National / General cheat sheet
Contracts and Agency Texas Real Estate Exam Cheat Sheet
This is the largest national content area. It tests how contracts are formed, classified, performed, breached, and ended, plus how agency relationships begin and what a license holder owes each party.
Name the legal status before choosing the remedy. A contract question becomes easier once you identify whether the agreement is valid, void, voidable, unenforceable, executed, or executory.
What Pearson tests
- Contract types, required elements, electronic signatures, and the Statute of Frauds
- Offer, counteroffer, contingencies, earnest money, breach, damages, rescission, and termination
- Creation and termination of agency, client duties, customer duties, and disclosure
Three traps to catch
- A void contract never had legal effect. A voidable contract is valid until the protected party avoids it.
- An executed contract has been fully performed. An executory contract still has duties left to perform.
- Agency duties depend on the relationship and the party. Do not give a customer the same duties owed to a client.
Essential vocabulary
Contracts and Agency terms to know
- Valid contract
- An agreement that has every required legal element and can be enforced.
- Mutual assent
- Agreement created by a valid offer and an unqualified acceptance.
- Consideration
- Something of legal value exchanged by the parties.
- Bilateral contract
- A promise exchanged for another promise.
- Executory contract
- A contract with one or more duties still left to perform.
- Statute of Frauds
- The rule requiring specified agreements, including most real estate sale contracts, to be in writing.
- Fiduciary duties
- The duties an agent owes a client, including loyalty, obedience, disclosure, confidentiality, accounting, and reasonable care.
- Novation
- Substitution of a new party or obligation with the required agreement, releasing the replaced party or duty.
Check your recall
Can you answer these without notes?
1What separates a bilateral contract from a unilateral contract?
A bilateral contract exchanges promises. A unilateral contract exchanges a promise for performance.
2Is an unenforceable contract automatically void?
No. It may be valid but unavailable as a court-enforced remedy because of a legal defense.
3Who receives fiduciary duties?
The client. A customer receives honesty, fair dealing, and required disclosures, but not the full client-level fiduciary relationship.
Use the sheet, then retrieve
Test the rules while they are still fresh.
Read the full lesson when a definition is fuzzy. Then answer the topic questions without looking back at this sheet.
Primary sources
This is exam-prep education, not legal, tax, or transaction advice. Confirm the current law, form, and official exam materials before relying on a rule in practice.