Hiring a Buyer's Agent at Montebello From Another State: The Questions, and the Documents Behind Them

Who walks the home when you cannot, and what is that person's report required to cover?

The person who walks it is an inspector you select, and the inspector is required to inspect only the components and conditions that are present, visible and accessible at the time of the inspection. Under the Texas Real Estate Commission's Residential Condominium Contract (Resale), form 30-17, the seller shall permit buyer and buyer's agents access to the property at reasonable times, and the buyer may have the property inspected by inspectors selected by the buyer and licensed by TREC or otherwise permitted by law to make inspections. So the first question to an agent is whose name goes on that selection, and who pays the inspector.

The commission's Property Inspection Report form, REI 7-6, states what the exercise is, and that statement is the standard any answer about the inspection is measured against.

The same form says the inspection is governed by the Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC) Standards of Practice (SOPs), which dictate the minimum requirements for a real estate inspection. Minimum is the word to keep hold of: the Standards of Practice set a floor rather than a ceiling, so ask what the inspector will do above it and get the answer before the appointment is booked.

The form also lists what the inspector is not required to do, and two items on that list decide what somebody in another state still has to arrange. The inspector is not required to prioritize or emphasize the importance of one deficiency over another, and is not required to provide follow-up services to verify that proper repairs have been made. Items identified as Deficient do not obligate any party to make repairs or take other actions, and where further evaluations are needed it is the client's responsibility to obtain further evaluations or cost estimates from qualified service professionals regarding any items reported as Deficient, with the form recommending that they take place prior to the expiration of any contractual time limitations, such as option periods. Ask who books those further evaluations, and against which date.

The report itself is provided for the benefit of the named client and rests on observations made by the named inspector on the date the inspection was performed, and only those items specifically noted as being inspected on the report were inspected. Ask whose name goes in as client, since that is the person the document is written for.

Chapter 1102 of the Texas Occupations Code turns who hired the inspector into a question with a checkable answer. A person may not act as a professional inspector in this state for a buyer or seller of real property unless the person holds a professional inspector license under that chapter. An inspector may not perform a real estate inspection in a negligent or incompetent manner, may not accept an assignment where the employment or a fee is contingent on the reporting of a specific, predetermined condition of the improvements to real property or of specific findings other than those the inspector knows to be true when the assignment is accepted, and may not act in a transaction in the dual capacity of inspector and undisclosed principal, or of inspector and broker or salesperson. Ask for the license, and ask what relationship the inspector has to anybody else in the file.

No source read for this page governs how a home is shown. What the documents govern is the inspection, the association's paperwork, the signing and the money, so every question that follows is one a document already answers.

Who owes you the association's documents, and what clock does each one start?

The selling unit owner owes you the documents, and the association owes that owner the certificate. Under Section 82.157 of the Texas Property Code, and except as provided by its Subsection (c), a unit owner other than a declarant who intends to sell a unit must, before executing a contract or conveying the unit, furnish the purchaser a current copy of the declaration, the bylaws, any association rules, and a resale certificate that must have been prepared not earlier than three months before the date it is delivered to the purchaser.

The association's clock is worth asking about by its starting point rather than by its length. Not later than the 10th day after the date of receiving a written request by a unit owner, the association shall furnish the selling unit owner or the owner's agent a resale certificate signed and dated by an officer or authorized agent. So the question is when that written request went in. Where the association does not furnish the certificate or the required information within that period, the same section allows the owner to provide a sworn affidavit in lieu of it, owner and purchaser may then agree in writing to waive the requirement, and failure to provide a certificate does not void a deed.

Ask which of two things the contract you will be handed carries, because Section 82.156 of the Texas Property Code hangs a right on them. A purchaser of a unit from a unit owner other than a declarant who has not received the declaration, bylaws and association rules before executing a contract of sale, or whose contract contains no underlined or bold-print provision acknowledging the purchaser's receipt of those documents and recommending that the purchaser read them before executing the contract, may cancel before the sixth day after the date the purchaser receives those documents. A purchaser in that position who has not received a resale certificate before executing a contract may cancel before the sixth day after receiving the certificate or executing a waiver under Section 82.157, whichever occurs first. The cancellation has to be by hand-delivering written notice of cancellation to the declarant or selling unit owner, or by mailing notice of cancellation by certified United States mail, return receipt requested, to the offeror or the offeror's agent for service of process, within the five-day cancellation period, and it is without penalty, with all payments made before cancellation refunded.

Form 30-17 keeps its own windows beside the statute. Where the buyer has not received the Documents or the Certificate at signing, the buyer may terminate within 7 days after receiving the Documents, and within 7 days after the date the buyer receives the Certificate, by giving written notice of termination to seller, with the earnest money refunded and the buyer retaining rights to terminate under Section 82.156. The form also requires the Certificate to be in a form promulgated by TREC or required by the parties, prepared at seller's expense not more than three months before the date it is delivered, and to contain at a minimum the information required by Section 82.157.

Reading from another state is worth something because of what Section 82.157 attaches to the paper: a purchaser, lender or title insurer who relies on a resale certificate is not liable for any debt or claim that is not disclosed in the certificate, and an association may not deny the validity of any statement in it. Montebello is 98 homes on 30 floors at 1100 Uptown Park Boulevard in Houston, built in 2003, from the operator's building record read in September 2026, so ask which home the certificate in front of you belongs to and on what date it was prepared.

What should you ask about signing a closing from another state?

Ask who has to appear, and where, and note that a statute settles that for one person only. Section 406.110(a) of the Texas Government Code speaks about the principal.

An online notarization means a notarial act performed by means of two-way video and audio conference technology that meets the standards adopted under Section 406.104, and an online notary public has the authority to perform any of the functions authorized under Section 406.016 as an online notarization. Section 406.110(a) says where the principal may be. It says nothing about where anybody else in the transaction may be, so ask the agent who will put that question to the closing office, and when. The step-by-step of a remote purchase is carried by Buying a Home at Montebello Without Seeing It: Inspections by Proxy and a Remote Closing.

Then ask what happens if somebody signs in your place under a durable power of attorney, because acceptance is governed rather than discretionary. Unless one or more grounds for refusal under Section 751.206 of the Texas Estates Code exist, a person who is presented with and asked to accept a durable power of attorney by an agent with authority to act under it shall accept it, or before accepting it request an agent's certification under Section 751.203 or an opinion of counsel under Section 751.204 not later than the 10th business day after the date the power of attorney is presented, except as provided by Subsection (c), or, if applicable, request an English translation under Section 751.205 not later than the fifth business day after that date. The same two conditions govern the deadline after that. Unless a ground for refusal exists, and except as Subsection (c) provides, a person who requests a certification or an opinion must then accept not later than the seventh business day after the date the person receives it. The parties may agree to extend either period, and a person is not required to accept where the agent refuses to provide or does not provide what was requested.

Section 751.206 opens its list of grounds with two, and the list continues there. The first is that the person would not otherwise be required to engage in a transaction with the principal under the same circumstances. The second is that engaging in the transaction with the agent or with the principal under the same circumstances would be inconsistent with another law of this state or a federal statute, rule or regulation, with a request from a law enforcement agency, or with a policy the person adopted in good faith that is necessary to comply with such a law, rule, regulation, regulatory directive, guidance or executive order applicable to that person. A person who refuses must give the agent a written statement of the reason or reasons, except in the case Subsection (b) of Section 751.207 provides for, and must do so on or before the date acceptance would otherwise have been due. So ask when the instrument will be presented, since each of those deadlines counts from the date of presentation.

One limit belongs beside all of it. Form 30-17 prints its own line that TREC rules prohibit real estate brokers and sales agents from giving legal advice, so an answer about how a signature will be taken is an answer about arrangements, and the legal question goes to your own lawyer and to the title company handling the file.

How will the money reach the closing table, and what does the bureau say goes wrong?

Ask who will send the wiring instructions, on what channel, and how a change to them would be checked before anybody acts on it, because a change to those instructions is what the bureau describes going wrong.

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, in alert I-060923-PSA published in June 2023, says the scam targets all participants in real estate transactions, including buyers, sellers, real estate attorneys, title companies and agents. Once a perpetrator gains access to a participant's email account, they are able to monitor the proceeding and often time the fraudulent request for a change in payment type, frequently from check to wire transfer, or a change from one bank account to a different bank account under their control. The funds may also be transferred on to a secondary fraudulent domestic or international account.

The same announcement reports a 27 percent increase in victim reports to the centre of these incidents with a real estate nexus from calendar years 2020 to 2022, and a 72 percent increase in victim loss of them over those same years.

The prevention line is one sentence, and it is the one to hold an agent to: use secondary channels or two-factor authentication to verify requests for changes in account information. The centre's later announcement, alert I-091124-PSA published in September 2024, gives the same instruction as secondary channels and/or two-factor authentication, and defines the underlying scam as one targeting both businesses and individuals who perform legitimate transfer-of-funds requests, frequently carried out when an individual compromises legitimate business or personal email accounts through social engineering or computer intrusion to conduct unauthorized transfers of funds. Ask what that second channel will be for your file, and who holds the number it dials.

Ask the same question about the other direction, before it is needed. On discovering a fraudulent transfer, the centre's instruction is to contact your financial institution and request a recall of the funds along with any necessary indemnification documents, and to file a complaint with the centre regardless of the amount lost, and it notes that different financial institutions have varying policies. Knowing who makes that call, and from which time zone, is part of the answer a buyer at a distance is hiring for.

What should an agent warn you about before closing that has nothing to do with the home?

The address on your driver's license. Except as provided by Subsection (p), Section 11.43 of the Texas Tax Code provides that a chief appraiser may not allow an applicant an exemption provided by Section 11.13 where the applicant is required under Subsection (j) to provide a copy of the applicant's driver's license or state-issued personal identification certificate unless the address listed on it corresponds to the address of the property for which the exemption is claimed.

Both halves of that sentence are the rule. It binds where the applicant is required under Subsection (j) to provide the license, and it opens with the exception the statute keeps in Subsection (p). Somebody moving in from another state may still carry a license issued somewhere else, which is why the question worth putting to an agent is whether they raise this before closing rather than after, and the answer to act on comes from the appraisal district.

The rest of that chapter's calendar is carried by Buying a Home at Montebello Without Seeing It: Inspections by Proxy and a Remote Closing.

What has to be in the agreement you sign before any home is shown?

The items the National Association of REALTORS names are the services the agent will provide, what they will be paid for those services, and the length of the agreement, and its guide says all of that is negotiable. Texas answers a different question in Subsection (b) of Section 1101.563 of the Texas Occupations Code, which is when the agreement is signed. That subsection binds the license holder rather than the buyer, and it was added by Acts 2025, 89th Legislature, Regular Session, Chapter 1172 (S.B. 1968), Section 10, effective January 1, 2026.

That subsection names two events. A license holder who performs any act of real estate brokerage for a prospective buyer of residential real property must enter into the written agreement before showing any residential real property to that buyer, or, where none will be shown, before presenting an offer to purchase residential real property on the buyer's behalf. The second of those is the one that reaches a buyer who is somewhere else. So ask when the agreement will be put in front of you, and which of those two events it will come before.

What goes in it is answered by the National Association of REALTORS in its Consumer Guide to Written Buyer Agreements, read in September 2026. That guide has the agreement signed before touring a home with the professional, in person or virtually, and says visiting an open house alone or asking a professional about their services calls for no agreement. It says any aspect is negotiable, naming the services you want to receive, the length of the agreement and the compensation, if any, among them. It says compensation is negotiable rather than set by law, and that in the written agreement the compensation has to be clearly defined instead of open-ended or a range. It also says a buyer should only sign an agreement that reflects what was agreed.

The same body's Consumer Guide: Ten Questions to Ask a Buyer's Agent, read in September 2026, adds three items a buyer at a distance can check. An agent must be licensed where you are buying a home, and should also have the market knowledge to help find a home where you are searching. How long you will work together is worth agreeing, and that term could be set out in the written buyer agreement. And many agents will be happy to connect a buyer with satisfied clients they have worked with in the past who can speak to their experience.

Two qualifiers travel with that guidance: the association's note that its consumer guides do not constitute any change in its policy, and its closing line that practices may vary based on state and local law. Exits belong in the same reading, since the guide says a buyer and the professional can mutually agree to change an agreement, and that agreements may have specific conditions under which they can be exited. Read the text of the agreement, and take the legal question to your own lawyer.

What can this page not tell you?

It cannot tell you what any particular agent will actually do, since nothing here was asked of anybody and those answers are yours to collect. It cannot tell you what a title company, a lender or an escrow agent will accept in a given closing, since no source read here binds one, and the acceptance statute governs a person presented with a durable power of attorney rather than a company's own policy.

It cannot tell you what Montebello's own declaration and rules provide, since they were not read here. It cannot tell you what the inspection on one home will find, since a report is one inspector's visual survey on one day, made by the named inspector on the date it was performed. It cannot tell you what a home here is worth.

Somebody buying at Montebello from another state who wants these questions answered for a particular home can put them to Paige Martin of Real Broker, LLC.