or financial manager in an investment in real estate. The line that section 1101.0045(b) draws is specifically about the disclosure, not about investing. Section 1101.758 makes acting as a broker or sales agent without a license a Class A misdemeanor, and section 1101.759 lets the Texas Real Estate Commission issue a cease and desist order, after notice and an opportunity for a hearing, against a person it believes is violating the chapter.

In plain terms: an undisclosed assignment pulls someone who told you they were a buyer into the licensing statute they said did not apply to them.

The practical reason to ask has nothing to do with enforcement, though. If the contract is assigned, the person who signed with you may not be the person who shows up to close, and the price the assignee pays is not your price. Neither of those is a problem on its own. Both change who you are relying on to perform. You are entitled to know which it is.

“This offer expires tonight,” and the claim underneath it

Urgency is the cheapest tool in the kit, and it is doing exactly one job: making sure you do not get a second number before you sign.

The deadline is rarely the real argument, though. Underneath it there is almost always a factual claim about your alternative, and the claim is usually some version of this: listing the house will take months, cost you thousands, and leave you worse off than the discount you are being asked to accept today.

That claim is checkable, and checking it takes an evening rather than a season. It is worth reading what the three stages of a Bell County sale actually involve, and what the area inventory figures show about timing, because the honest version of that page is more useful to you than either sales pitch. It does not promise a number of days, and it says so; it sets out the preparation stage, the time on market, the contract-to-closing stretch and the contract dates that govern the last one.

In the interest of disclosure: that page belongs to JD Walters Real Estate, which publishes it at templedreamhomes.com, and that is the brokerage Jessie Walters owns separately from this home-buying business, so it is a brokerage view of the question. Read it as one, and weigh it against what you are being told here.

Then apply the simplest test there is. A buyer with real money behind it will hold a number for a few days while you check it. A buyer who will not is answering the question you were trying to ask.

One more thing to watch on the contract itself. Paragraph 5B of form 20-19 gives the buyer an unrestricted right to terminate during an option period, and the number of days is a blank filled in with the offer. Notice under that paragraph must be given by 5:00 p.m. local time on the date specified. If the buyer terminates in time, the option fee is not refunded and the earnest money is. A cash buyer does not need financing time, so an unusually long option period on an all-cash offer is worth a direct question: what is being done during those weeks, and who else is being shown this contract?

When the price drops after you have signed

This is the most common version of the problem, and it is not always unlawful. You sign at one price. An inspection turns up issues. Days before closing, the number comes down sharply, and by then you have given notice at work, put a deposit on somewhere else, and packed the kitchen. The pressure is structural, not personal.

The contract gives you more to work with than most sellers realize.

Paragraph 7D defines “As Is” as the present condition of the property with any and all defects and without warranty, except for the warranties of title and the warranties in the contract. It also says that agreeing to take the property as is does not stop a buyer inspecting under paragraph 7A, negotiating repairs in a later amendment, or terminating during the option period. A buyer who signed an as-is contract and then demands a reduction is renegotiating, not enforcing.

Paragraph 15 is symmetric, and that is the part worth reading twice. If the buyer fails to comply, the seller may enforce specific performance, seek such other relief as may be provided by law, or both, or may terminate the contract and receive the earnest money as liquidated damages. It is an election between those routes, not a menu you take all of. The phrase “as liquidated damages” appears only in the seller remedy against a buyer.

If the deal dies and the buyer will not release the earnest money, paragraph 18C sets out the path, and it starts a step earlier than most people expect. On termination, either party or the escrow agent may send a release of earnest money to each party, and the parties are to execute counterparts and deliver them to the escrow agent; the demand route opens only if a party fails to execute that release. Then: written demand, a copy provided by the escrow agent to the other party, and if the escrow agent receives no written objection to the demand within 15 days, it may disburse, reduced by any unpaid expenses. Paragraph 18D adds real consequences for obstruction. A party who wrongfully refuses to sign a release within seven days of the request is liable to the other party for damages, the earnest money, reasonable attorney fees and all costs of suit.

Paragraph 21 requires notices between the parties or their agents to be in writing, and makes them effective when mailed, hand delivered, sent by overnight courier or transmitted electronically. Effective when sent, not when received, and email counts. Send it, and keep the sent copy. One carve-out: under paragraph 18E, a notice of objection to an earnest-money demand is deemed effective only upon receipt by the escrow agent.

Before any of that, read paragraph 16. It makes any dispute between seller and buyer related to the contract that is not resolved through informal discussion go to a mutually acceptable mediation service or provider, with the parties bearing the mediation costs equally. That is the cheap step, and the contract points you to it first. Keep its last sentence in mind too: the paragraph does not preclude a party from seeking equitable relief from a court of competent jurisdiction, so mediation is not the only road.

“Just deed it to us and we will take over the payments”

Of everything on this page, this is the arrangement that can leave a homeowner owing the debt without owning the house. It deserves its own section.

Texas law does address it, but not in the direction most people expect. Property Code section 5.016(a) says a person may not convey, or contract to convey, an interest in residential real property that will still be encumbered by a recorded lien at the time of conveyance unless, on or before the seventh day before the earlier of the conveyance or the signing of the contract, that person gives the purchaser and each lienholder a separate written disclosure in at least 12-point type. The disclosure must identify the property, name each lienholder with address and phone number, state the debt secured by each lien, set out the interest rate, the periodic installments and the account number, say whether the lienholder has consented to the transfer, give the insurance details, and state the property taxes due. It must be topped by a warning in substantially this form:

WARNING: ONE OR MORE RECORDED LIENS HAVE BEEN FILED THAT MAKE A CLAIM AGAINST THIS PROPERTY AS LISTED BELOW. IF A LIEN IS NOT RELEASED AND THE PROPERTY IS CONVEYED WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE LIENHOLDER, IT IS POSSIBLE THE LIENHOLDER COULD DEMAND FULL PAYMENT OF THE OUTSTANDING BALANCE OF THE LIEN IMMEDIATELY. YOU MAY WISH TO CONTACT EACH LIENHOLDER FOR FURTHER INFORMATION AND DISCUSS THIS MATTER WITH AN ATTORNEY.

This site covers section 5.016 from the disclosure side in what a seller still has to disclose on an as-is cash sale, so this section sticks to what it means when the lien is staying in place. Read who owes that duty. It is the person conveying, which in a take-over-the-payments deal is you. Section 5.016(b) confirms the asymmetry: a violation does not invalidate the conveyance, and the remedy it creates is a seven-day termination right for the purchaser, not for the seller, and the statute adds that this is in addition to other remedies provided by that section or other law.

The exemptions are the part that actually matters here. Section 5.016(c) switches the whole section off for a list of transfers, and two of them cover most investor purchases: subsection (c)(10) where the purchaser obtains a title insurance policy insuring the transfer of title, and subsection (c)(11) where the purchaser has purchased, conveyed, or entered into contracts to purchase or convey an interest in real property four or more times in the preceding 12 months. A professional buyer usually falls inside one or both. Subsection (d) adds that a violation is not actionable where the person required to give notice reasonably believes and takes the necessary action to ensure each lien will be released within 30 days after title transfers, which is simply the ordinary sale where the loan gets paid off at closing.

So the statute that writes the risk out in capital letters frequently does not require anyone to hand it to you. The risk does not go away with the paperwork.

Here is what the risk actually is, from the federal statute that governs it. Title 12 of the United States Code, section 1701j-3(b)(1), permits a lender to enter into or enforce a contract containing a due-on-sale clause, notwithstanding any contrary state constitution, statute or court decision. Subsection (b)(1) is itself subject to subsection (c). Subsection (a)(1) defines such a clause as a provision authorizing the lender, at its option, to declare the secured sums due and payable if all or any part of the property, or an interest in it, is sold or transferred without the lender’s prior written consent.

Subsection (d) lists transfers on loans secured by residential property of fewer than five dwelling units for which a lender may not exercise that option. They include creating a subordinate lien that does not transfer rights of occupancy, a transfer on the death of a joint tenant or tenant by the entirety, a transfer to a relative on the death of the borrower, a transfer making the borrower’s spouse or children an owner, a transfer under a divorce decree or legal separation agreement making the spouse an owner, a transfer into an inter vivos trust in which the borrower remains a beneficiary and which does not transfer occupancy rights, the granting of a leasehold interest of three years or less not containing an option to purchase, the creation of a purchase money security interest for household appliances, and any other transfer described in regulations prescribed by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, which is worth noting because those regulations add exemptions beyond the statutory list.

That last exemption is worth reading slowly. A lease of three years or less containing no purchase option is protected. A lease with a purchase option is not on the list.

Put the pieces together and the exposure is concrete. Your name stays on the note. The deed goes to someone else. The lender consent was never requested. If the payments stop, the default and the foreclosure attach to your credit, and you no longer own the house you would have needed to sell in order to fix it.

Sell-and-stay offers, and when a lease-back is really an executory contract

A softer version of the same pitch is the offer to buy the house and let you stay in it, with the right to buy it back later. If instead there is already a tenant in the property, that is a separate question answered in whether you can sell a house with tenants in Texas. Texas law has a specific answer about what that package is.

Property Code section 5.062(a)(2) provides that an option to purchase real property which includes, or is combined or executed concurrently with, a residential lease agreement is, together with the lease, considered an executory contract for conveyance of real property. That brings subchapter D of chapter 5 into play, with the protections it carries. Section 5.062(a)(1) adds that for the purposes of that subchapter a lot measuring one acre or less is presumed to be residential property.

Two limits come with it. Section 5.062(c) says the subchapter does not apply to an executory contract that provides for delivery of a deed within 180 days of final execution. And section 5.062(e) switches off several individual sections for this kind of lease-plus-option arrangement, namely sections 5.066, 5.067, 5.071, 5.075, 5.079, 5.081 and 5.082.

Then read subsection (f), because on a typical sell-and-stay it is the subsection that decides everything. If the term of the contract is three years or less, and the purchaser and seller, or their assignees, agents or affiliates, have not been parties to an executory contract to purchase that property for longer than three years, subsection (f) provides that only sections 5.063 to 5.065, section 5.073 except for section 5.073(a)(2), and sections 5.083 and 5.085 apply. Subsection (g) makes subsection (f) prevail over anything in the subchapter that conflicts with it. Most lease-back arrangements are written for a term well under three years, so this is the ordinary case rather than the exception.

The consequence is important, and it cuts against the reader: the 14-day cancellation right in section 5.074 is not available on a short-term lease-option. Anyone who tells you it is has read subsection (e) and stopped reading. What subsection (f) does leave you is arguably stronger, because none of it expires in two weeks.

• Section 5.085 is the one to know. Subsection (a) prohibits a potential seller from executing an executory contract at all if the seller does not own the property in fee simple free from any liens or other encumbrances, and subsection (b) requires the seller to maintain that clear title for the entire duration of the contract. The exceptions are narrow. The one that could apply here, subsection (b)(3), permits a lien the seller placed on the property before the contract in exchange for a loan used only to purchase it, but only if the seller gives a separate written disclosure no later than the third day before the contract is signed naming the lienholder, the loan number and outstanding balance and the monthly payments and their due dates, warns in 14-point type that the lienholder may foreclose and sell the property if the seller fails to pay, the lien attaches only to the property sold to you and never secures more than you still owe under the contract, the lienholder does not prohibit the property being encumbered by an executory contract and consents both to verify the loan on your request and to accept payments directly from you if the seller defaults, and specific covenants are written into the contract itself.
• Sections 5.064 and 5.065 control forfeiture. A seller may enforce rescission or forfeiture and acceleration against a purchaser in default only after notifying you of the intent to do so and of your right to cure, and only if you then fail to cure within the 30-day period. Section 5.065 gives you those 30 days notwithstanding an agreement to the contrary, so a clause purporting to shorten them does not.
• Section 5.063 controls the notice. It must be in writing, delivered by registered or certified mail with return receipt requested, conspicuous, printed in 14-point boldface type or 14-point uppercase letters, and must carry on a separate page the statutory statement that unless you take the specified action by a stated date the seller has the right to take possession of your property. It must also identify the remedy the seller intends to enforce and itemize any delinquency into principal, interest and additional charges.

Section 5.0621 adds a point worth knowing: both this subchapter and Property Code chapter 92, the residential landlord-tenant statute, apply to the lease portion of the arrangement, and chapter 92 stops applying only once you exercise the purchase option.

Where subsection (f) does not apply, because the term runs longer than three years, section 5.074 does come into play. Under section 5.074(a), in addition to other rights or remedies provided by law, the purchaser may cancel and rescind an executory contract for any reason, by telegram, by certified or registered mail with return receipt requested, or by delivering in person a signed written notice of cancellation to the seller, not later than the 14th day after the date of the contract. Under subsection (b), the seller then has until the 10th day after receiving that notice to return the executed contract and any property exchanged or payments made under it, and to cancel any security interest arising out of it.

Where section 5.074 applies, subsections (c) and (d) put obligations on the seller that are easy to check. The seller must place, immediately next to the space for the purchaser’s signature, a statement in 14-point boldface type or 14-point uppercase letters saying that the purchaser may cancel at any time during the next two weeks and giving the deadline date. The seller must also hand the purchaser a notice of cancellation form, in the same type size, at the time the contract is signed. Subsection (e) prohibits the seller from asking the purchaser to sign a waiver of receipt of that form.

So if you are being offered a buy-back on a term longer than three years and nobody gave you a bold cancellation notice next to the signature line, that is a documented departure from a statutory requirement. On the much more common short term, do not count on a 14-day exit at all. Check instead whether the investor can satisfy section 5.085, because an investor who bought your house with a mortgage still on it has a real problem complying with it.

Nothing important gets signed at a kitchen table

A normal Texas closing happens at a title company or an attorney’s office, with an escrow agent, a title commitment and a settlement statement that shows every dollar. That setting exists because it creates witnesses and a paper trail, which is precisely what a bad actor needs to avoid.

The recording rules are the reason it cannot be skipped. Property Code section 12.0011(b) provides that a paper document concerning real or personal property may not be recorded, and does not serve as notice, unless it contains an original signature or signatures that are acknowledged, sworn to with a jurat, or proved according to law; or is attached as an exhibit to a paper affidavit or other document bearing such a signature; or is a tangible copy of an electronic record declared to be a true and correct copy under section 12.0013 by a notary public or other officer authorized to take acknowledgments.

Bell County applies exactly that standard at the counter. The County Clerk recording department requires an original notarized document or a certified copy of the original, and cannot hold or record an instrument unless the recording fee accompanies it. A deed costs 10 dollars for the first page, made up of a 5 dollar filing fee and a 5 dollar records management fee, with 4 dollars for each additional page carrying visible marks, and 25 cents for each name beyond the first five. Instruments need a two-inch margin left clear for the recording number. Business is not transacted after 4:30 p.m., and the cutoff is 4:15 p.m. on the last business day of the month. The recording department is at P.O. Box 480, Belton, TX 76513, and the office number is (254) 933-5171. Personal out-of-state checks are not accepted.

So a person who handles the notarization themselves, brings along a notary who never actually watches you sign, or asks you to sign a deed with blanks still in it, is working around the one procedural step that turns a piece of paper into a recordable instrument.

The criminal law on the other side of that step is not mild. Penal Code section 32.21(a)(1) defines forging to include altering, making, completing, executing or authenticating a writing so that it purports to be the act of another who did not authorize the act. Subsection (d) makes forgery a felony of the third degree where the writing is or purports to be a deed, deed of trust, mortgage or security instrument, among others. But subsection (d) is expressly subject to subsection (e-1), which grades the offense by value where the actor engaged in the conduct to obtain or attempt to obtain property, and under section 32.21(e-1)(6) that is a felony of the first degree once the value reaches 150,000 dollars. For most houses in this county, a forged deed is a first-degree felony, not a third-degree one.

Penal Code section 32.46(a)(1) covers the related conduct: a person commits an offense if, with intent to defraud or harm any person, they cause another person, without that person’s effective consent, to sign or execute any document affecting property, service or pecuniary interest. The grading runs with value, reaching a felony of the first degree where the value is 300,000 dollars or more.

If something has already been filed against your house

Suppose it has gone further than a bad conversation, and a document has been recorded in the Bell County real property records that should not be there. There are three separate routes, and two of them cost nothing to file. If the document is an ordinary lien rather than a bogus one, the problem is different and the fix is a payoff or a release, which is the subject of the liens that stop a house sale in Bell County.

The clerk has duties of its own, and they go further than notice. Under section 51.901(d), a county clerk who believes in good faith that a document filed or submitted to create a lien against or assert a claim to or an interest in real property is fraudulent must request the assistance of the county or district attorney before recording it, must ask the prospective filer for additional documentation supporting the lien, claim or interest, such as a contract carrying the signature of the alleged owner, debtor, grantor or obligor, and must refuse to file or record it if that attorney finds probable cause to believe it is fraudulent or the filer does not produce the documentation. Section 51.901(d-1) immunises a clerk who acts in good faith either way, which matters because it removes the usual reason for hesitating. And under section 51.901(g), added effective 1 January 2026, if you advise the county clerk that a document purporting to convey an interest in your real property and filed for recording after 1 January 2026 is fraudulent, the clerk must give law enforcement with jurisdiction where the property sits notice of the allegation together with the photo identification information the filer provided to the clerk. That one costs you a phone call.

There is also a notice duty. Government Code section 51.901(a)(2) provides that if a county clerk has a reasonable basis to believe in good faith that a document purporting to create a lien against, or assert a claim to or an interest in, real property is fraudulent, the clerk shall give written notice to the person named in it as grantor, obligor or debtor, to any person named as grantee or as acquiring an interest, and, where the address differs, to the last known owner of the property. Subsection (b) requires that notice not later than the second business day after the document is submitted, or after the clerk becomes aware that a previously recorded document may be fraudulent.

For a purported lien or claim, there is a free motion. Government Code section 51.903(a) allows an owner who has reason to believe a recorded document purporting to create a lien or claim is fraudulent to file a motion for judicial review with the district clerk, verified by affidavit, using the form set out in the statute. Subsection (c) allows a district judge with jurisdiction over real property matters in that county to rule on the motion solely on a review of the attached document, without hearing testimonial evidence, and the review may be made ex parte without delay or notice of any kind; an appellate court must expedite review of the finding. Subsection (d) bars the district clerk from collecting a filing fee under section 12.005 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code for a filing under that section, and subsection (f) bars the county clerk from collecting a fee to file the judge’s finding. Subsection (e) requires the finding of fact and conclusion of law to be filed and indexed in the same class of records as the original document, with a copy sent by first class mail to you and to the person who filed the lien within seven days of issue.

For a purported deed or conveyance, the route is newer. Property Code section 5.0206 was added by the 89th Legislature and took effect on September 1, 2025. It lets a property owner record, in the county where the purported conveyance was recorded, an owner’s affidavit in the statutory form together with a certificate of mailing. Subsection (b) requires the owner to send a copy of the filed affidavit and a notifying letter to the grantor and grantee of the purported conveyance by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, at their last known addresses. Subsection (d) gives that grantor or grantee until the 120th day after the certificate of mailing was filed to record a controverting affidavit asserting that the owner’s affidavit is untrue or that another reason exists why the conveyance is valid. If no controverting affidavit is recorded in time, subsection (c) allows the owner to petition a district court under Government Code section 51.9035.

That petition is also free. Section 51.9035(e) provides that the district clerk may not collect a filing fee for it, and subsection (g) provides that the county clerk may not collect a fee for recording the judge’s finding. Subsection (d) allows the judge to rule from the document, the attached evidence and the public records, without testimony and ex parte. Subsection (f) requires the finding of fact and conclusion of law to be filed for recording and indexed in the same class of records as the original instrument, with a copy sent to the petitioner and to the person who filed the instrument within seven days. Property Code section 5.0207 then lets a bona fide purchaser or mortgagee for value rely conclusively on that recorded finding.

And there is money attached, or an injunction. Section 12.003(a) allows an action either to enjoin a violation of the chapter or to recover damages under it, so stopping the conduct does not depend on proving a dollar figure. Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 12.002(a) prohibits making, presenting or using a document with knowledge that it is a fraudulent lien or claim against real property, with intent that it be given the same legal effect as a document evidencing a valid lien, and with intent to cause another person physical injury, financial injury, or mental anguish or emotional distress. Subsection (b) makes the violator liable to each injured person for the greater of 10,000 dollars or the actual damages caused, plus court costs, reasonable attorney fees, and exemplary damages in an amount determined by the court. Section 12.003(a)(8) names the owner of an interest in the property as a person who may bring that action.

What the Deceptive Trade Practices Act reaches, and what it does not

The Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act is the statute people reach for, and it is genuinely powerful. It is also narrower at the entrance than most summaries admit, so it is worth being precise.

Business and Commerce Code section 17.45(4) defines a consumer as an individual, partnership, corporation, the state, or a state subdivision or agency who seeks or acquires by purchase or lease any goods or services, excluding large business consumers. The operative words are purchase or lease. If you paid someone for a service, such as a foreclosure rescue program, a negotiation service, or a fee to handle your paperwork, you are squarely within that definition and the Act is available to you. A homeowner who simply sold a house to a cash buyer and acquired nothing is in a weaker position on that threshold question. That is a matter for a lawyer on your particular facts, not something to assume in either direction. One situation is clearly different, though. Section 17.45(1) defines goods to include real property purchased or leased for use, so a homeowner who sold and then took a lease-back has acquired something by lease and stands on much firmer ground at the threshold than one who simply sold and moved out.

Where it does apply, the listed practices are a good match for this subject. Section 17.46(b)(12) covers representing that an agreement confers or involves rights, remedies or obligations which it does not have or involve, or which are prohibited by law. Section 17.46(b)(24) covers failing to disclose information concerning goods or services known at the time of the transaction, where the failure to disclose was intended to induce the consumer into a transaction they would not have entered had the information been disclosed. Section 17.46(b)(5) covers representing that a person has a sponsorship, approval, status, affiliation or connection which the person does not have.

Section 17.50(a)(3) makes an unconscionable action or course of action actionable in its own right, without needing to land on a listed practice. Section 17.45(5) defines that as an act or practice which, to a consumer’s detriment, takes advantage of the lack of knowledge, ability, experience or capacity of the consumer to a grossly unfair degree.

On remedies, a prevailing consumer is not confined to money. Section 17.50(b)(2) allows an order enjoining the conduct, and section 17.50(b)(3) allows orders necessary to restore to any party to the suit any money or property, real or personal, which may have been acquired in violation of the subchapter. On a page about homeowners losing houses, that third subdivision is the one that can reach the house itself. Section 17.50(b)(4) adds any other relief the court deems proper.

As to damages, section 17.50(b)(1) allows the economic damages found by the trier of fact; where the conduct was committed knowingly, mental anguish damages and up to three times economic damages; and where it was committed intentionally, mental anguish damages and up to three times the combined economic and mental anguish damages. Section 17.50(d) awards a prevailing consumer court costs and reasonable and necessary attorney fees.

Two procedural points decide more cases than the substance does. Section 17.505(a) makes 60 days written notice a prerequisite to a suit seeking damages under section 17.50(b)(1), advising the other side in reasonable detail of the specific complaint and the amount of economic damages, mental anguish damages and expenses including attorney fees. Subsection (b) excuses that notice where 60 days is impracticable because suit must be filed to stop limitations running, or where the claim is asserted as a counterclaim. And missing the notice does not destroy the claim: under subsections (d) and (e) the suit is abated until the 60th day after notice is served. And section 17.565 requires suit within two years after the deceptive act occurred, or within two years after the consumer discovered or should have discovered it through reasonable diligence, extendable by 180 days where the plaintiff proves the defendant knowingly acted to induce delay.

So the letter is the step that keeps a damages claim on the simplest footing, and missing it abates a suit rather than ending it. Section 17.50(c) is the counterweight: a court that finds an action groundless in fact or law, brought in bad faith, or brought to harass, shall award the defendant reasonable and necessary attorney fees and court costs.

There is no three-day right to cancel the sale of your house

This is the single most common wrong belief about selling a home, and acting on it has cost Texas homeowners real money. There is no general cooling-off period on a residential sale contract.

The Federal Trade Commission cooling-off rule, which gives three days to cancel certain sales made at your home or workplace or at a seller’s temporary location, expressly does not cover real estate, insurance or securities. The FTC lists that exclusion alongside sales made entirely online, by mail or by telephone, and sales completed at the seller’s permanent place of business.

Texas provides narrow, specific cancellation rights instead, and most of them belong to the purchaser rather than the seller:

• Property Code section 5.016(b) lets a purchaser who did not receive the lien disclosure terminate the contract for any reason on or before the seventh day after receiving it.
• Property Code section 5.074(a) gives a purchaser under an executory contract 14 days to cancel for any reason.
• Paragraph 5B of TREC form 20-19 gives a buyer an unrestricted termination right for however many days were written into the blank, with notice due by 5:00 p.m. local time.
• Paragraph 7B(2) lets a buyer who has not received the Seller’s Disclosure Notice terminate at any time before closing if it never arrives, and, once it is delivered, within seven days after receiving it or before closing, whichever occurs first.

What a seller has instead is paragraph 5C; paragraph 5D, under which a buyer who states no dollar amount as the option fee, or who fails to deliver it within the time required, does not have the unrestricted right to terminate under paragraph 5 at all; the paragraph 15 default remedies; and whatever was negotiated before signing. Paragraph 5E makes time of the essence for all of paragraph 5, and strict compliance required. Note also how paragraph 5B opens: the unrestricted right to terminate is granted for nominal consideration and the buyer’s agreement to pay the option fee within the time required. All of which points the same way: for a seller, the leverage sits in the days before signature, not after it. That is not a reason for alarm. It is a reason to take the week.

A checklist to run before you sign anything

None of this requires a lawyer on retainer or a week of research. It requires about an hour, spread across a few phone calls.

1. Name the title company. Ask which company will close, then call that company yourself, using a number you looked up rather than one you were given, and confirm the file exists.
2. Confirm who holds the earnest money and that it is made payable to the escrow agent, not to the buyer.
3. Ask directly whether the contract may be assigned, and ask for the written disclosure that section 1101.0045 requires before you sign rather than after.
4. Look up any license number you are given in the Texas Real Estate Commission License Holder Search, which searches by name or license number and accepts partial values. If someone tells you they are an unlicensed principal buyer, that can be perfectly correct; what matters is that the answer is consistent.
5. Search the company name together with the words complaint and lawsuit, and check whether the entity exists under the name on the contract.
6. Refuse every request for a Social Security number, bank credentials or an upfront fee at the offer stage. There is no version of a legitimate cash purchase that needs them to generate a price.
7. Read the option period. Find the number of days written into paragraph 5B and ask what the buyer plans to do during them.
8. Read paragraph 2D. Anything you intend to keep must be written into the exclusions blank and removed before you deliver possession. Nothing verbal survives, because paragraph 22 says the contract contains the entire agreement of the parties and cannot be changed except by their written agreement.
9. Never sign a deed outside a closing, never sign one with blanks in it, and never let the other side arrange the notarization.
10. Get a second number. One other offer, or one market opinion, converts a pressure tactic into a comparison.
11. Take 48 hours. A real buyer will wait. Write the deadline down and see whether it was ever real.
12. Keep everything in writing, and keep the sent copies. Paragraph 21 makes written notice effective when sent, which only helps you if you can prove you sent it.

Where to report it

If it has already gone wrong, the agencies below each handle a different part of the problem. Reporting to one does not substitute for the others, and none of them will give you legal advice.

• Texas Real Estate Commission. Use the License Holder Search to verify anyone claiming a license, searching by name or license number; individual names use a last name, first name middle name format and partial values are accepted. TREC states that anyone can file a complaint against a license holder. For a person operating with no license at all, section 1101.759 allows the commission to issue a cease and desist order after notice and an opportunity for a hearing, and section 1101.758 makes unlicensed brokerage a Class A misdemeanor.
• Texas Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division. Complaints are filed online through the division’s complaint portal. Gather your material first, because the system cannot save a complaint in progress and the browser back button clears it: you will need the business name and full address including zip code, the transaction dates and amounts, and the steps you have already taken. Save the confirmation email and the complaint number. Complaints to that office are public under Texas law, and the office states that it cannot give you legal advice.
• Bell County Clerk, recording department, P.O. Box 480, Belton, TX 76513, (254) 933-5171, for any question about what has actually been recorded against your property.
• Local law enforcement and the Bell County District Attorney, for the forgery and document-execution offenses described above.
• A Texas real estate attorney, for anything already signed or recorded. The 14-day cancellation window under section 5.074 and the 120-day controverting window under section 5.0206 run whether or not anyone is advising you.

The short version

A cash sale is a legitimate option, and for some houses and some situations it is the right one. The warning signs on this page are not signs that a buyer pays cash. They are signs that someone is trying to keep the transaction out of the places where transactions get checked: the escrow account, the title company, the notary, the county records and the written disclosure.

A buyer who is comfortable in all five of those places may still offer you less than the open market would. That is a price question, and you settle it by getting a second number. A buyer who avoids them is not negotiating on price at all.