Happy March. Spring is approaching and with it comes a fresh start and the excitement of warmer weather. I welcome it after the freezing temperatures we experienced in February. I hope all of you made it through that extraordinary event safely.  

Commission Meeting Update 

The Commission met Friday, February 19. We published an article on the website reviewing all the proposed and adopted rules and highlighting the contract form changes, and you can see the full meeting on our website.  

As always, we encourage our license holders to familiarize themselves with these changes. The comment period is March 12 through April 11. You can provide feedback to the Commission on proposed rules by emailing general.counsel@trec.texas.gov or by utilizing our new online public comment tool.  Reach the tool by scrolling to the bottom of this page to the “recently proposed rules.”  Under the synopsis of each rule change, you will see an icon you can click to submit a comment.  

In case you missed it, Chair Kesner and I hosted another "Coffee with the Commission" this week. We had almost 200 license holders join us. It was a great way to connect with some of you and answer your questions. If you could not join us live, we will post the video later this week. Be sure to look out for Coffee in May.  

New Contract Forms Available  

The recently adopted contract forms are available on our website for voluntary use. They will become mandatory as of April 1. Use extra caution during this transition period to ensure you are aware of what version of contract and addenda is being used.     

Additionally, we have the redline versions of these contracts available on our website. You can use those redline versions to see the changes easily and for training purposes. In addition, we published an article last month on the changes to the delivery of option fee.  

The Broker Lawyer Committee worked for more than a year to bring these form changes to fruition.  I am grateful for their significant contribution, the comments of so many of you, many hours of staff work, and the attention by the commissioners to complete this big job. 

COVID-19 Update 

 The building in which we are located is not yet open to the public. We are making plans to again receive visitors at our office and will be poised and ready when the building opens.  We have missed serving license holders in person and look forward to the day we can do so again.  TREC staff continue to work primarily remotely for the time being, though we are 100% open for business to fulfill the mission of our work. 

Here’s to hoping this spring brings with it more opportunities to be face to face and a return to some level of normalcy.