What the statute exempts, and what it leaves alone
Selling a Huntingdon Unit After a Death in the Property
Updated September 2026
Does Texas require a seller or an agent to disclose that someone died in a home at The Huntingdon?
Section 5.008(c) of the Texas Property Code names three kinds of death a seller and a seller's agent have no duty to disclose, and none of the 14 statements a condominium resale certificate must contain asks about one (read September 2026).
Paige Martin, Houston Properties Team, The Huntingdon
Source: Texas Property Code, Section 5.008 (Seller's Disclosure of Property Condition), September 2026.
Does Texas require a seller to disclose a death in the home?
Section 5.008(c) of the Texas Property Code answers this in the Legislature's own words. A seller or seller's agent shall have no duty to make a disclosure or release information related to whether a death by natural causes, suicide, or accident unrelated to the condition of the property occurred on the property, or whether a previous occupant had, may have had, has, or may have AIDS, HIV related illnesses, or HIV infection.
Count the kinds of death that subsection names, because the count is the point: natural causes, suicide, and an accident unrelated to the condition of the property. Three. The subsection is a list of what carries no duty, and it stops where its own words stop, so a death that is none of those three sits outside them and the subsection addresses it nowhere else.
The subsection's second clause is about a previous occupant's health, and it is statutory wording rather than a statement about anyone who has lived at this address.
This is general law rather than guidance on any one transaction. A live question about a specific home belongs with a Texas real estate attorney, and it is worth asking before a listing goes out.
What does the Seller's Disclosure Notice actually ask?
The notice is required of a seller of residential real property comprising not more than one dwelling unit located in this state, which is what a home in this tower is. Section 5.008 prescribes the notice itself, and a seller may instead give a written notice substantially similar to the one the section prescribes which contains, at a minimum, all of the items in it. The Texas Real Estate Commission promulgates the Seller's Disclosure Notice, and its forms page carries the current version.
What the notice asks about is material facts and the physical condition of the property, section by numbered section: whether the seller is occupying the home, whether the seller is aware of defects or malfunctions in named building components, whether any item, equipment or system is in need of repair, and whether the seller is aware of matters such as association or maintenance fees and assessments, co-owned common areas, lawsuits directly or indirectly affecting the property, and any condition on the property which materially affects the physical health or safety of an individual. None of them asks about a death.
The standard a seller is held to is belief and knowledge. The notice is completed to the best of the seller's belief and knowledge as of the date it is completed and signed, and where the required information is unknown to the seller, the seller indicates that fact on the notice and by that act is in compliance with the section.
Delivery carries its own consequence. The notice is due to the purchaser on or before the effective date of an executory contract binding the purchaser to purchase the property, and where a contract is entered without it, the purchaser may terminate the contract for any reason within seven days after receiving the notice.
The notice closes with two items about where the property sits rather than about its condition, and neither one is a question the seller answers. The first applies to a coastal area seaward of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway or within 1,000 feet of the mean high tide bordering the Gulf of Mexico, which reaches no property in Houston. The second is printed on every copy of the notice, this building included, and it reads:
This property may be located near a military installation and may be affected by high noise or air installation compatible use zones or other operations.
Does the condominium resale certificate ask about a death?
A condominium transaction hands a buyer a second stack of paper, so the question is a fair one. Section 82.157(a) of the Texas Property Code requires the resale certificate to carry the association's current operating budget and fourteen statements, and every one of them is about the association.
The statements run: restraints on transfer contained in the declaration; the periodic common expense assessment together with the unpaid common expenses or special assessments due from the selling owner; other unpaid amounts; capital expenditures approved for the next 12 months; reserves for capital expenditures and any portion designated for a specified project; unsatisfied judgments against the association; the nature of pending suits; insurance carried for owners' benefit; whether the board knows of alterations or improvements that violate the declaration, bylaws or rules; notices of health or building code violations; the leasehold term where the land is leased; the managing agent; the current operating budget and balance sheet; and every fee payable on a transfer of ownership.
The Texas Real Estate Commission's form carries those statements as lettered items, on the Condominium Resale Certificate, TREC No. 32-5, effective 25 November 2024. Section 82.002(c) extends Section 82.157 to a condominium whose declaration was recorded before 1 January 1994, and this regime's declaration was recorded before that date. That is why a buyer at this address receives a certificate at all.
One lettered item comes closest to the subject. Item L records whether the board has received notice from a governmental authority concerning violations of health or building codes with respect to the unit, the limited common elements assigned to the unit, or any other portion of the condominium. The rest of the form asks about the association's money, its documents, its insurance and its code compliance, which is a neutral fact about what the form is for.
What does the rule mean for an agent rather than for a seller?
Section 1101.556 of the Texas Occupations Code puts the same rule from the license holder's position. Notwithstanding other law, a license holder is not required to inquire about, disclose, or release information relating to whether a previous or current occupant of real property had, may have had, has, or may have AIDS, an HIV-related illness, or an HIV infection as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States Public Health Service, or whether a death occurred on a property by natural causes, suicide, or accident unrelated to the condition of the property.
Section 1101.802 goes further on the health half: a person is not civilly or criminally liable because the person failed to inquire about, make a disclosure relating to, or release information relating to it.
Section 1101.652(b) sets out what the Commission may discipline a license holder for while the license holder is engaged in real estate brokerage. Three grounds bear on this: conduct that is dishonest or in bad faith or that demonstrates untrustworthiness; a material misrepresentation to a potential buyer concerning a significant defect, including a latent structural defect, known to the license holder that would be a significant factor to a reasonable and prudent buyer deciding whether to purchase; and a failure to disclose such a defect to a potential buyer.
Read those last two grounds carefully. Both turn on a significant defect, so both are rules about the condition of the property.
Then the limit, which is the useful half, and it comes from the Commission's own rule rather than from the statutes. Section 535.156 gives a license holder an affirmative duty to convey accurate information to members of the public with whom the license holder deals, and its subsection (b) sets the standard for everyone in the transaction (22 Texas Administrative Code, read September 2026). The practical shape of the whole picture is two sentences long: nobody is required to raise the subject, and nobody may answer a direct question falsely. The subsection reads:
The license holder must put the interest of the license holder's principal above the license holder's own interest. A license holder must deal honestly and fairly with all parties; however, the license holder represents only the principal and owes a duty of fidelity to such principal.
When does the disclosure notice not apply at all?
Section 5.008(e) lists eleven transfers the section does not apply to, and one of them fits a home transferred after an owner's death. The fifth item on that list is a transfer by a fiduciary in the course of the administration of a decedent's estate, guardianship, conservatorship, or trust.
Others on the same list a reader here may meet: a transfer under a court order or a foreclosure; a transfer from one co-owner to one or more other co-owners; a transfer made to a spouse or to a person in the lineal line of consanguinity of one or more of the transferors; and a transfer to or from a governmental entity.
An exemption removes the statutory requirement to deliver the form, and it goes that far and no further. The duties in the Occupations Code and in the Commission's rule attach to a license holder rather than to the form, so they run whether a notice is delivered or not, and an exemption makes no misstatement safe.
The condominium documents stand where they stood. An estate transferring a home here still furnishes the purchaser a current copy of the declaration, the bylaws, any association rules and a resale certificate prepared not earlier than three months before it is delivered, and the association has until the 10th day after a written request to issue that certificate. This site's probate and estate page carries the rest of that sequence.
What should a seller at The Huntingdon do with this?
Take the paperwork in order. The disclosure notice first, where the transfer is not exempt. Then the association documents: the declaration, the bylaws and any rules. Then the certificate request, in writing, so the ten days start.
Write what you know and mark what you do not. The statute's own standard is belief and knowledge at the date of signing, and unknown is a compliant answer where the seller does not know.
Decide in advance, with a lawyer, how a direct question will be answered if one arrives. That is an easier decision made at the kitchen table than in a showing.
One thing is different in a tower of this size. The building's own documents are a larger part of the file than they are on a house, and this site's maintenance-fees page sets out what the certificate contains and which document states a particular home's figures.
What can this page not tell you?
Whether any death has occurred in any home at 2121 Kirby Drive. No public record publishes it and this site does not research occupant history.
How a Texas court has applied these provisions, and what Texas requires about a death outside the three categories the subsection names. What stands behind this page is the statutes, the Commission's rule and the two promulgated forms, and a Texas attorney is the person to ask.
What the Commission has done in any enforcement matter on this subject.
Whether the form number above is still current, and which version of the Seller's Disclosure Notice the Commission promulgates today. The Commission states each promulgated form's form ID and effective date on its own forms page, so read it there before you rely on either.
Whether this building's declaration or its rules say anything on the subject, which is a question for the association.
And your own position, which turns on facts and belongs with a Texas attorney.
Questions & answers
The Huntingdon questions, answered
Do I have to tell a buyer that someone died in my unit?
Section 5.008(c) of the Texas Property Code gives a seller and a seller's agent no duty to disclose whether a death by natural causes, suicide, or an accident unrelated to the condition of the property occurred on the property. That is three kinds of death, named in the statute. A death outside those three falls outside the subsection's words. A question about your own home belongs with a Texas real estate attorney before you list.
The same subsection carries a second clause, about whether a previous occupant had, may have had, has, or may have AIDS, HIV related illnesses, or HIV infection. Those are the statute's words, and they sit beside the first clause under the same grant of no duty. Subsection (c) is a list rather than a general rule, and it reaches exactly as far as its three categories. The Occupations Code repeats the rule from the license holder's position, and the Texas Real Estate Commission's rule sets the other side of the picture: honest and fair dealing with all parties, and accurate information to the public. Nobody is required to raise the subject. Nobody may answer a direct question falsely.
Is there a question about a death anywhere on the Seller's Disclosure Notice?
No. Section 5.008 of the Texas Property Code prescribes the notice, and what it asks about is material facts and the physical condition of the property: whether the seller is occupying the home, defects or malfunctions in named building components, items in need of repair, and matters such as association fees, co-owned common areas, lawsuits affecting the property and conditions materially affecting physical health or safety. A death is not among them.
The notice is required of a seller of residential real property comprising not more than one dwelling unit, which is what a home in a condominium tower is, so a seller here fills in the same form a seller of a house does. A seller may instead give a written notice substantially similar to the one the section prescribes containing, at a minimum, all of its items, and the Texas Real Estate Commission's forms page carries the version it promulgates. Two lines on the form decide what a seller has to answer. The notice is completed to the best of the seller's belief and knowledge as of the date it is completed and signed. Where the required information is unknown to the seller, the seller indicates that on the notice and is in compliance by that act. Delivery has a deadline. The notice is due on or before the effective date of a contract binding the purchaser to purchase, and a purchaser who contracts without receiving it may terminate for any reason within seven days after it arrives.
Does the condominium resale certificate ask whether someone died in the unit?
No. Section 82.157(a) of the Texas Property Code requires fourteen statements in the certificate, plus the association's current operating budget, and each one is about the association: transfer restraints, assessments and unpaid amounts, approved capital spending, reserves, judgments and pending suits, insurance, unauthorized alterations, code violation notices, the leasehold term, the managing agent, the budget and balance sheet, and transfer fees.
The Commission's form carries those statements as lettered items. Item L is the line that comes closest to anything like the subject, and it records whether the board has received notice from a governmental authority about violations of health or building codes affecting the unit, its limited common elements or any other part of the condominium. The certificate reaches a building of this vintage through Section 82.002(c), which applies Section 82.157 to a condominium whose declaration was recorded before 1 January 1994. The association has until the 10th day after a written request to issue one, and the certificate must have been prepared not earlier than three months before it is delivered to the purchaser. For what the certificate contains line by line, and which document states a particular home's figures, read this site's maintenance-fees page.
If a buyer asks my agent point blank, what can the agent say?
Section 1101.556 says a license holder is not required to inquire about, disclose, or release information about either the death categories or the occupant health categories. The Commission's rule then requires honest and fair dealing with all parties and the conveyance of accurate information to the public. The workable summary: no obligation to raise the subject, and no license to answer falsely.
Section 1101.802 removes civil and criminal liability for failing to inquire about, make a disclosure relating to, or release information relating to the AIDS and HIV half of that rule. Section 1101.652(b) is where the other limit lives. While a license holder is engaged in real estate brokerage, the Commission may discipline them for conduct that is dishonest or in bad faith or that demonstrates untrustworthiness, for a material misrepresentation about a significant defect known to the license holder that would be a significant factor to a reasonable and prudent buyer deciding whether to purchase, and for failing to disclose such a defect to a potential buyer. Both defect grounds name a significant defect, including a latent structural defect, so they are rules about the condition of the property. How a direct question gets answered in a particular transaction is a decision to make in advance with a lawyer, on the facts of that home, rather than improvised at a showing.
Our executor is transferring the unit. Is the disclosure notice still required?
Section 5.008(e) lists eleven transfers the section does not apply to, and one of them is a transfer by a fiduciary in the course of the administration of a decedent's estate, guardianship, conservatorship, or trust. Whether a particular transfer falls inside that item is a legal question about your file, so put it to the attorney handling the administration before you sign anything.
The list holds other transfers a reader here may meet: one under a court order or a foreclosure, one from a co-owner to one or more other co-owners, one to a spouse or to a person in the lineal line of consanguinity of a transferor, and one to or from a governmental entity. An exemption reaches the form and stops there. The duties in the Occupations Code and in the Commission's rule attach to a license holder rather than to the form, so an exemption makes no misstatement safe. The condominium paperwork is untouched either way. An estate transferring a home here still furnishes the declaration, the bylaws, any association rules and a resale certificate, and the association works to a ten-day clock from a written request. This site's probate and estate page sets out the rest of that sequence.
What happens if the notice reaches the buyer after the contract is signed?
Where a contract is entered without the seller providing the notice Section 5.008 requires, the purchaser may terminate the contract for any reason within seven days after receiving it. The notice is otherwise due on or before the effective date of the executory contract binding the purchaser to purchase the property. That termination right is the statute's own consequence for late delivery.
Timing is one more reason to have the form filled in before a listing goes out. The standard the seller answers to is belief and knowledge as of the date the notice is completed and signed, so the work of gathering what you know is better done without a contract running. A condominium file has a second clock beside it. The association has until the 10th day after a written request to issue a resale certificate for a particular home, and the certificate must have been prepared not earlier than three months before it is delivered. Requesting it in writing early keeps both clocks from colliding with an option period.
Can I write unknown on the disclosure notice?
Where the information the notice requires is unknown to the seller, the statute has the seller indicate that fact on the notice, and by that act the seller is in compliance with the section. The form is completed to the best of the seller's belief and knowledge as of the date it is completed and signed, so what you knew on that date is the measure.
That standard is the reason to write what you know and mark what you do not, item by item, rather than leaving blanks or guessing at an answer. Two duties sit outside the form and run whatever you write. A license holder must deal in an honest and fair way with all parties and must give accurate information to members of the public, and the Commission may discipline a license holder for conduct that is dishonest or in bad faith. Neither duty depends on which form is in use. Where a particular item is uncertain, the useful step is to ask the attorney handling the transfer how to record it, before the notice is signed.
Who should I ask about how to handle this for my own unit?
A Texas real estate attorney, and before the home goes on the market. The statutes name three kinds of death that carry no duty for a seller or a seller's agent, and how those words meet the facts of one home is a legal judgment. An attorney can also settle how a direct question will be answered, so the answer is decided rather than improvised.
Bring the documents with you. The disclosure notice if the transfer is not exempt, the recorded declaration, the bylaws and any association rules, and the resale certificate once the association issues it. Ask three questions while you are there: whether the transfer is exempt from Section 5.008, how an inquiry from a buyer should be handled, and what the association's documents require of you as a seller. On the building side, this site's maintenance-fees page sets out what the resale certificate contains, and the probate and estate page covers the documents an estate transferring a home here needs.