SB 1968 and the New Texas Buyer Agreement Law: What Changed January 1, 2026

Texas Senate Bill 1968 (89th Legislature, Regular Session, 2025) took effect January 1, 2026, and it's the single biggest change to how Texas agents work with buyers in years. It amends the Real Estate License Act (TRELA), codified at Texas Occupations Code Chapter 1101, and it does one core thing: a license holder now must have a written agreement with a prospective buyer of residential real property before showing that buyer any residential property, or — if no property will be shown — before presenting an offer on the buyer's behalf. This page describes what the statute and TREC's own published guidance say. It is not legal advice. Whether your brokerage's paperwork and workflow actually satisfy the law is a compliance question for your broker and, where it matters, a Texas real estate attorney.

What SB 1968 actually changed in the statute

SB 1968 was enacted as Acts 2025, 89th Legislature, Regular Session, Chapter 1172, and — notably — became law without the Governor's signature (filed 06/22/2025), with a delayed effective date of January 1, 2026. It added two new sections to TRELA, Subchapter L of Chapter 1101:

• § 1101.562, Real Property Showings Without Representation — the conditions under which a broker may show real property to a buyer or tenant without representing them.
• § 1101.563, Written Agreement Required — the core requirement: a license holder performing any act of real estate brokerage for a prospective buyer of residential real property must have a written agreement with that buyer before showing residential property, or before presenting an offer if no property is shown.

The bill also amended § 1101.558(b-1) (the existing notice-content statute behind the IABS form) to add a required disclosure item, added a new disciplinary ground at § 1101.652(b)(34), made a parallel addition for certificate holders at § 1101.653, and repealed two provisions: § 1101.002(8) (a definition tied to subagency) and § 1101.805(f). More on each below.

Who § 1101.563 covers — and its exact definition of "residential"

The written-agreement requirement in § 1101.563 applies only to a prospective buyer of residential real property. The statute defines that term, for purposes of this section, as:

1. a single-family house;
2. a duplex, triplex, or quadraplex; or
3. a unit in a multiunit residential structure where title to an individual unit transfers to the owner under a condominium or cooperative system.

§ 1101.562 (showing without representation) is written more broadly — TREC's own guidance describes it as covering "residential, farm and ranch, and commercial" property. So the conduct rules for showing without representing someone apply broadly; it's specifically the mandatory written agreement that's scoped to residential buyers as defined above.

What the written agreement has to contain

§ 1101.563(c) sets out the required content. The agreement must state:

• the services to be provided by the license holder;
• the termination date of the agreement;
• whether the agreement is exclusive or non-exclusive;
• whether the license holder represents the buyer as the buyer's agent, or does not represent the buyer (if the only brokerage act being performed is a showing under § 1101.562); and
• the amount or rate of compensation the broker will receive, and how that amount is determined;

and it must separately disclose, in conspicuous language, that broker compensation is not set by law and is fully negotiable — language that also appears near-verbatim on the updated IABS form itself.

Two ways to satisfy it: full representation, or showing-only

TREC's own published guidance frames this as two distinct paths, both governed by § 1101.563, one of which also has to satisfy § 1101.562:

• A representation agreement. The license holder agrees to represent the buyer as the buyer's agent. This can still limit the scope of services (for example, to showings only) — but per TREC, a representation agreement "cannot waive the minimum duties owed to clients which are provided by existing TREC rules and law."
• A non-representation, showing-only agreement. The license holder shows property without representing the buyer at all, under the § 1101.562 conditions: no oral or written agreement to represent the buyer, not otherwise acting as the buyer's agent, no opinions or advice on the property or on real estate transactions generally, and no other act of brokerage performed for the buyer. A license holder showing under this path may still confirm size, price, and terms of the property. This flavor of agreement carries two extra restrictions the statute puts directly on it: it may not be exclusive, and it may not run more than 14 days from the date it's entered into. If more brokerage work is needed after the showing, § 1101.563(d) requires a separate agreement for that additional work.

The updated IABS form: 1-2, not 1-1

The Information About Brokerage Services notice required under § 1101.558(b-1) was updated to reflect SB 1968. The current version, confirmed directly from TREC's own published PDF, is TREC No. IABS 1-2, dated 11-03-2025, and TREC states it "is effective and required for use beginning January 1, 2026" — the same date as the statute. The prior edition was IABS 1-1.

What changed on the form itself: it adds a new "WRITTEN AGREEMENTS ARE REQUIRED IN CERTAIN SITUATIONS" section that names § 1101.563 directly, adds a full "A LICENSE HOLDER CAN SHOW PROPERTY TO A BUYER/TENANT WITHOUT REPRESENTING THE BUYER/TENANT IF" section mirroring § 1101.562's four conditions, and drops the subagency language the prior edition carried (consistent with SB 1968 repealing the subagent-related definition at § 1101.002(8)).

Is there a separate TREC form for a "non-representation" or "showing-only" agreement?

No. This is worth stating plainly, because it's easy to assume otherwise given how much attention SB 1968 has gotten. TREC's own FAQ page states directly: a buyer representation agreement "is a private contract between a real estate broker and a buyer and is not promulgated or regulated by TREC." That specific FAQ answer predates SB 1968's showing-only variant, but nothing in TREC's SB 1968 guidance or its published forms library introduces a distinct promulgated form for it either — the § 1101.563 written agreement, in either its representation or non-representation flavor, is drafted by the broker (or the broker's association, or an attorney), not issued by TREC. The only TREC-promulgated document SB 1968 touches is the IABS notice itself — a disclosure, not the written agreement the statute requires.

Open houses: the exception is narrower than it sounds

An existing exception to the IABS disclosure requirement already covers open houses — under § 1101.558(c)(3), the notice isn't required "when... the communication is at an open house and the communication concerns that same property." It's tempting to assume that exception also covers SB 1968's new written-agreement requirement. According to TREC's own published guidance, it doesn't stretch that far, and the exception is narrower than agents often assume:

• If the agent hosting the open house works for the listing brokerage (representing the seller), that agent does not need to provide the IABS or enter into a written agreement with visitors — they just have to disclose, orally or in writing, that they represent the owner.
• If the agent hosting or attending isn't with the listing brokerage — a buyer's agent or a showing agent bringing their own prospect through — that agent must provide the IABS and enter into a § 1101.563 written agreement with the visitor before the showing. TREC's guidance is explicit that this applies "even when a prospective buyer has a written representation agreement with another broker," and that the agreement should ideally be signed before the buyer enters the property, or at the latest before they start viewing it.

What happens if an agent skips it

SB 1968 added a specific, named disciplinary ground. TRELA § 1101.652(b)(34) — the statute's list of grounds for license suspension or revocation — now includes: "fails to enter into a written agreement with a prospective buyer as required by Section 1101.563." A parallel provision was added for certificate holders at § 1101.653. Beyond that licensing exposure, the statute doesn't spell out a separate contract-level remedy the way some other TREC disclosure statutes do — for example, the Seller's Disclosure Notice statute gives a buyer an explicit 7-day termination right if the notice is missing, but § 1101.563 doesn't contain comparable language giving a buyer a stated right to void the agreement or withhold compensation if it was never signed. Whether a missing written agreement affects the underlying transaction or a broker's right to compensation is a contract-enforcement question the statute doesn't answer directly — that's a call for a real estate attorney, not this page.

Subagency: reduced, not eliminated as a concept

SB 1968 removed two references to subagency from TRELA, including repealing the definition at § 1101.002(8). TREC's own guidance is careful about how far to take that: "This means the circumstances in which subagency could arise in your real estate practice are limited. However, subagency has not been eliminated generally as a legal concept." This page doesn't go further than that — if a fact pattern looks like it might involve subagency, that's a broker/attorney conversation, not a forms question.

What this page isn't resolving

A few things the statute and TREC's guidance leave open, flagged here rather than guessed at:

• What exactly counts as "showing" a property. Neither § 1101.562 nor § 1101.563 defines the word. Whether a video walkthrough, a lockbox self-tour without the agent present, or a drive-by counts the same as walking a buyer through the front door isn't addressed anywhere in the statute text.
• Electronic signature. The statute requires a "written agreement" but doesn't specifically address whether an e-signature app satisfies that requirement in the moment before a buyer walks into an open house. Texas law generally recognizes electronic signatures under other statutes, but SB 1968 itself doesn't address the interaction directly.
• Farm-and-ranch classification, discussed above — whether a residence-bearing ranch property falls inside or outside § 1101.563(a)'s "single-family house" prong.