The assignment
You sign a purchase agreement with the seller. The contract allows assignment, or at least does not prohibit it. You then sign an assignment of contract with your buyer, who steps into your position. At closing the buyer pays the seller the contract price and pays you the assignment fee, usually through the title company on the same settlement statement.
One closing. One set of closing costs. No money of your own. The cost is visibility: your fee is a line on the statement, so the seller and the buyer both see it. The other limit is the paper. REO contracts, HUD contracts, most builder contracts and plenty of listed properties where the seller struck the assignment language cannot be assigned at all.
The double close
Two transactions. A to B: you buy from the seller. B to C: you sell to your buyer. They can close the same afternoon or days apart. You need funds for the first leg: your cash, a hard money lender, or transactional funding, which is a loan measured in hours and priced as a flat fee or a point or two.
Many Texas title companies will not let the C buyer's money fund the A to B leg. Ask before you count on it. Two closings mean two sets of costs, two deeds, and two title policies or a hold-open. What you buy with that is privacy. Your spread sits on neither the seller's statement nor the buyer's, and the structure works when the contract cannot be assigned.
The risk is the gap. If A to B funds and C does not show, you own a house. Price that into the decision.
The two routes side by side
Both routes get you paid on a contract you will not close yourself. The table sets the points above next to each other.
| Point | Assignment | Double close |
|---|---|---|
| Contracts | Your purchase agreement with the seller, then an assignment of contract with your buyer, who steps into your position | Two transactions: you buy from the seller, then you sell to your buyer |
| Closings | One closing and one set of closing costs | Two closings, two sets of costs, two deeds, and two title policies or a hold-open |
| Your own money | None | Funds for the first leg: your cash, a hard money lender or transactional funding. If A to B funds and C does not show, you own a house |
| Who sees your fee | The seller and the buyer both see it, as a line on the settlement statement | Your spread sits on neither the seller's statement nor the buyer's |
| A contract that bars assignment | Not available. REO contracts, HUD contracts, most builder contracts and plenty of listed properties where the seller struck the assignment language cannot be assigned | Works when the contract cannot be assigned |
| Written disclosures (section 5.0205) | In writing to any potential buyer, that you are assigning a contract interest and do not have legal title, and to the owner, that you intend to assign the contract | The same disclosures on every deal, because you are still marketing an equitable interest while you hold the A to B contract |
| Title company | The buyer pays you the assignment fee, usually through the title company on the same settlement statement | Many Texas title companies will not let the C buyer's money fund the A to B leg, and plenty of retail title desks will not touch a double close |
Source: The sections above, drawn from Texas Property Code 5.0205 and Occupations Code 1101.0045 (see Sources below). Period: Texas law as of 2026-10-26.
The Texas disclosures you cannot skip
Texas Property Code section 5.0205 says that before you enter into a contract to sell an option or assign your interest in a purchase contract, you must disclose in writing to two people: to any potential buyer, that you are selling only an option or assigning a contract interest and do not have legal title to the property; and to the owner of the property, that you intend to sell the option or assign the contract. The section was numbered 5.086 from 2017 until January 1, 2024, when SB 1577 moved it, added the owner disclosure and made writing mandatory. Articles that still cite 5.086 describe the old rule.
Texas Occupations Code section 1101.0045 is the other half. You may sell an option or assign a contract you acquired without a license only if you do not use it to engage in real estate brokerage and you disclose the nature of your equitable interest in writing to any seller or potential buyer. Offer or assign without that disclosure and, by statute, you are engaging in real estate brokerage without a license. That is exposure to the Texas Real Estate Commission and to the people on the other side of the table. TREC rule 22 TAC 535.6 repeats the test, and its subsection (c) applies the same written disclosure to license holders assigning their own contracts.
Keep it simple. Put both disclosures in writing, get them signed, and keep them in the file. If you hold a license, you disclose that too, in the contract or before it, under 22 TAC 535.144. Your attorney can give you a one-page form. Use it on every deal, including the double close, because you are still marketing an equitable interest while you hold the A to B contract.
Which one for which deal
The paper usually decides for you. When it does not, the fee and the buyer do. To size the fee, put your contract price and your ask into the calculator, which shows your spread.
- Contract assignable, seller fine with it, fee modest relative to price: assign.
- Fee large relative to price and you would rather it not sit on the statement: double close.
- Contract says no assignment: double close, or negotiate an assignment addendum before the option period ends.
- Buyer is a fund desk: most prefer an assignment or a contract straight from the seller. Some will not buy from a wholesaler who held title for an hour. Ask the desk first.
- Buyer is a rehabber or landlord: either works. They care about price and the clock.
What the title company needs
Send it all at once. A title desk that has to chase you for documents puts your file at the bottom of the stack.
- The executed A to B contract and every amendment.
- The assignment agreement, or the B to C contract for a double close.
- Proof of funds or a transactional funding commitment for the first leg.
- Entity documents if you are closing in an LLC.
- The section 5.0205 disclosures, signed by the buyer and by the owner.
- Written closing instructions: who is paid what, from which side.
Pick a title company that closes investor deals every week. Plenty of retail title desks will not touch a double close, and finding that out on day nineteen of a twenty-one day contract is how spreads disappear.
How FundPlug runs it
The desk reads the paper before anything moves. If the contract is assignable and the buyer is fine with an assignment, it runs that way. If the paper needs a double close, we say so before we route it, and we tell you what the funding and the second closing will cost. Compensation to FundPlug is set in a written agreement, never a side deal, and wholesalers confirm the section 5.0205 disclosures in the intake.
If your contract is not assignable and you have not talked to title yet, do that first. Then send it.