Texas One to Four Family Contract: TREC 20-19 for Investors

The Texas “one to four” contract is the One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale), a form promulgated by the Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC). It is the standard paper for buying a single-family home, duplex, triplex or fourplex in Texas. The current version is TREC 20-19, effective July 1, 2026. If you make offers on Texas MLS listings, this is the document an agent expects to see, and a text, a letter of intent or an email body will not get the same attention.

This guide is for investors, wholesalers and cash buyers. It covers what the form does, the paragraphs that cost people money, where it falls short for wholesaling, and how to get it in front of listing agents without typing it out by hand every time.

TL;DR

• TREC 20-19 is the current one to four family resale contract. It is not the form for condos, and it is not built for wholesaling, so assignment language needs care.
• Paragraph 5 (earnest money and the termination option) and Paragraph 6 (title and survey) create the deadlines that cost investors the most.
• Emails and generic letters of intent are a weak way to lock up a Texas property, because real estate contracts must be written and signed to be enforceable.
• Wholesalers without a license must make written disclosures about what they are actually selling.
• At 20 to 100+ offers a month, the bottleneck is filling in and sending the form. That is the part we automate.

Table of Contents

• What the Texas one to four family contract is
• The paragraphs investors should know cold
• A worked deadline calendar
• Why not just send a letter of intent or an email?
• Using the form as a wholesaler
• Proof of funds and cash offers
• Where the time goes at volume
• Our perspective
• Sending Texas offers faster with SendMLS
• A checklist before you send a Texas offer
• FAQ
• Sources

What the Texas one to four family contract is

TREC writes and approves this form, and licensed Texas brokers and agents are required to use TREC-promulgated forms for the transactions they cover. For investors, the practical point is simpler: listing agents in Texas know this document. They know where the price sits, where the financing terms sit and which paragraph carries the option period.

The form covers a single-family home, duplex, triplex or fourplex. It is not the form for a condominium, and the current text says so at the top. New homes sold by a builder and some other situations have their own forms, so confirm the property type before you generate anything.

The version matters. TREC revises these forms, and a contract built on an old version can look sloppy to an agent or, worse, carry outdated terms. As of this writing, 20-19 replaced earlier versions as of July 1, 2026. The full form PDF is on the TREC site, and it is worth reading once from top to bottom even if software fills it in for you.

The paragraphs investors should know cold

The form runs about a dozen pages. You do not need to memorize all of it, but a handful of paragraphs drive almost every deal that goes wrong.

Paragraph 1 to 3: parties, property, price

This is the part that is the same on every offer: who the seller and buyer are, the legal description and address, and the sales price with the financing breakdown. It is also where wrong-county and wrong-owner errors happen. If you have a VA keying these fields into a form by hand, this is the section you end up rechecking.

Paragraph 5: earnest money and the termination option

Paragraph 5 is the one that matters most to an investor. It sets out how earnest money is delivered, typically within 3 days after the Effective Date, and it governs the option period. For an agreed fee, the buyer gets an unrestricted right to terminate during the option period. Timely notice means a full refund of earnest money.

Two details trip people up:

• Earnest money and the option fee are different money. Many investors bundle them for convenience, but the option fee goes directly to the seller and is non-refundable, while earnest money is held by an escrow agent. Pay them separately or clearly earmark each.
• Miss the option fee deadline and you lose the right. If the fee is not paid within the 3 days, the same source explains that the buyer loses the unrestricted right to terminate.

If you want a deeper look at how much deposit to put up and when, see our guide to earnest money strategies for buyers and investors.

Paragraph 6: title, survey and objections

Paragraph 6 sets the schedule for the title commitment, survey and your objections. Pass Texas Real Estate’s editors describe a pattern of “deadline traps” in Paragraphs 5 and 6, where investors mismanage dates and waive rights. These deadlines are objective. Nobody will remind you, and a missed date is a missed right.

Special provisions and addenda

The special provisions paragraph is where investors try to add custom language. Be careful. Legal commentary on Texas assignment practice warns that generic wording in the special provisions often leads to unauthorized practice of law issues. Addenda, such as financing or lender-related addenda, are the cleaner route when a standard form exists. Our guide to purchase agreement addenda walks through which ones come up most.

A worked deadline calendar

Here is how the clock behaves on a typical cash offer, using an illustrative Effective Date. The option period length here is an example, because it is negotiated per deal.

The point of the table is that nearly every date counts from the Effective Date. Build the calendar the moment the contract is executed, and put every deadline in a reminder. A late option fee is the sort of mistake that one explainer calls out as a common source of earnest money disputes.

Why not just send a letter of intent or an email?

Volume investors sometimes try a short LOI or an offer typed into an email. It is fast, and listing agents tend to ignore it. There is also a legal reason not to rely on it in Texas.

Under the Statute of Frauds, real estate contracts must be in writing and signed to be enforceable. That Texas Supreme Court case looked at whether an email exchange was enough, and the analysis turns on whether the messages show intent to be bound and contain the material terms. An email chain that is vague on either point is a risky foundation.

Electronic signatures are fine in Texas under the Texas Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, but the parties still have to agree to do business electronically, and simply emailing a contract does not make it binding. The cleaner path is to send the real promulgated contract, with the terms filled in, for the seller to sign.

There is a practical angle too. An agent who gets a complete contract can take it straight to the seller. An agent who gets a text has to ask for the missing pieces, and many will not. For the rules on what an agent has to do once an offer arrives, read are realtors required to present all offers and how long an agent has to present an offer.

Using the form as a wholesaler

The TREC form was written for ordinary home sales. Legal guidance notes it is not designed for wholesaling and offers no specific protection for the wholesaler’s position, though it can be used if an assignment clause is properly included.

The bigger issue is disclosure. According to one Texas wholesaling firm’s summary, Occupations Code §1101.0045 requires wholesalers to disclose in writing that they are selling an option or assigning a contract interest and do not hold legal title, and failing to do so can be treated as unlicensed brokerage activity. Wholesalers without a license should have a Texas real estate attorney review their paperwork and disclosure process before running volume. That is not a box to tick once and forget.

Two more things worth knowing:

• Assignment versus double closing. The structure you pick changes what the seller and the end buyer see. We compare both in assignment vs double closing.
• Compliance at volume. If you send dozens of offers a month, you need a record of what went out, when and to whom. Our piece on making 20 to 100+ offers audit ready covers that.

The same Texas wholesaling firm also notes that on a joint venture deal, the contract stays in your name and your earnest money stays put. Your name is on every offer you send, so the accuracy of each one is your problem.

Proof of funds and cash offers

Sellers and agents ask what a cash offer is worth. One advice column points out that the Texas contract gives a seller no proof of funds protection, so agents often ask for it separately. If you are a cash buyer, have a proof of funds letter ready to attach with the offer. It shortens the agent’s decision.

If you want a general picture of how cash buyers present themselves to sellers, this overview of how cash home buying works is a useful read, though it comes from an Ohio market and Texas details differ.

Where the time goes at volume

One offer on a Texas listing is not a hard job. Pull the owner and parcel data, confirm the county, fill in the price, option terms, closing date and agent details, export a PDF, and email it. Done carefully, that takes 10 to 15 minutes.

Now multiply it. At 50 offers a month that is up to 12 hours of data entry. Hand it to a VA and you trade hours for a payroll line and a new failure mode: the contract that goes out with the wrong county, a wrong closing date or a stale agent email. Every one of those has to be caught by someone, usually you.

The aged-inventory play makes this worse. Listings that have sat for months get few offers, and the strategy depends on sending many low offers and accepting a low hit rate. We cover the approach in the 180+ days on market strategy. A low hit rate only works if the cost of each offer is close to zero.

Our perspective

We built SendMLS for the investor who already sends offers on MLS listings and is tired of the manual work. We are not selling a strategy. You already have one, and you already close deals.

What we see is that the contract itself is rarely the problem. The problem is the retyping. You set up your state-approved contract once, and the software fills it with owner, parcel, legal description and agent details from public sources. Nobody has to retype a county name at 11 p.m.

The second thing is how the offer arrives. Agents ignore texts and generic letters because they look like noise. An offer sent from your own Gmail, with real paperwork attached, reads as a message from a real person. Open tracking then tells you when the agent looks at it, so your follow-up is timed rather than guessed.

On Texas specifically, we would tell any investor the same thing: the paperwork is only half of compliance. Get your disclosures reviewed by a Texas attorney, keep your deadlines on a calendar and do not let speed make you careless about which version of a form you are sending.

— Shane

Sending Texas offers faster with SendMLS

If you run offer volume on Texas listings, SendMLS gives you one plan with everything included for $99 per month, after a 7-day free trial with no setup. You map your contract once, the software autofills the property details, and offers go out from your Gmail with open tracking and a pipeline to organize what you have sent. You can also set reminders so option period and closing dates do not slip by.

It replaces the retyping, not your judgment. You still choose the listings, the price and the terms, and you still need legal advice on your own structure.

A checklist before you send a Texas offer

1. Confirm the property type: single-family, duplex, triplex or fourplex, not a condo.
2. Confirm you are using the current promulgated version, 20-19.
3. Check owner, county, legal description and listing agent against public records.
4. Set the option fee and period, and put the 3-day delivery date on your calendar.
5. Keep earnest money and the option fee separate.
6. If you are wholesaling, have your written disclosure and assignment language reviewed by a Texas attorney.
7. Attach proof of funds if you are a cash buyer.
8. Send from a real email address and track opens so you know when to follow up.

FAQ

What is the Texas one to four family contract?

It is the One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale), a TREC-promulgated form for buying and selling single-family homes, duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes. The current version is TREC 20-19, effective July 1, 2026. It is not used for condominiums.

Who promulgates the Texas one to four family contract?

The Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC) writes and approves the form. You can download the current version from the TREC forms page.

Can a wholesaler use the TREC contract?

Yes, with care. The form can work if an assignment clause is properly included, but it was not designed for wholesaling, and generic special provisions language can raise unauthorized practice of law concerns. Wholesalers also have written disclosure duties, so have a Texas real estate attorney review your documents.

Is an emailed offer binding in Texas?

Not automatically. Real estate contracts must be written and signed, and an email chain that lacks material terms or clear intent to be bound may not be enough. Send the full contract and have it signed rather than relying on an email thread.

What is the option period in the Texas contract?

It is a period during which the buyer, in exchange for an option fee, can terminate for any reason. If you give timely notice you get your earnest money back. The fee itself goes to the seller and is not refunded, and it must be paid within 3 days of the Effective Date.

Sources

• TREC 20-19 form PDF
• Pass Texas Real Estate: TREC 20-19 explained
• Freedom Real Estate: paragraph-by-paragraph guide to 20-19
• Texas Title: Paragraph 5 explained
• WG Law: earnest money in a failed Texas deal
• Brackett & Ellis: email and the Statute of Frauds
• Texas Realtors
• Lone Star Land Law: assignment of earnest money contracts
• Diamond Acquisitions: JV wholesale deals in Texas
• FastExpert: proof of funds from a cash buyer

Recommended

• Assignment vs Double Closing: Which Exit Wins Your Deal?
• Purchase Agreement Addenda: A Complete Guide for Buyers, Sellers, and Investors