What Is a Real Estate Compliance Checklist?
A real estate compliance checklist is the list a brokerage uses to confirm a transaction file is complete: every required document present, signed, dated and initialed where it should be, before the file is approved and the agent is paid. The broker sets the list and signs off on the file. Everyone else’s job is to make sure the file matches it.
This page is our hub for broker compliance. It walks through what a complete file holds, the gaps we see most often, and how a file audit works. When you want the list itself, grab one of our free checklists:
- Broker Compliance File Checklist: every file and every transaction type (resale, new construction, leases, land), each item tagged federal, state, MLS or best practice. For any state.
- Texas Broker Compliance Checklist: TREC’s brokerage-wide requirements, the per-file items and the current promulgated form numbers.
Requirements vary by state, MLS and brokerage. Treat any checklist, ours included, as a starting point for your own written policies, not as legal advice.
Table of Contents
▼The Checklist: What Every File Needs
This is the first section of our Broker Compliance File Checklist: the items that belong in every transaction file, whatever the transaction type. Each one is tagged with where the requirement usually comes from.
| Item | Source |
|---|---|
| Agency or brokerage relationship disclosure, delivered when your state requires it | State law |
| Written consent to dual agency or intermediary status, if your brokerage represents both sides | State law |
| Representation agreement for your side: listing, buyer, landlord or tenant | State law |
| Fully executed contract with every addendum, counteroffer and amendment, signed and dated by all parties | State law |
| Earnest money receipt: who holds it, how much, and the date it was deposited | State law |
| Disclosure of licensee interest, if an agent (or an agent’s relative or entity) is a party | State law |
| Wire fraud warning sent to the client | Best practice |
| Final settlement statement (Closing Disclosure or ALTA statement) | Federal |
| Commission disbursement authorization and a record of the commission received | Best practice |
| For a terminated file: the termination notice and the signed earnest money release | State law |
| Broker review and sign-off on the file | State law |
| Retention date written on the file | State law |
Federal applies in every state. State law means most states have a version of the rule, but the details vary. Best practice isn’t required, but it’s what a clean file looks like when the broker or an auditor opens it.
Get the Full Checklist
The full checklist adds the rest of the every-file items (MLS records, advertising copies, communications) and a section for each transaction type: residential resale listing side and buyer side, new construction, residential leases, and land and lots.
Get the Full Broker Compliance File Checklist
Every file, every transaction type. Free, sent straight to your inbox.
In Texas? The Texas Broker Compliance Checklist has TREC’s rules and the current form numbers.
Contract and Amendment Documentation
The executed contract is the foundation. Everything else in the file supports it, changes it, or fulfills something it requires.
- Purchase agreement: signed and dated by all parties, every blank filled in or marked N/A, no missing pages
- Amendments and addenda: signed and dated by all parties, with a clear reference to the contract they change
- Counteroffers: if there were any, the full chain from offer to acceptance
- Form versions: the contract and every addendum on current versions that are meant to be used together
Form versions deserve their own line. Contracts and addenda are written to work together, and when an agent pairs an old version of one with the current version of another, paragraph references and checkboxes stop lining up. It’s common in Texas, where TREC and Texas REALTORS® revise their forms on different schedules, and it happens anywhere forms get updated while agents keep using the copy saved on their desktop.
The gap we see most here: an amendment signed by one side and not the other. The buyer signs a repair amendment, everyone assumes the seller did too, and nobody notices the blank signature line until closing.
Disclosure Documentation
Deciding which disclosures a transaction requires is the agent’s and the broker’s call. A file review checks that the disclosures in the file are complete, and that the file matches what the contract says is attached.
- Agency disclosure: signed by the parties, dated, every field completed
- Seller’s disclosure: completed by the seller, delivered to the buyer, buyer’s acknowledgment signed
- Lead-based paint disclosure: for homes built before 1978, signed and dated by all parties, with the pamphlet acknowledgment
- HOA addendum or resale certificate: present when the property is in an association, with the buyer’s acknowledgment
- Special district notices: in Texas, MUD and PID notices where they apply
- Anything else the agent included: signatures, dates, initials, no blank fields
- Cross-check the contract: if the contract shows an addendum as attached, it should be in the file; if a signed addendum is in the file but not referenced in the contract, that’s a discrepancy to flag
Compensation Documentation
Compensation is the part of the file that gets the most attention after the NAR settlement, and the part most likely to start a dispute.
- Listing agreement (listing side): signed by all parties, with compensation, term and expiration
- Buyer representation agreement (buyer side): signed, with compensation stated
- Cooperating compensation: whatever documents how the other broker is being paid
- Referral agreements: signed, with the referral fee stated
- Commission disbursement authorization: the broker-approved instructions to title on how compensation is paid
The gap we see most: compensation in the file that doesn’t match what was paid at closing. The broker approves the disbursement authorization; the file should support it.
Earnest Money and Option Fee
- Earnest money receipt: amount, date received, and the escrow agent named in the contract
- Option fee receipt (Texas): amount and date received by the escrow agent
Deposit deadlines come from the contract. On the current TREC resale contract, the buyer delivers both the earnest money and the option fee to the escrow agent within 3 days after the effective date. We walk through it in earnest money in Texas.
Inspection, Financing and Title Items
These usually aren’t required by law, but they’re what a complete file looks like when someone opens it two years later:
- Inspection reports, then the repair amendment or the termination that followed
- Financing items: the loan approval and any appraisal contingency notices
- Title commitment, survey and any objection letters
- HOA documents, with proof of the date the buyer received them
- Final walkthrough acknowledgment
Closing Documents
The file isn’t complete at closing. Before it’s archived, it should hold:
- The final settlement statement or closing disclosure for your side of the transaction
- The commission disbursement authorization as approved
- Any post-closing agreements: a seller’s or buyer’s temporary lease, repair escrows, other items that survive closing
- Your brokerage’s own close-out items: whatever your policies require before a file is marked complete
Record Retention Is the Broker’s and the Agent’s Job
Keeping transaction records is the broker’s and the agent’s responsibility, not the transaction coordinator’s. Every state sets how long they must be kept, usually 3 to 5 years from closing or termination. Texas and Colorado require 4 years, Florida and Arizona 5, and North Carolina and Tennessee 3. Federal rules add their own: lead-based paint disclosure records are kept for 3 years. Check your state commission’s rules for the exact period and what starts the clock.
Two habits make retention easy: write the retention date on the file when you close it out, and keep the file complete enough that anyone could reconstruct the transaction from it alone.
A TC shouldn’t be your record keeper. We send the agent a complete copy of every transaction document after closing, and we remove closed files from our systems within 30 days. The broker’s and the agent’s copies are the ones that count.
Common Compliance Gaps
These are the gaps we run into most, in roughly the order we see them:
- Missing initials on amendments, especially on page two and beyond
- Signatures with no date, which makes acceptance and deadline dates unclear
- Seller’s disclosure questions left blank instead of answered
- Agency disclosures in the template but never signed by the actual parties
- Lead-based paint paperwork missing on a pre-1978 home
- Compensation documents that don’t match what was paid at closing
- Earnest money or option fee receipts missing from the file
- HOA documents missing when the contract shows an association
None of these is complicated. They get missed because a busy file has dozens of documents and nobody is checking each one as it arrives. For what else goes wrong between contract and closing, see common transaction pitfalls.
Transaction File Audit Template for Brokerages
A checklist only works if it’s applied to every file, at the right moments, by someone accountable for it. Here’s a file audit workflow you can adapt for your brokerage.
1. At contract (file opens)
- Open the file against your checklist, with your brokerage-specific and state-specific items added
- Confirm the executed contract, every addendum and the representation agreement are present and fully signed
- Confirm the form versions are current and meant to be used together
- Note the earnest money and option fee deadlines
2. As documents arrive
- Check each document for signatures, initials, dates and blank fields when it comes in, not at the end
- Confirm every addendum the contract shows as attached is in the file
- Send missing items back to the agent the same day, in writing
3. Before closing
- Run the full checklist again
- Send anything outstanding to the agent with time to fix it
- Confirm the commission disbursement authorization matches the representation agreements
4. Broker sign-off
- The broker or office manager reviews the file and approves it before the agent is paid
- The final settlement statement goes in the file
- The retention date is written on the file
Where a Transaction Coordinator Fits
A TC handles the completeness side of this: tracking the deadlines, checking every document for signatures, initials, dates and blanks as it comes in, and keeping the file organized against your checklist. Our transaction coordination includes broker compliance and help completing the CDA request, and the agent gets a complete copy of every transaction document after closing for the agent’s and the brokerage’s records. We don’t hold closed files; keeping them is the broker’s and the agent’s job.
What a TC doesn’t do is supervise agents or approve files. That’s the broker’s job, and it stays with the broker. We’re administrative support: the file arrives at your desk complete, and you make the call.
For how outside TCs fit a brokerage, see transaction coordinator services for brokers.
State Requirements
The checklist above applies broadly. Every state adds its own disclosures, notices, forms and record-retention rules, and so does your MLS.
- Texas: TREC’s requirements and current form numbers are in the Texas Broker Compliance Checklist. For what TREC is discussing about transaction coordinators, see TREC’s October BRAC meeting.
- Every other state: start with the Broker Compliance File Checklist, then add your state commission’s rules and your MLS rules.
Call (713) 364-4382 or send us a message to talk about what your brokerage needs.
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