What is a title commitment in Texas?

A title commitment is the title company's written promise to issue a title policy on stated terms. It comes in four schedules: A is the deal facts, B is what the policy will not cover, C is what must be fixed before closing, and D discloses who gets paid. Reading it is a task with a deadline.

The commitment is a conditional offer, not a report

People call it a title report. It is not a report. It is a commitment to insure, conditioned on the items in Schedule C being satisfied, subject to the exceptions in Schedule B, in favor of the party named in Schedule A.

Every word of that sentence has consequences. Change the buyer's entity name after the commitment issues and Schedule A is wrong. Skip a Schedule C requirement and the policy does not issue. Ignore a Schedule B exception and the policy issues, closing happens, and the thing you were worried about is simply not covered.

Title insurance in Texas is regulated by the Texas Department of Insurance, which prescribes the forms and sets the premium rates (TDI title rates). The commitment form is a promulgated form. The title company fills it in; it does not write it.

When it has to arrive — Paragraph 6B

The contract puts a hard deadline on delivery. Paragraph 6B of the One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale) requires that within 20 days after the Title Company receives a copy of the contract, the seller furnish the buyer a commitment for title insurance and, at the buyer's expense, legible copies of the restrictive covenants and the documents evidencing exceptions in the commitment — the Exception Documents — other than the standard printed exceptions (TREC form 20-19, PDF).

If it is not delivered on time, delivery is "automatically extended up to 15 days or 3 days before the Closing Date, whichever is earlier." If it is still not delivered within the time required, "Buyer may terminate this contract and the earnest money will be refunded to Buyer."

Two practical notes. The 20 days runs from when the title company receives the contract, not from the effective date — so a file that sits unopened for a week has already eaten a week. And the Exception Documents are furnished at the buyer's expense and are the part buyers routinely fail to request. The commitment names the recorded instruments; the instruments are where the restriction actually lives.

Schedule A — the deal facts

The boring schedule, and the one with the most costly typos.

Schedule A states the effective date of the commitment, the policy amount, the proposed insured, the current record owner, the estate or interest being insured, and the legal description of the land.

Check four things:

The proposed insured name is exactly how the buyer will take title. "John and Jane Smith" is not the same as "Smith Family Trust" or "Smith Holdings LLC," and changing it later means re-issuing documents.
The legal description matches the property being bought. On acreage, a metes-and-bounds description that does not match the survey has to be resolved before closing.
The record owner is the person signing your contract. Probate, divorce, an unreleased partner interest, a dissolved entity — all real, all fixable, none fast.
The policy amount is the sales price for an owner's policy and the loan amount for a lender's policy.

Schedule B — what the policy will not cover

Schedule B is the exceptions list, and everything on it is excluded from coverage. Recorded restrictive covenants, easements of record, mineral and royalty interests previously reserved, taxes for the current and subsequent years, rights of parties in possession, and the survey exception.

This is where the property's actual encumbrances live. A pipeline easement. A shared driveway. A deed restriction limiting use. A prior mineral reservation, which in much of Texas means the surface owner does not own what is underneath — and which TREC addresses with its own promulgated form, the Addendum for Reservation of Oil, Gas, and Other Minerals, form 44-3, effective 02/01/2023 (TREC contract forms).

Ask for the documents. A one-line reference to a recorded instrument tells you nothing; the instrument tells you everything.

Schedule C — what must be cured before closing

Schedule C is the schedule that moves your closing date.

It lists the requirements the title company must see satisfied before it will issue the policy: releases of existing liens, payoff of the seller's mortgage, a death certificate and affidavit of heirship, probate documents, a corrected legal description, a missing signature from a spouse under Texas homestead and community property rules, a judgment lien to be released, unpaid taxes, an old unreleased deed of trust from a lender that no longer exists.

Some of these are routine and clear in days. Some take weeks and depend on a third party who has no stake in your closing date — a court, an out-of-state heir, a defunct lender's successor servicer.

The operational rule is simple and widely ignored: read Schedule C the day the commitment arrives, and ask the escrow officer which items are already in hand and which are not. A Schedule C item that nobody starts working until the week of closing is the most common reason a Texas closing slips.

Curing a title defect is legal work. A Texas real estate attorney handles what the title company cannot cure administratively.

Schedule D — disclosure

Schedule D discloses the underwriter, the title agent's ownership, and how the premium and fees are to be distributed among the parties involved in issuing the policy. It is a transparency schedule required by regulation. Most buyers skim it. It is worth a look if you want to know who actually underwrites the policy behind the local office.

The survey exception, and how it gets amended

The standard exception covers "discrepancies, conflicts, shortages in area or boundary lines, encroachments or protrusions, or overlapping improvements." In plain terms: anything a survey would have shown is not covered.

The contract handles it as a checkbox. Paragraph 6A(8) gives exactly two choices: the standard printed exception "will not be amended or deleted from the title policy," or it "will be amended to read, 'shortages in area'" at the expense of the buyer or the seller (TREC form 20-19, PDF). Amending it narrows the exception down to area shortages and restores coverage for the rest.

Getting there requires a survey the title company and lender will rely on, and Paragraph 6C is another check one box only election. The survey must be made by a registered professional land surveyor acceptable to the Title Company and the buyer's lender. The three boxes:

Seller furnishes the existing survey plus a T-47 Affidavit or T-47.1 Declaration within a stated number of days. If the seller fails to furnish both in time, "Buyer shall obtain a new survey at Seller's expense no later than 3 days prior to Closing Date." And if the Title Company or the buyer's lender does not accept the existing survey or the affidavit, a new survey is obtained at whichever party's expense the box says, on the same 3-days-before-closing outside date.
Buyer obtains a new survey at Buyer's expense within a stated number of days. The form adds a consequence: if the buyer fails to obtain it, the buyer "may not terminate the contract under Paragraph 2B of the Third Party Financing Addendum because the survey was not obtained."
Seller furnishes a new survey at Seller's expense within a stated number of days.

The underlying forms are the T-47 Residential Real Property Affidavit, which is notarized (TDI), and the T-47.1 Residential Real Property Declaration in Lieu of Affidavit, seller-signed but not notarized, effective November 1, 2024 (TDI). The contract names both by name.

The failure mode is specific: the seller added a deck, a pool, a fence or a barn after the old survey. The affidavit cannot truthfully say nothing changed, the existing survey is not acceptable, and a new survey has to be ordered — often late, and under box (1) potentially at the seller's expense. Identifying that on day two instead of day twenty is worth more than any other single thing on this page.

Paragraph 6D: objections, the Cure Period, and the Schedule C carve-out

This is the machinery that decides whether a problem you found is a problem you can act on.

The deadline. The buyer must object in writing by "the earlier of (i) the Closing Date or (ii) [a stated number of] days after Buyer receives the Commitment, Exception Documents, and the survey." Whichever comes first.

Waiver. Failing to object in time "will constitute a waiver of Buyer's right to object." Then the carve-out that matters: "except that the requirements in Schedule C of the Commitment are not waived by Buyer." Schedule C requirements survive a missed objection deadline. Schedule B exceptions do not.

The Cure Period. Provided the seller is not obligated to incur any expense, the seller cures timely objections within a 15-day Cure Period, and the Closing Date extends as necessary. Read that condition: the seller's cure obligation is bounded by "not obligated to incur any expense," which is why a seller can decline to cure a costly item without defaulting.

The buyer's move after that. If objections are not cured, the buyer has 5 days after the end of the Cure Period to terminate — earnest money refunded — or to waive. Silence is a waiver.

Restarts. A revised Commitment, a revised survey, or a new Exception Document restarts the same objection window as to the new matter. A commitment that gets amended late in the deal is not just paperwork; it reopens a right.

The contract also tells the buyer, in the form's own words, to get help: Paragraph 6E(1) states that "Broker advises Buyer to have an abstract of title covering the Property examined by an attorney of Buyer's selection," and that if a Title Policy is furnished, the "Commitment should be promptly reviewed by an attorney of Buyer's choice due to the time limitations on Buyer's right to object." The word "promptly" is in the promulgated form for a reason.

The sequence that works

Contract effective. Confirm the title company actually received the contract — the 20-day clock in 6B starts there.
Commitment arrives. Read Schedule A for accuracy and Schedule C for schedule risk the same day.
Request the Exception Documents and read the restrictions and easements, not just the one-line references.
Resolve the 6C survey box early enough that a "the lender won't accept it" answer still leaves time.
Object in writing inside the 6D window — the earlier of the Closing Date or the stated day count.
Calendar the 15-day Cure Period and the 5 days that follow it.

Questions about a specific property?

Call or text 830-446-3847 · Email heath.shepard@kw.com

This page explains how a Texas title commitment is organized. It is not legal advice. For a title defect, a curative requirement, or the effect of a recorded restriction on your plans, talk with a Texas real estate attorney.