The Texas Real Estate Commission adopts by reference Property Inspection Report Form REI 7A-1, approved by the Commission in 2008 for use in reporting inspection results. This document is published by and available from the Texas Real Estate Commission, P.O. Box 12188, Austin, Texas 78711-2188. (1) Except as provided by this section, inspections performed for a prospective buyer or prospective seller of one-to-four family residential property shall be reported on Form REI 7A-1 adopted by the Commission ("the standard form"). (2) Inspectors may reproduce the standard form by computer or from printed copies obtained from the Commission. Except as specifically permitted by this section, the inspector shall reproduce the text of the standard form verbatim and the spacing, length of blanks, borders, and placement of text on the page must appear to be identical to that in the printed version of the standard form. (3) An inspector may make the following changes to the standard form: (A) the inspector may delete the line for name, license number, and signature of the sponsoring inspector if the inspection was performed solely by a professional inspector; (B) the inspector may change the typeface, provided that fonts are no smaller than those used in the printed version of the standard form; (C) the inspector may use legal sized (8-1/2" by 14") paper; (D) the inspector may add a cover page to the report form; (E) the inspector may add footers to each page of the report except the first page and may add headers to each page of the report; (F) the inspector may place the property identification and page number at either the top or bottom of the page; (G) the inspector may add subheadings under items, provided that the numbering of the standard items remains consistent with the standard form; (H) the inspector may list other items in the appropriate section of the form and additional captions, letters, and check boxes for those items; (I) the inspector may delete inapplicable subsections of Section VI., Optional Systems, and re-letter any remaining subsections; (J) the inspector may delete Subsection L., Other, of Section I., Structural Systems; (K) the inspector may allocate such space in the "Additional Information Provided by the Inspector" section and in each of the spaces provided for comments for each inspected item as the inspector deems necessary or may attach additional pages of comments to the report; and (L) if necessary to report the inspection of a part, component, or system not contained in the standard form, or space provided on the form is inadequate for a complete reporting of the inspection, the inspector may attach additional pages to the form. When providing comments or additional pages to report on items listed on a form, the inspector shall arrange the comments or additional pages to follow the sequence of the items listed in the form adopted by the commission. (4) The inspector shall renumber the pages of the form to correspond with any changes made necessary due to adjusting the space for comments or adding additional items and shall number all pages of the report, including any addenda. (5) The inspector shall indicate, by checking the appropriate boxes on the form, whether each item was inspected, not inspected, not present, and/or deficient and shall explain the findings in the appropriate space on the form. (6) This section does not apply to the following: (A) re-inspections of a property performed for the same client; or (B) inspections performed for or required by a lender or governmental agency; (C) inspections for which federal or state law requires use of a different report; or (D) quality control construction inspections of new homes performed for builders, including phased construction inspections, inspections performed solely to determine compliance with building codes, warranty or underwriting requirements, or inspections required by a municipality and the builder or other entity requires use of a different report, and the first page of the report contains a notice either in bold or underlined reading substantially similar to the following: "This report was prepared for a builder or other entity in accordance with the builder's requirements. The report is not intended as a substitute for an inspection of the property by an inspector of the buyer's choice. Standard inspections performed by a Texas Real Estate Commission licensee and reported on Texas Real Estate Commission promulgated report forms may contain additional information a buyer should consider in making a decision to purchase." If a report form required for use by the builder or builder's employee does not contain the notice, the inspector may attach the notice to the first page of the report at the time the report is prepared by the inspector. |
