What is the Amendment to Contract in a Texas real estate deal?

The Amendment to Contract is the TREC form used to change the terms of a contract that is already in effect: price, closing date, repairs, option period. It takes effect only when every party signs and it is delivered. The current version is TREC form 39-11, effective 07/01/2026. It changes a contract. It does not end one.

What it is

Once a Texas contract is executed, its terms are the terms. There is no informal editing. If the parties want to change something — the price after an inspection, the closing date after an underwriting delay, a repair obligation, the length of the option period — they do it in writing with the Amendment to Contract, TREC form 39-11 (TREC contract forms). The form carries a footer date of 05-04-2026 and is effective 07/01/2026 (TREC form 39-11, PDF).

It is a short form that does exactly one job: it restates the specific terms that are changing and leaves everything else intact. Anything the amendment does not touch still governs.

"Check each applicable box" — this is not a one-thing-at-a-time form

The instruction printed at the top reads: "Seller and Buyer amend the contract as follows: (check each applicable box)" (TREC form 39-11, PDF).

Check each applicable box, not one. A single amendment can move the closing date, adjust the price and extend the option period at once, and in a real negotiation it usually should — one document, one round of signatures, one delivery, one version of the truth. Splitting three changes across three amendments is three chances for one of them to sit unsigned in an inbox.

The corollary: an unchecked box is not a change. A number written into item 3 with the item 3 box left blank is an argument, not an amendment.

The ten items, walked

The Sales Price in Paragraph 3. Broken into A, the cash portion payable at closing; B, the sum of all financing described in the contract; and C, the Sales Price, which is the sum of A and B. All three lines get filled. A price change that adjusts C without reconciling A and B against the financing addendum produces a contract that does not add up.
Repairs and treatments. "In addition to any repairs and treatments otherwise required by the contract, Seller, at Seller's expense, shall complete the following repairs and treatments," followed by the printed notice: "(Notice: Paragraph 7 of the contract governs the completion, delivery of documentation, and transfer of warranties of repairs and treatments.)" The amendment creates the obligation; Paragraph 7 of the contract controls how it gets performed, documented and warranted. Writing a repair into item 2 does not rewrite Paragraph 7.
The date in Paragraph 9 — the closing date. The most common amendment there is.
The amount in Paragraph 12A(1)(b) — the cap on the seller's contribution toward the buyer's expenses.
The amounts in Paragraph 12B — brokerage compensation contributions, with dollar or percentage-of-sales-price checkboxes for each party.
Lender required repairs and treatment, itemized on an attached list and split "$___ by Seller; $___ by Buyer." This is where a Property Approval problem under the Third Party Financing Addendum gets resolved instead of terminated.
Option period extension. Its own section below.
Waiver of the option right. "Buyer waives the unrestricted right to terminate the contract for which the option fee was paid." Checking this box ends the buyer's clean walk-away early, on purpose, usually to give a seller certainty in exchange for something.
The Buyer Approval notice date under the Third Party Financing Addendum: "The date for Buyer to give written notice to Seller that Buyer cannot obtain Buyer Approval as set forth in the Third Party Financing Addendum is changed to ___."
Other Modifications, with a printed warning that deserves its own section too.

Item 7 is how a Texas option period actually gets extended

This is the part people handle by text message, and it does not work by text message.

Item 7 reads: "Buyer has paid Seller an additional option fee of $___ for an extension of the unrestricted right to terminate the contract on or before 5:00 p.m. on ___. This additional option fee will / will not be credited to the Sales Price" (TREC form 39-11, PDF).

Three distinct things have to be decided, and all three are on the form:

An additional option fee, stated as a dollar amount. The extension is bought, the same way the original option was bought.
A new expiration, written as a date with 5:00 p.m. already printed on the form. Not "another week." A date.
A separate election on whether that additional fee is credited to the Sales Price. The original option fee is credited at closing under Paragraph 5A(4) of the contract. The additional fee under item 7 is credited only if the parties check that it is. This is the box that gets skipped, and it is real money.

The extension also has to be executed before the existing option period runs out. Paragraph 5B of the contract grants the unrestricted right to terminate only "within [ ] days after the Effective Date," with notice due by 5:00 p.m. local time, and Paragraph 5E adds: "Time is of the essence for this paragraph and strict compliance with the time for performance is required" (TREC form 20-19, PDF). An amendment signed the morning after the option expired does not revive a right that already ended. There is nothing left to extend.

Delivery mechanics are worth confirming rather than assuming. The original option fee goes to the escrow agent — the title company — within three days after the effective date (TREC). The additional option fee in item 7 is described on the form as paid to Seller. Who holds it, and when it actually moved, is something to confirm in the transaction rather than infer.

Item 9 moves a financing deadline, and it points at a specific paragraph

Item 9 changes "the date for Buyer to give written notice to Seller that Buyer cannot obtain Buyer Approval as set forth in the Third Party Financing Addendum."

That is the Paragraph 2A deadline on the financing addendum — the borrower-side window, counted in days after the effective date. It matters because of what happens when it passes: under the addendum, if the buyer does not terminate under 2A, the contract is no longer subject to the buyer obtaining Buyer Approval at all. Item 9 is the only clean way to move that date, and like item 7 it has to be executed before the date it is moving.

Item 9 does not touch Property Approval under Paragraph 2B, which runs to the 3rd day before the Closing Date on its own terms.

Item 10 exists, and the form itself warns you about it

Item 10 is Other Modifications, and TREC prints the warning right on it: "(Real estate brokers and sales agents are prohibited from practicing law.)" The form's footer repeats it: "CONSULT AN ATTORNEY BEFORE SIGNING: TREC rules prohibit real estate brokers and sales agents from giving legal advice. READ THIS FORM CAREFULLY."

That warning is the hinge of this entire form. Items 1 through 9 are blanks a license holder fills in. Item 10 is a blank space, and blank space is where drafting happens.

A leaseback. A holdback for unfinished work. A contingency tied to the sale of another property. A carve-out on a fixture. A payment structure that does not exist anywhere in the promulgated forms. Every one of those is language somebody has to write, and a license holder writing it is practicing law. That is work for a Texas real estate attorney, and paying for a paragraph is cheaper than litigating one.

The execution block, and the date of final acceptance

The form ends with "EXECUTED the ___ day of ___, 20___. (BROKER: FILL IN THE DATE OF FINAL ACCEPTANCE.)"

That instruction is directed at the broker for a reason. The date of final acceptance is the date the last party signed and that signature was delivered — not the date the first party signed, not the date somebody agreed on the phone. Every deadline the amendment creates or moves is measured against real dates, and a wrong date on an amendment propagates the same way a wrong effective date on a contract does.

The two rules that make or break any amendment

1. Every party signs. A buyer-signed amendment sitting in an inbox is a proposal. An amendment on a contract with two sellers needs both sellers. An amendment on a property held by an entity needs whoever is authorized to bind the entity. A missing signature does not create a partially amended contract; it creates no amendment at all.

2. It has to be delivered. Signed and sitting on someone's desk is not delivered. The original contract's notice and delivery provisions apply to the amendment the same way they apply to everything else.

Both rules get broken constantly, usually under time pressure, and usually by someone assuming that a text-message agreement is the deal. A verbal "we agreed to extend closing a week" is not an extension. The closing date in the executed contract is still the closing date until an amendment says otherwise.

Write repairs like someone will have to enforce them

The contract prints its own drafting warning on the repairs blank: "Do not insert general phrases, such as 'subject to inspections' that do not identify specific repairs and treatments" (TREC form 20-19, PDF).

Apply that to item 2 of the amendment. "Seller to complete repairs" without naming the repair, the standard of completion and who verifies it is an argument waiting to happen at the final walkthrough. Specific beats generous.

Paragraph 7D of the contract confirms the amendment is the right instrument for this: accepting the property As Is "does not preclude Buyer from inspecting the Property under Paragraph 7A, from negotiating repairs or treatments in a subsequent amendment, or from terminating this contract during the Option Period." That is the amendment's job in a deal — it is what turns an inspection report into an obligation.

An amendment is not a termination

Different instruments, different outcomes.

Amendment to Contract, form 39-11 — changes terms; the contract continues.
Notice of Buyer's Termination of Contract, form 38-8, effective 04/01/2025 — the buyer ends the contract.
Notice of Seller's Termination of Contract, form 50-0, effective 08/13/2018 — the seller ends it under the circumstances the contract allows.

Using an amendment to try to end a deal, or a termination notice to try to change a term, does not produce the intended result.

Related point on money: earnest money is held by the title company and cannot be released to either party without mutual agreement or a court order. A contract that ends in disagreement leaves funds in escrow regardless of who believes they are right, and an amendment cannot unilaterally move that money either — it takes everyone's signature, which is the same rule as everything else on this page.

The underlying contract for an ordinary resale is form 20-19, effective 07/01/2026 (TREC). Condominiums, builder new construction and farm and ranch use different promulgated contracts, and the amendment attaches to whichever contract the parties actually signed.

The practical version

Check every box that applies, fill the blanks with dates and dollar amounts instead of intentions, get every signature, deliver it, and execute it before the deadline it changes. Every amendment failure is one of those five steps missing.

Questions about a specific property?

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

This page explains how the TREC Amendment to Contract works. It is not legal advice. A license holder can fill in blanks but cannot draft contract language — the form says so on item 10 — so for custom terms, talk with a Texas real estate attorney.