Texas residential construction disclosure statement, the fifteen paragraphs due before the contract is signed
Before a residential construction contract is executed by the owner, section 53.255(a) says the original contractor shall deliver the owner a disclosure statement, and subsection (b) prints the whole statement out. Fifteen paragraphs, 1411 words, and not one blank in any of them. It is the longest form on this site and the only work it asks of you is getting it into the owner's hands at the right moment, which is before the signing and not after it.
Subsection (c) is one sentence: the failure of a contractor to comply with this section does not invalidate a lien under this chapter, a contract lien, or a deed of trust. Every other notice on this site is written the other way round, where missing the paperwork costs you the lien. This one does not, and the duty in subsection (a) is still a duty.
Read the law: Tex. Prop. Code 53.255statutes.capitol.texas.gov, 53.255 at FindLawcodes.findlaw.com, 53.001statutes.capitol.texas.gov, 53.251statutes.capitol.texas.gov, 53.254statutes.capitol.texas.gov, 53.256statutes.capitol.texas.gov, 53.257statutes.capitol.texas.gov and 53.259statutes.capitol.texas.gov
Download a blank Texas residential construction disclosure statement
Word for word from the statement printed in Tex. Prop. Code 53.255, subsection (b), all fifteen paragraphs of it. Nothing on it gets filled in and nothing on it gets signed. Subsection (a) says the original contractor shall deliver it to the owner before the residential construction contract is executed by the owner, so it travels ahead of the contract, not with it.
Free, no signup, no email, no watermark.
The disclosure statement, word for word
Nothing here gets filled in. Section 53.255(b) prints all fifteen paragraphs complete and says the statement must read substantially similar to them. Copy them into the packet you hand the owner, or take the sheet.
CopiedKNOW YOUR RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES UNDER THE LAW. You are about to enter into a transaction to build a new home or remodel existing residential property. Texas law requires your contractor to provide you with this brief overview of some of your rights, responsibilities, and risks in this transaction.
CONVEYANCE TO CONTRACTOR NOT REQUIRED. Your contractor may not require you to convey your real property to your contractor as a condition to the agreement for the construction of improvements on your property.
KNOW YOUR CONTRACTOR. Before you enter into your agreement for the construction of improvements to your real property, make sure that you have investigated your contractor. Obtain and verify references from other people who have used the contractor for the type and size of construction project on your property.
GET IT IN WRITING. Make sure that you have a written agreement with your contractor that includes: (1) a description of the work the contractor is to perform; (2) the required or estimated time for completion of the work; (3) the cost of the work or how the cost will be determined; and (4) the procedure and method of payment, including provisions for statutory reservation of funds and conditions for final payment. If your contractor made a promise, warranty, or representation to you concerning the work the contractor is to perform, make sure that promise, warranty, or representation is specified in the written agreement. An oral promise that is not included in the written agreement may not be enforceable under Texas law.
READ BEFORE YOU SIGN. Do not sign any document before you have read and understood it. NEVER SIGN A DOCUMENT THAT INCLUDES AN UNTRUE STATEMENT. Take your time in reviewing documents. If you borrow money from a lender to pay for the improvements, you are entitled to have the loan closing documents furnished to you for review at least one business day before the closing. Do not waive this requirement unless a bona fide emergency or another good cause exists, and make sure you understand the documents before you sign them. If you fail to comply with the terms of the documents, you could lose your property. You are entitled to have your own attorney review any documents. If you have any question about the meaning of a document, consult an attorney.
GET A LIST OF SUBCONTRACTORS AND SUPPLIERS. Before construction commences, your contractor is required to provide you with a list of the subcontractors and suppliers the contractor intends to use on your project. Your contractor is required to supply updated information on any subcontractors and suppliers added after the list is provided. Your contractor is not required to supply this information if you sign a written waiver of your rights to receive this information.
MONITOR THE WORK. Lenders and governmental authorities may inspect the work in progress from time to time for their own purposes. These inspections are not intended as quality control inspections. Quality control is a matter for you and your contractor. To ensure that your home is being constructed in accordance with your wishes and specifications, you should inspect the work yourself or have your own independent inspector review the work in progress.
MONITOR PAYMENTS. If you use a lender, your lender is required to provide you with a periodic statement showing the money disbursed by the lender from the proceeds of your loan. Each time your contractor requests payment from you or your lender for work performed, your contractor is also required to furnish you with a disbursement statement that lists the name and address of each subcontractor or supplier that the contractor intends to pay from the requested funds. Review these statements and make sure that the money is being properly disbursed.
CLAIMS BY SUBCONTRACTORS AND SUPPLIERS. Under Texas law, if a subcontractor or supplier who furnishes labor or materials for the construction of improvements on your property is not paid, you may become liable and your property may be subject to a lien for the unpaid amount, even if you have not contracted directly with the subcontractor or supplier. To avoid liability, you should take the following actions:
(1) If you receive a written notice from a subcontractor or supplier, you should withhold payment from your contractor for the amount of the claim stated in the notice until the dispute between your contractor and the subcontractor or supplier is resolved. If your lender is disbursing money directly to your contractor, you should immediately provide a copy of the notice to your lender and instruct the lender to withhold payment in the amount of the claim stated in the notice. If you continue to pay the contractor after receiving the written notice without withholding the amount of the claim, you may be liable and your property may be subject to a lien for the amount you failed to withhold.
(2) During construction and for 30 days after final completion, termination, or abandonment of the contract by the contractor, you should reserve or cause your lender to reserve 10 percent of the amount of payments made for the work performed by your contractor. If you choose not to reserve the 10 percent for at least 30 days after final completion, termination, or abandonment of the contract by the contractor and if a valid claim is timely made by a claimant and your contractor fails to pay the claim, you may be personally liable and your property may be subject to a lien up to the amount that you failed to reserve.
If a claim is not paid within a certain time period, the claimant is required to file a mechanic's lien affidavit in the real property records in the county where the property is located. A mechanic's lien affidavit is not a lien on your property, but the filing of the affidavit could result in a court imposing a lien on your property if the claimant is successful in litigation to enforce the lien claim.
SOME CLAIMS MAY NOT BE VALID. When you receive a written notice of a claim or when a mechanic's lien affidavit is filed on your property, you should know your legal rights and responsibilities regarding the claim. Not all claims are valid. A notice of a claim by a subcontractor or supplier is required to be sent, and the mechanic's lien affidavit is required to be filed, within strict time periods. The notice and the affidavit must contain certain information. All claimants may not fully comply with the legal requirements to collect on a claim. If you have paid the contractor in full before receiving a notice of a claim and have withheld the 10 percent of the contract price or value of work, you may not be liable for that claim. Accordingly, you should consult your attorney when you receive a written notice of a claim to determine the true extent of your liability or potential liability for that claim.
OBTAIN A LIEN RELEASE AND A BILLS-PAID AFFIDAVIT. When you receive a notice of claim, do not release withheld funds without obtaining a signed and notarized release of lien and claim from the claimant. You can also reduce the risk of having a claim filed by a subcontractor or supplier by requiring as a condition of each payment made by you or your lender that your contractor furnish you with an affidavit stating that all bills have been paid. Under Texas law, on final completion of the work and before final payment, the contractor is required to furnish you with an affidavit stating that all bills have been paid. If the contractor discloses any unpaid bill in the affidavit, you should withhold payment in the amount of the unpaid bill until you receive a waiver of lien or release from that subcontractor or supplier.
OBTAIN TITLE INSURANCE PROTECTION. You may be able to obtain a title insurance policy to insure that the title to your property and the existing improvements on your property are free from liens claimed by subcontractors and suppliers. If your policy is issued before the improvements are completed and covers the value of the improvements to be completed, you should obtain, on the completion of the improvements and as a condition of your final payment, a 'completion of improvements' policy endorsement. This endorsement will protect your property from liens claimed by subcontractors and suppliers that may arise from the date the original title policy is issued to the date of the endorsement.
Nothing to fill in, and it moves before the contract does
The statement has no blanks. Subsection (b) says the disclosure statement must read substantially similar to the following and then prints fifteen paragraphs in full, with no rule, no caption and no space to write a name or a date. The page above is exactly those fifteen paragraphs and the PDF is the same fifteen on a sheet.
That was measured before it was built. The capitol text of 53.255 and the FindLaw text of the same section were compared word for word: 1411 words on each side, identical, and zero blank runs on either publisher. A form with no blanks is not a form builder job, so this page does not pretend to be one.
The timing is the whole duty. Subsection (a) reads: before a residential construction contract is executed by the owner, the original contractor shall deliver to the owner a disclosure statement described by this section. Executed by the owner, not signed by you, not started, not permitted. Hand it over at the estimate or with the proposal and you are early, which is the safe side of that line.
Substantially similar, and why that is not an invitation to rewrite it
Subsection (b) does not say in the following form and it does not say verbatim. It says the disclosure statement must read substantially similar to the following. That wording gives room for formatting, letterhead and page breaks. It does not give a reason to shorten the paragraph about withholding payment or soften the one about personal liability, because those are the paragraphs doing the work.
This site takes the same position it takes everywhere: not one word of a statutory form is retyped. The text above and the text in the PDF were sliced out of the downloaded statute byte for byte and keyed against a second publisher before publishing. If the legislature amends the section, the fix here is a new slice, not an edit.
One detail of the printing is worth knowing. Every paragraph opens with a capitalized heading that the statute prints inside the sentence rather than above it: KNOW YOUR CONTRACTOR, GET IT IN WRITING, MONITOR THE WORK. Slicing byte for byte keeps them run in, which is where the legislature put them. Pulling them out into their own lines would look tidier and would be a rewrite.
No lien penalty, which changes what this form is for
Read the rest of this site and the pattern is constant: send the notice on time or lose the lien. The Texas monthly notice under 53.056 is the clearest case, where the notice is the condition of the lien being valid at all. Section 53.255 breaks the pattern. Subsection (c) says failure to comply does not invalidate a lien under this chapter, a contract lien, or a deed of trust.
So the statement is not protecting your lien. It is a disclosure duty written into a chapter that is otherwise about liens, and the section itself sets out no penalty for missing it. What a breach is worth in a dispute is a question for a Texas construction lawyer, and this page does not guess at it.
The practical reading is simpler. A one page duty with no lien consequence is still the cheapest piece of paper in the job to get right, and it is the first thing an owner will hold up if the relationship goes bad. Deliver it, date your own copy, and move on.
It tells the owner to do five things, and four of them are your duties elsewhere in the chapter
The statement is written to the owner, so it reads like advice. Line it up against the rest of Subchapter K and most of that advice is describing obligations the chapter has already put on you or on the lender.
GET A LIST OF SUBCONTRACTORS AND SUPPLIERS is section 53.256: before commencement, the original contractor shall furnish the owner a written list naming each subcontractor and supplier with an address and telephone number, updated no later than the fifteenth day after one is added or deleted. MONITOR PAYMENTS is section 53.258: the disbursement statement you provide with each request for payment, and the statement the lender provides to the owner. OBTAIN A LIEN RELEASE AND A BILLS-PAID AFFIDAVIT is section 53.259: on final completion and before final payment, the original contractor shall execute and deliver an affidavit that every person has been paid in full, naming anyone who has not. The paragraph about the lender providing a periodic statement is section 53.258 again, on the lender's side.
That leaves two that really are the owner's alone: reserving ten percent of the payments during construction and for thirty days after, and buying title insurance with a completion of improvements endorsement. Everything else in the statement is a preview of paperwork you are going to produce anyway.
The paragraph about withholding, and what it primes the owner to do
Two numbered paragraphs sit inside CLAIMS BY SUBCONTRACTORS AND SUPPLIERS and they are the sharpest part of the statement. The first tells the owner that on receiving a written notice from a subcontractor or supplier, the owner should withhold payment from the contractor for the amount of the claim until the dispute is resolved, tell the lender to withhold the same amount, and that continuing to pay after the notice without withholding can leave the owner personally liable and the property subject to a lien for the amount not withheld.
The second is the ten percent: during construction and for thirty days after final completion, termination or abandonment, the owner should reserve ten percent of the payments made for the work, and failing to reserve it carries the same exposure if a valid claim is timely made and the contractor does not pay it.
You are handing the owner a document that tells them to hold your money back when a sub complains. That is exactly what the legislature intended, and it is a reason to have the subcontractor list and the bills-paid affidavits in order rather than a reason to hesitate over delivering the statement.
Your lender has to hand the owner the same statement
Section 53.257(b) is easy to miss. If the owner is getting third party financing, the lender shall provide to the owner the disclosure statement described by Section 53.255(b), before the date of closing, and the lender shall retain a signed and dated copy of it with the closing documents. Good cause plus the owner's written consent moves it to the closing itself.
So the owner can receive this statement twice, once from you before the contract and once from the lender before closing. They are separate duties in separate sections and neither one discharges the other.
Note where the signature appears. Section 53.255 asks for no signature at all and prints no signature line, which is why the sheet here has none. The only mention of a signed and dated copy in the neighborhood is 53.257(b), and there it is the lender who keeps it. If a lender hands you a version with a signature block on it, that is the lender's paperwork, not the statute's.
Which jobs it reaches
Section 53.251(a) says Subchapter K applies only to residential construction projects, and 53.001 defines the terms. A residence is the real property and improvements for a single family house, duplex, triplex or quadruplex, or a unit in a multiunit structure used for residential purposes where title to the individual units transfers under a condominium arrangement, owned by one or more adult persons and used or intended to be used as a dwelling by one of the owners. A residential construction contract is a contract between an owner and a contractor to construct or repair the owner's residence, including improvements appurtenant to it. A residential construction project is the project done under such a contract.
The duty falls on the original contractor, which 53.001(7) defines as a person contracting with an owner either directly or through the owner's agent. If you are a subcontractor, section 53.255 is not your paperwork. Yours is the monthly notice under 53.056 and, on retainage, the notice under 53.057.
Section 53.251(b) is the other half of the frame: a person must comply with this subchapter in addition to the other provisions of the chapter to perfect a lien. Subchapter K adds to the general chapter on a residential job, it does not replace it.
What sits around it in Subchapter K
One section above is 53.254, the contract rules for a lien on a homestead: a written contract signed before any material is furnished or labor performed, signed by both spouses if the owner is married, and filed with the county clerk. Subsection (f) requires the lien affidavit to carry the line NOTICE: THIS IS NOT A LIEN. THIS IS ONLY AN AFFIDAVIT CLAIMING A LIEN, in at least ten point boldface at the top of the page, and subsection (g) requires the Subchapter C notice to include or attach the homestead statement. Those two are why the Texas notice of claim on this site prints a second page.
One section below is 53.256, the subcontractor and supplier list, which the disclosure statement itself tells the owner to expect. Below that is 53.258 on disbursement statements, where subsection (f) makes it a misdemeanor to provide false or misleading information in one, and 53.259 on the final bills-paid affidavit.
The section history is worth a glance if you are working from an old packet. Section 53.255 was added by the 1997 legislature, amended in 1999, and amended again by the 2021 legislature effective 1 January 2022. A disclosure statement photocopied from a binder that predates 2022 is not necessarily the current text. The one on this page was sliced from the current chapter.
Questions people ask
Is there anything to fill in on this form?
No. Section 53.255(b) prints all fifteen paragraphs complete, with no blanks, no rules and no signature line. That is why this page shows the wording and offers a copy button instead of a form builder. The PDF is the same fifteen paragraphs on a sheet.
When exactly does it have to be delivered?
Subsection (a) says before a residential construction contract is executed by the owner. The trigger is the owner signing, so anything after that is late, and there is no cure period written into the section. Delivering it with the proposal or the estimate puts you comfortably ahead of it.
Who has to deliver it?
The original contractor. Section 53.001(7) defines that as a person contracting with an owner either directly or through the owner's agent. A subcontractor does not owe this statement to anybody.
What happens if I do not deliver it?
Section 53.255(c) says the failure of a contractor to comply with this section does not invalidate a lien under this chapter, a contract lien, or a deed of trust. The section prescribes no other penalty. That is not the same as the duty not existing, and what a breach is worth in a dispute is a question for a Texas construction lawyer.
Can I shorten it or put it in my own words?
Subsection (b) says the statement must read substantially similar to the text it prints. That leaves room for formatting and letterhead. Cutting the paragraph about withholding payment or the one about the ten percent reserve is not formatting, and those are the paragraphs the section exists to deliver.
Does the owner sign it?
Section 53.255 asks for no signature and prints no signature line, so the sheet here has none. The only signed and dated copy mentioned nearby is in 53.257(b), where the lender retains one with the closing documents. Getting the owner to acknowledge receipt is a sensible business habit, not a statutory requirement of this section.
Does it apply to commercial work?
No. Section 53.251(a) says Subchapter K applies only to residential construction projects, which 53.001(10) ties back to a residential construction contract for the owner's residence. A single family house, duplex, triplex, quadruplex, or a condominium unit used as a dwelling by one of the owners.
Does it apply to a remodel, or only to a new house?
Both. A residential construction contract is defined in 53.001(9) as a contract in which the contractor agrees to construct or repair the owner's residence, including improvements appurtenant to the residence. The statement itself opens by saying you are about to enter into a transaction to build a new home or remodel existing residential property.
My lender gave the owner a copy already. Do I still owe one?
Yes. Section 53.255(a) puts the duty on the original contractor before the contract is executed and 53.257(b) puts a separate duty on the lender before closing. They are different sections, different moments and different people, so one does not discharge the other.
What is the list of subcontractors and suppliers the statement mentions?
Section 53.256. Before construction commences the original contractor furnishes the owner a written list identifying each subcontractor and supplier by name, address and telephone number, and updates it no later than the fifteenth day after one is added or deleted. Subsection (b) requires a prescribed notice on the list in at least ten point boldface, and subsection (d) lets the owner waive the list in writing.
What is the bills-paid affidavit it tells the owner to ask for?
Section 53.259(a). As a condition of final payment the original contractor executes and delivers an affidavit stating that every person has been paid in full for all labor and materials, and where someone has not been paid, the affidavit states the amount owed and that person's name, address and telephone number if known.
Is this the same as the notice a subcontractor sends me?
No, and they run in opposite directions. This statement goes from the contractor to the owner before the contract. The notice of claim under 53.056 comes from an unpaid subcontractor or supplier and is the condition of that claimant's lien being valid. There is a separate retainage notice under 53.057. Both of those have their own pages here.
Is the wording on this page current?
It was sliced from the chapter as published by the Texas Legislature, which carries the 2021 amendment effective 1 January 2022, and keyed word for word against FindLaw before publishing: 1411 words a side, identical. A copy photocopied out of a binder that predates 2022 is not necessarily the same text.
Where does this wording come from?
It is sliced out of downloaded statute text byte for byte, never retyped, and keyed against a second publisher before it goes up. Section 53.255(b) is the source and every heading and paragraph above is in the order the section prints them. Nothing on this page is legal advice.
Once the job is running and you are getting paid on it, the paperwork that comes next is the waiver: see the Texas statutory lien waiver forms, and conditional vs unconditional lien waiver for which of the two to sign.