What does a Texas home improvement contract have to include?

Texas requires 6 categories of contract language for home improvement work: 6 apply to every contract and 0 trigger on job facts such as the down payment or the total price.

Rules verified 8 Aug 2026Ruleset states-tx-2026-08.2Tex. Prop. Code ch. 53 (mechanic's, contractor's, or materialman's lien)

No contract produced
Bracketsight does not generate Texas contracts. 3 required clauses have wording the statute prescribes, and it has not been transcribed.
A paraphrase of prescribed notice text is not a weaker clause — it is a non-compliant contract. The generator fails closed rather than print something that looks official and is not. The clause table below links each one to its statute.
Unverified wording
The clause language on this page is UNVERIFIED template text awaiting construction attorney review.
Which clauses Texas triggers is encoded from the statutes cited below; the exact wording is not yet confirmed against primary sources. Use it as a starting point and have an attorney review the contract you sign.

Key Texas home improvement contract facts
Written-contract threshold	No general threshold
Required clause categories	6
Apply to every contract	6
Trigger on job facts	0
License number on the contract	No statewide rule
Clauses with untranscribed statutory text	3
Prohibited terms listed	2

Tex. Prop. Code ch. 53; Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 601 (no display duty in either) — Verified by ABSENCE — neither Prop. Code ch. 53 nor Bus. & Com. ch. 601 imposes a licence-display duty. Absence is weaker evidence than a positive cite; re-confirm when statutes.capitol.texas.gov is reachable. Trade work requiring a state licence (plumbing, electrical, HVAC) is licensed under its own Occupations Code chapter.

Which clauses does Texas require, and when?

6 required clause categories in Texas, with their triggers and statutes
Clause	When it applies	Statute
Homestead lien disclosureUNVERIFIED — ATTORNEY REVIEW REQUIRED. [Template] NOTICE: This contract is subject to Chapter 53 of the Texas Property Code. If this property is your homestead, a contractor may not obtain a valid lien unless this contract is signed by both spouses (if married) before any work begins and is filed with the county clerk of the county where the homestead is located.	Every contract	Tex. Prop. Code §53.254
Disclosure statement for residential construction contractThe statute prescribes a form this notice must read substantially similar to. Bracketsight does not reproduce it until it has been transcribed from the statute, so no contract is generated for Texas. Read the statutory text	Every contract	Tex. Prop. Code §53.255
Right to cancel (home solicitation)The statute prescribes this notice word-for-word. Bracketsight does not reproduce it until it has been transcribed from the statute, so no contract is generated for Texas. Read the statutory text	Every contract	Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §601.052
Notice of cancellation formThe statute prescribes this notice word-for-word. Bracketsight does not reproduce it until it has been transcribed from the statute, so no contract is generated for Texas. Read the statutory text	Every contract	Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §601.053
Licensing disclosureUNVERIFIED — ATTORNEY REVIEW REQUIRED. [Template] Texas does not license general residential construction contractors statewide. Trade work included in this contract that requires a state license (plumbing, electrical, HVAC) will be performed by appropriately licensed tradespeople, whose license numbers are available on request.	Every contract	Tex. Occ. Code (trade-specific chapters)
Final payment — bills-paid affidavitUNVERIFIED — ATTORNEY REVIEW REQUIRED. [Template] At final payment, the contractor will furnish an affidavit stating that all bills for labor and materials incorporated into the improvements have been paid or will be paid from the final payment, as provided by Texas Property Code §53.259.	Every contract	Tex. Prop. Code §53.259

Getting the words right is only half of it

Prescribed wording arrives with rules about how it appears on the page. 2 of Texas’s 6 clause categories carry them, and the ruleset records each one in the statute’s own terms even though nothing on this site can set a per-clause type size yet. A 12-point boldface notice printed at body size fails the statute as surely as a paraphrase does, so these sit behind the transcription problem as a second blocker — and they are the reason transcribing the words would not, on its own, produce a usable Texas contract.

Disclosure statement for residential construction contract — Tex. Prop. Code §53.255
§53.255 prescribes a form that 'must read substantially similar to' the statutory text. Substantial compliance suffices — unlike §601.053 — but the form still has to be transcribed before it can be adapted.
Structure, for transcription review only — NOT a substitute for the wording: opens 'KNOW YOUR RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES UNDER THE LAW.' and carries the headed sections GET IT IN WRITING and READ BEFORE YOU SIGN.
sourceUrl is a SECONDARY host (texas.public.law). statutes.capitol.texas.gov was DNS-unreachable at the 2026-08-15 pass. Transcribe from the state's own site once it resolves.
Right to cancel (home solicitation) — Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §601.052
Required on the page: at least 10-point type; boldface; placement: In immediate proximity to the space reserved for the buyer's signature, or on the front of the receipt..
The statement is prescribed word-for-word. The removed placeholder wrapped it in an added conditional and substituted 'consumer' for 'buyer'; both alter prescribed text.
Not modelled by this schema: §601.052 also obliges the merchant to deliver a receipt or copy of the contract showing the transaction date and the merchant's name and address.
sourceUrl is a SECONDARY host (texas.public.law). Transcribe from statutes.capitol.texas.gov once it resolves.
Notice of cancellation form — Tex. Bus. & Com. Code §601.053
Required on the page: at least 10-point type; boldface; placement: A separate, easily detachable form attached to the contract or receipt, supplied in duplicate.; supplied in duplicate; easily detachable from the contract.
This is a separate FORM, not a paragraph of the contract. The schema can record 'in duplicate' and 'easily detachable' but nothing downstream can yet produce a detachable duplicate — resolve that before rendering.
Subject matter, for transcription review only — NOT a substitute for the wording: the three-business-day cancellation window; return of traded-in property and payments within 10 business days; cancellation of any security interest; the consumer's duty to make goods available to the merchant; the 20-day abandonment rule.
sourceUrl is a SECONDARY host (texas.public.law). Transcribe from statutes.capitol.texas.gov once it resolves.

The same job facts select 6 of 6 clauses here

Take a job priced at $12,000 with $3,000 taken up front — a quarter down, which is ordinary practice and is not lawful everywhere. Run those two numbers through Texas’s triggers and 6 of the 6 clause categories apply. The table below is the engine’s own output: the reason column is the sentence the generator writes when it selects or skips a clause, not a description of one.

Which Texas clauses a $12,000 job with a $3,000 deposit selects, with the engine's reason for each
Clause	At these facts	Why
Homestead lien disclosure	Fires	Required in every home-improvement contract.
Disclosure statement for residential construction contract	Fires	Required in every home-improvement contract.
Right to cancel (home solicitation)	Fires	Required in every home-improvement contract.
Notice of cancellation form	Fires	Required in every home-improvement contract.
Licensing disclosure	Fires	Required in every home-improvement contract.
Final payment — bills-paid affidavit	Fires	Required in every home-improvement contract.

No Texas clause in this ruleset keys on the deposit: every one of them applies to the job whatever the payment schedule looks like. The down-payment figure on your sheet changes the document’s numbers without changing which clauses it carries — which is not the case in every state encoded here, where the same figure decides whether a notice appears at all.

Texas encodes no dollar threshold at all. Nothing here switches on job size: a small repair carries the same clause categories as a whole-house remodel, and the verification pass found no statewide written-contract threshold to encode. That is the opposite shape from the other four states, where a price has to be cleared before the rules bite.

What cannot go in a Texas home improvement contract?

Waiver of the consumer's cancellation rights under ch. 601
Prospective waiver of mechanic's lien rights by subcontractors (restricted under Prop. Code ch. 53)

Who actually read the Texas statute

No Texas rule on this page has been read from the State of Texas. statutes.capitol.texas.gov did not resolve from the verification environment, so every Texas item rests on texas.public.law, a secondary host. The content is corroborated; the authority is not, and the citation links above point at a host that failed to answer. Two of the three prescribed forms were missing from the ruleset entirely before the August 2026 pass — including the separate Notice of Cancellation form, which the cancellation clause had been telling the customer was attached.

A citation nobody has opened is not a citation, and a secondary host is a cross-check rather than an authority, so those distinctions are recorded against each Texas rule instead of being averaged into a confidence badge. A second kind of gap is logged the same way: in three of the five states the drafted contract-contents clause lists fewer elements than its own section enumerates, which makes a generated contract incomplete rather than misworded. Neither failure is visible from the document itself, which is why the states-tx-2026-08.2 ruleset behind this page keeps its record in the open on sources and in the changelog.

None of this is legal advice, and none of it substitutes for a construction attorney reading the contract you intend to sign. What it can do is tell you which of Texas’s 6 clause categories your job’s numbers trigger and exactly where the statute behind each one lives, so the conversation with an attorney starts from the text instead of from a blank page — and so a missing clause is something you find before a customer’s lawyer does.

Why there is no Texas contract to build

The generator refuses Texas until the prescribed notice text is transcribed from the statute. You can still price the job, and the takeoff sheet and invoice work normally — but the price is an estimate, not a binding quote.