Texas bars unlicensed coordinators from soliciting, even to book the agent's call

Client-touch campaigns are ordinary practice in this business. A TREC rule and a 2020 CFPB guidance note between them decide how much of one a coordinator can run, and who is allowed to pay for it.

Key points

TREC Rule 535.4(f) reserves soliciting listings to licence holders.

TREC guidance states an unlicensed assistant may not call to find out whether someone is interested in buying, selling or leasing, even to book a follow-up with a licensed agent.

The activity is what matters, not the medium. A card and a phone call are treated by the same test.

California's DRE page states the general prohibition and the supervision duty but publishes no marketing-specific list on the page itself.

Separately, the CFPB's RESPA FAQs treat gifts and promotions as things of value, with no exception based on how small the gift is.

What prompted this

A coordinator posting about mailing greeting cards to keep in touch with clients sent the desk to check where the licensing line actually falls on client-touch marketing, and who may fund it. Nothing here describes this account's practice, which we have not examined.

Credit: The Real Estate Assistant (@realestateassistantatx) on tiktok.

Staying in front of past clients is ordinary practice in residential real estate, and a good deal of it now runs through the coordinator. Mailers, closing gifts, anniversary cards, the birthday note that arrives on time because somebody put it in a system. It is genuinely useful work, and most of it raises no question at all.

The question starts at a specific point, and it is narrower than most people assume. It is not about postage, branding or who licked the envelope. It is about solicitation.

What Texas actually says

The Texas Real Estate Commission addresses unlicensed assistance in guidance built around the Texas Real Estate License Act and Rules 535.4 and 535.5. Under Rule 535.4(f), soliciting listings is reserved to licence holders.

TREC's guidance carries an example worth reading closely, because it closes the loophole most people reach for. An unlicensed assistant may not make calls to determine whether a person is interested in buying, selling or leasing property, and that holds even when the purpose of the call is only to schedule a follow-up appointment for a licence holder to handle the substance. Handing the conversation off does not cure it. The prohibited act is the asking.

The test is the activity, not the format. Nothing in the rule turns on whether contact arrives by telephone, email or post. A mailer that asks whether the recipient is thinking of selling is doing the same work as the call, and is measured the same way.

Where that leaves the card

On a plain reading of the Texas material, the line falls between keeping in touch and prospecting. A card that thanks a client, marks an anniversary or carries the agent's brand is not asking anyone whether they want to transact. A card that invites the recipient to find out what their home is worth is.

Sending a branded card on a schedule the licensed agent sets is the administrative half of the job.

Asking, in any medium, whether the recipient is thinking of buying, selling or leasing is solicitation.

Booking the agent's follow-up call is not a workaround. TREC's example addresses that directly.

Who signs the message matters less than what the message asks for.

California publishes less than people think

Coordinators working California files often expect a cleaner answer, because California is generally the best-documented state on unlicensed assistance. The Department of Real Estate's unlicensed assistants page states the general position, that an unlicensed person may not perform any activity requiring a real estate licence or a mortgage loan originator endorsement, and it sets out the broker's duty to supervise adequately so that the proper limitations are observed. It also states that a broker may not employ or compensate an unlicensed person, directly or indirectly, for performing licensed acts.

What the page does not carry is a marketing-specific list. The DRE maintains a longer PDF guide alongside it, which is where practitioners generally look for itemised activities.

What we could not verify. TC Bulletin was unable to extract the text of the DRE's PDF guide to unlicensed assistants, so this story does not characterise its contents. Coordinators working California files should read that guide directly rather than rely on the summary page. If your reading of it differs from anything here, write to the desk and we will publish the correction with its date.

The second rule, about who pays

There is a separate federal question sitting underneath the same campaign, and it is about money rather than licensing. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's RESPA FAQs, last updated on 7 October 2020, treat gifts and promotions as things of value. Regulation X defines that term broadly, reaching well past cash into services at special or free rates, trips, and payment of another person's expenses.

Section 8(a) is triggered where a thing of value is given pursuant to an agreement or understanding that settlement service business will be referred. That agreement does not have to be written or even spoken. The CFPB's material is explicit that it can be established by a practice, pattern or course of conduct.

The two conditions on the promotional exception

Not conditioned on referrals: Condition 1 (Items aimed only at past or expected referral sources point the wrong way. Broad distribution points the right way.)

Not defraying the recipient's expenses: Condition 2 (It may not cover costs the referral source would otherwise pay itself, such as required continuing education or office supplies.)

Value-based exception: None (The CFPB FAQs state there is no exception based solely on the value of the gift or promotion.)

FAQs last updated: 7 Oct 2020 (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau)

The direction of the gift is what a coordinator should watch. A card going to a consumer who has already closed is a different object from a benefit flowing to the agent who sends the coordinator work. Where the coordinator absorbs the cost of marketing that would otherwise be the agent's own expense, the second condition of the promotional exception is the one to think about.

An honest gap in the federal answer

Whether Section 8 reaches a transaction coordinator at all is less settled than the confident advice circulating on the subject suggests. Regulation X defines a settlement service as any service provided in connection with a real estate settlement, and the enumerated examples run to loan origination, closing services, title services, title insurance, document preparation, surveys, inspections, appraisals, credit reports, and the services of attorneys, real estate agents and mortgage brokers. Transaction coordination is not named.

The list is expressly not exhaustive, which is why the question is open rather than answered in the coordinator's favour. TC Bulletin has not found a CFPB statement addressing transaction coordinators by name, and this story does not assert one either way. What it does establish is that anyone telling coordinators the answer is obvious, in either direction, is going beyond the published material.

The practical read

Check the rule for the state the property sits in, not the state the coordinator sits in.

Read every piece of client-touch copy for one thing: does it ask the recipient about transacting? If it does, a licence holder sends it.

Do not treat handing the conversation to the agent as a fix. Texas addresses that example directly.

Keep a record of who paid for the campaign and who it went to. The RESPA question is answered by that record, not by intent.

Where a coordinator absorbs a cost the agent would otherwise carry, get it reviewed before it becomes a pattern.

Primary sources for this story

TREC, unlicensed individuals in Texas real estate transactions Guidance citing TRELA and Rules 535.4 and 535.5

TREC rules

California DRE, unlicensed assistants

California DRE, guide to unlicensed assistants (PDF) Read directly; this story does not characterise its contents

CFPB, RESPA FAQs Last updated 7 October 2020

12 CFR 1024.14, prohibition against kickbacks and unearned fees

Sources cited

Texas Real Estate Commission

California DRE

CFPB RESPA FAQs

12 CFR 1024.14