The clocks, the parking record, and where a transfer restraint is written
Buying at 2727 Kirby After a Relocation: Timing, Parking, the Board
Updated September 2026
How long does a purchase at 2727 Kirby take, and does the association have to approve the buyer?
The restraint on transfer a Texas resale certificate must disclose is one contained in the declaration, and the association owes that certificate within 10 days of receiving the owner's written request (Texas Property Code, read September 2026).
Paige Martin, Houston Properties Team, 2727 Kirby
Source: Texas Property Code, section 82.157, Resale of Unit, September 2026.
Does the board at 2727 Kirby have to approve a buyer?
Chapter 82 of the Texas Property Code, the Uniform Condominium Act, puts the question to the declaration. The first of the fourteen statements a resale certificate must carry is any right of first refusal or other restraint contained in the declaration that restricts the right to transfer a unit, so the restraint a buyer here has to look for is a term in a recorded document. A right of first refusal is a purchase option over the home, held by the association or by its members.
On the promulgated form, the Condominium Resale Certificate, TREC No. 32-5, the question is box A: a does or does not tick with a blank for the section of the declaration the restraint sits in. Order the declaration and the resale certificate to see which way box A is ticked at 2727 Kirby. The county's index records the instruments and their file numbers, and the certificate is the document that answers the question for this condominium.
If the documents do show one, TREC's Residential Condominium Contract (Resale) has machinery for it. The paragraph that handles a right of first refusal moves the effective date to the day the buyer receives the association's certification that the seller has complied with the right and that all persons who may exercise it have not exercised it or have waived it. If that certification does not arrive within the number of days the parties write in, or if the right is exercised, the contract terminates and the earnest money is refunded to the buyer.
What the association requires of a new owner lands after the deed rather than before the contract. Not later than the 30th day after acquiring an interest in a unit, the new owner gives the association a mailing address, telephone number and driver's license number, if any, the name and address of the holder of any lien against the unit with any loan number, the name and telephone number of any person occupying the unit other than the owner, and the name, address and telephone number of anyone managing the unit as the owner's agent. A change to any of it is reported on the same footing.
What actually sets the timetable on a purchase here?
Three clocks run on a purchase in this building, and the contract's deadlines overlap rather than queue: the document-delivery deadlines, the option-fee deadline and the option period all run from the effective date. The first clock belongs to the association: it has ten days after receiving the selling owner's written request to furnish the resale certificate, signed and dated by an officer or authorized agent, and the fee for the certificate is capped at $375. The certificate is prepared at the seller's expense, so the request is worth making early.
The second set belongs to the contract, and both windows are written for a buyer who has not received the documents or the certificate when the contract is signed. In that box the parties write in a number of days after the effective date for the seller to deliver the declaration, bylaws and rules, and a number of days for the certificate. After each one arrives the buyer has seven days to terminate by written notice to the seller, and terminating under the documents window refunds the earnest money.
The third is the option period: a number of days the parties write in, carrying the unrestricted right to terminate, with notice given by 5:00 p.m. local time where the property is located. The option fee has to reach the escrow agent within three days after the effective date, and where that last day is a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday the time to deliver runs to the end of the next day that is not one of those. Without the fee the unrestricted right does not exist at all.
Underneath all of that runs the statute's own cancellation right. A buyer who had not received the declaration, bylaws and rules before executing the contract may cancel before the sixth day after those documents arrive. A buyer who had not received the certificate before executing the contract may cancel before the sixth day after the certificate arrives or a waiver is executed, whichever occurs first. Cancellation is by hand delivered written notice, or by notice mailed certified with return receipt requested, within the five-day cancellation period; it carries no penalty, and every payment made before it is refunded. A selling owner also may not require a buyer to close until the declaration, bylaws and any rules have been given. A condominium information statement or resale certificate need not be prepared or delivered at all for a gratuitous disposition, a disposition by foreclosure or deed in lieu, a sale by a government agency, a sale under a court order, or a disposition that may be canceled at any time, for any reason, without penalty.
The building's own pace is the part that runs longest. As of September 2026 the median home here took 70 days to go under contract, against 21.0 months of inventory, so the search is usually the long part and the documents are the part with deadlines. The record behind that reading at this address is 18 closings at 2727 Kirby, most recently April 2026.
What does the record say about parking at 2727 Kirby?
A parking space here is a recorded interest rather than a house rule. Apart from two classes the statute's unit-boundary section describes, the declaration must describe the limited common elements and allocate each unit its allocated interests, and the plat must show the location and dimensions of the same limited common elements. The right to use one may not be altered without the consent of each affected unit owner and that owner's first lien mortgagee. Except as the declaration otherwise provides, a reallocation between units is made by an amendment to the declaration, executed by the owners between whose units the reallocation is made, delivered to the association, and recorded at those owners' expense.
That has happened at this condominium at least once. The condominium instrument was filed on 7 May 2009 under file number 20090193056, with a supplement filed on 4 May 2012 under file number 20120196965, followed by amendments to the First Amended and Restated Declaration of Condominium: a sixth recorded in July 2018, a seventh in September 2018, and a tenth recorded in August 2021 whose index entry describes it as concerning the reallocation of parking spaces.
So the allocation for one specific home is whatever the latest amendment says about it, and a listing written from an older document can be wrong without anyone intending it. The work is mechanical: pull the declaration and every amendment by file number from the county and read them in order, confirming the spaces described for that unit number. Finish it while the option period is still running, because the unrestricted right to terminate ends when the option period does.
Which questions can be settled at a distance, and which need someone in the building?
From the county, by file number: the boundaries of the unit, its allocated interests, the parking as a limited common element, and the whole amendment chain. Plats and plans are part of the declaration, the declaration describes the boundaries of each unit, and the plat carries the limited common elements with their location and dimensions, on the same exclusion, which is what makes a floor plan question answerable from another city.
From the association, through the seller: the assessment on that specific home, the reserves, the nature of any pending suits, the insurance summary attached to the certificate, and the managing agent's name, mailing address, telephone and e-mail, which the promulgated certificate carries in a box of its own.
Three public routes reach the association itself. It must record a management certificate in each county where any portion of the condominium sits, and the county clerk records that certificate in the real property records and indexes it as a Condominium Association Management Certificate. Not later than the seventh day after filing it for recording, the association files the same certificate electronically with the Texas Real Estate Commission, which collects it to make the data accessible to the public. And since 1 September 2025 an association of a condominium composed of at least 60 units, or any association that has contracted with a management company, must keep the current version of its recorded dedicatory instruments on a website accessible to members.
Three things wait for someone in the building. Which homes have the elevator that opens into the unit, because the architects draw a distinction between residences and estates and no public source maps that onto specific homes. Whether the amenities that appear on portal pages are running, which is a question for the association and for a walk through the building. And the west light in the afternoon, the noise, and the garage exit at the hour you would actually use it.
The market-statistics feed records typical weekday drive times for this building, computed 28 Aug 2026: about 15 minutes to downtown Houston, about 10 to the Texas Medical Center, about 10 to the Galleria and about 30 to the Energy Corridor. Those sit in the middle of a wide distribution rather than being a promise, so drive the route at the hour you would travel. The contract answers the access gap directly: the seller shall permit the buyer and the buyer's agents access to the property at reasonable times, and the buyer may have the property inspected by inspectors the buyer selects who are licensed by TREC or otherwise permitted by law to make inspections.
Can the closing happen without either party being in Texas?
An online notary public may perform an online notarization regardless of whether the signer is physically located in this state. Identity is verified over two-way video and audio conference technology, either by the notary's personal knowledge of the signer or by all three of remote presentation of a government-issued identification credential carrying a signature and photograph, credential analysis of that credential, and identity proofing of the person. The notarial certificate must include a notation that the notarization was an online one.
The session leaves a record. The notary keeps a secure electronic record for each online notarization: the date and time, the type of notarial act, the type or description of the document, the printed name and address of each principal, a recording of the video and audio conference, a note of the identification presented, and the fee charged. That record is kept for at least five years after the transaction. There is a procedure for a document signed on paper too, with the signer signing on camera under a declaration, sending the document and declaration to the notary no later than the third day after the notarization, and the notary receiving them no later than the 10th day. The fee for the online notarization is capped at $25 on top of the ordinary notary fee.
What Texas law permits and what a particular lender, title company or escrow agent will accept are different questions. Ask the title company early, because it has to insure the result. For the paperwork in between, the contract's notices paragraph makes notices effective when mailed to, hand delivered at, faxed or transmitted electronically to the addresses the parties write into it, which is a good reason to fill those addresses in carefully when you are signing from somewhere else.
What can this page not tell you?
Whether this declaration contains a right of first refusal or another restraint on transfer. The county index names the instruments and their file numbers; reading them, or reading box A on the certificate, is what answers it.
The association's rules. Move-in days, elevator reservations, deposits, contractor hours, pets and leasing all sit at rules level, no public source carries them for this building, and they come from the seller with the declaration, bylaws and rules.
The assessment on one specific home, and whether a special assessment is due on it. The certificate states both, and the association is on a statutory clock to produce it once the selling owner asks in writing.
The association's name, its managing agent and its member website. Those come from the recorded management certificate, from the Texas Real Estate Commission's public collection of those certificates, or from the certificate the seller hands over.
Which floor plans carry the elevator that opens into the unit, and which exposures a specific home has. The declaration and its plats describe the boundaries of every unit, and the rest is a question for a visit.
And how long any particular purchase will take. The fixed numbers are the association's ten days, the two seven-day termination windows, the statute's five-day cancellation period, the three days for the option fee and the 30th day for a new owner's report. The rest are blanks the parties fill in.
Questions & answers
2727 Kirby questions, answered
Does a condominium board in Texas have to approve me as a buyer?
Chapter 82 of the Texas Property Code, the Uniform Condominium Act, puts the question to the declaration. The first of the fourteen statements a resale certificate must carry is any right of first refusal or other restraint contained in the declaration that restricts the right to transfer a unit. What a new owner owes the association is registration, and it comes after closing: contact details not later than the 30th day after acquiring an interest in a unit.
A right of first refusal is a purchase option over the home, held by the association or by its members. Where one exists it sits in the declaration, and the resale certificate is where a buyer reads whether it does. The registration duty is short and specific. The new owner gives the association a mailing address, telephone number and driver's license number, if any, the name and address of any lienholder with the loan number, the name and telephone number of any person occupying the unit other than the owner, and the name, address and telephone number of anyone managing the unit as the owner's agent. The same deadline applies again once the owner has notice that any of that information has changed, and the association may ask for it from time to time.
What is a right of first refusal, and how do I find out whether this building has one?
It is a purchase option over the home rather than a view about the buyer: the association or a member may step in and buy instead. Where one exists, it sits in the declaration, and the resale certificate reports it. On the promulgated form the question is box A, with does and does not to tick and a blank naming the declaration section the restraint lives in.
The route to that form runs through the seller. Before a contract is executed, the selling owner furnishes the buyer a current copy of the declaration, the bylaws, any association rules and a resale certificate issued by the association, and the certificate must have been prepared not earlier than three months before the day it reaches the buyer. The association has its own deadline once the owner asks in writing, and it may charge up to $375 for the certificate. So the practical sequence is a written request from the selling owner, then the certificate, then box A read against the section of the declaration it points to. Pull the recorded declaration and its amendments from the county alongside it, because the certificate points at a section and the declaration is where that section can be read.
What happens to my contract if the right of first refusal is exercised?
The contract ends and the earnest money comes back to you. Under TREC's Residential Condominium Contract (Resale), the paragraph that handles a right of first refusal also moves the effective date: it becomes the day you receive the association's certification that the seller has complied with the right and that everyone who could exercise it has not exercised it or has waived it. If that certification does not arrive in the days written in, the contract terminates the same way.
That moving effective date matters more than it looks, because the contract's own deadlines count from it. The days for delivery of the documents and the certificate run from the effective date, the option period runs from the effective date, and the earnest money and option fee are due within three days after it, or by the end of the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday. So a home subject to a right of first refusal has a calendar that does not begin in earnest until the association's certification lands. Read the current version on TREC's site with whoever is writing your offer, because the paragraph carries a blank for the number of days you will wait on that certification, and the figure in that blank is a decision rather than a default.
How many days do I have to terminate after the condominium documents arrive?
Seven days after you receive the declaration, bylaws and rules, and seven days after you receive the certificate, in the contract box recording that you had not received them when you signed. Each window runs from your receipt of that document, by written notice to the seller. The Property Code adds its own right to a buyer who signed without a document: cancellation before the sixth day after the documents arrive, or after the certificate arrives or a waiver is executed, whichever occurs first.
The two rights work side by side. The seven-day windows are contract terms, they belong to a buyer the contract records as not having received the documents, and terminating under the documents window refunds the earnest money. The contract says in so many words that the buyer keeps the statutory right as well. The statutory route has its own form. Cancellation is by hand delivering written notice to the selling owner or by mailing notice certified with return receipt requested, within the five-day cancellation period, it carries no penalty, and every payment made before cancellation is refunded. One more protection sits beside it: a selling owner may not require a buyer to close until the declaration, bylaws and any rules have been given to the buyer. Not every transfer carries those documents. A gratuitous disposition, a disposition under court order, one by a government or governmental agency, one by foreclosure or deed in lieu, and one cancellable at any time, for any reason, without penalty need no condominium information statement or resale certificate prepared or delivered at all, so a buyer in one of those transactions is on a different calendar.
How is the option period different from those seven-day windows?
The option period is an unrestricted right to terminate for any reason, for a number of days the parties write into the contract, and notice has to be given by 5:00 p.m. local time on the last day. It also has to be bought: the option fee reaches the escrow agent within three days after the effective date, or by the end of the next day that is not a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday, and without it the unrestricted right does not exist.
The seven-day windows depend on a document arriving. They start when you receive the documents or the certificate, they end seven days later, and terminating under either one refunds the earnest money. The option period depends on nothing but the calendar. Terminate inside it and the option fee stays with the seller while the earnest money is refunded. The same extension past a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday covers the earnest money, which is due on that same three-day deadline. In a building where parking is a recorded interest and the declaration has been amended more than once, the option period is the window the county reading has to fit inside, because the unrestricted right to walk away ends when it does.
Can I close on a Houston condominium without travelling to Texas?
Texas law permits online notarization whether or not you are sitting in the state, over two-way video and audio, with identity verified by the notary's personal knowledge or by remote presentation of a government-issued credential containing the signer's signature and photograph, plus credential analysis of it and identity proofing of the person. Whether your lender, title company and escrow agent will accept that is a separate question, and the title company is the one to ask first.
The mechanics are prescribed. The notarial certificate must note that the notarization was an online one, the notary keeps a secure electronic record of each session including a recording of the video and audio conference and the fee charged, and that record is kept for at least five years. A paper document can be handled the same way. The signer signs on camera with a declaration, sends the document and declaration to the notary no later than the third day after the notarization, and the notary receives them no later than the 10th day. The fee for the online notarization is capped at $25 on top of the ordinary notary fee. Ask the title company early rather than late, because it has to insure the result, and ask which documents your lender wants notarized in person. Then fill in the notice addresses on the contract carefully: notices are effective when mailed, hand delivered, faxed or transmitted electronically to the addresses the parties write in.
How do I confirm which parking spaces come with a specific unit here?
Read the recorded documents in order. Parking at this condominium is a limited common element: apart from two classes the statute's unit-boundary section describes, the declaration describes those elements and allocates each unit its interests, and the plats carry their locations and dimensions. Except as the declaration otherwise provides, reallocation between units happens by a recorded amendment executed by the owners involved, so the answer for one home is whatever the latest amendment says.
The chain for this building is on file. The condominium instrument was filed on 7 May 2009 under file number 20090193056, a supplement followed on 4 May 2012 under file number 20120196965, and an amendment recorded in August 2021 is indexed as the tenth amendment and described as concerning the reallocation of parking spaces. The index records that the amendments exist without saying what each one changed, which makes this a reading job from the declaration forward rather than a search. A listing written from an older document can describe spaces that a later amendment moved. Do the reading while the option period is still running, since that is the window in which an unrestricted termination is still available. If parking is part of what you are paying for, the recorded allocation for that unit number is the thing to see in writing before the window closes.
What do I owe the association once I own the unit?
Information, on a deadline. Not later than the 30th day after you acquire an interest in a unit, you give the association your mailing address, telephone number and driver's license number, if any, the name and address of any lienholder with the loan number, the name and telephone number of anyone occupying the unit other than you, and the details of anyone managing it as your agent.
The duty keeps running after that. Once you have notice that any of the reported information has changed, the same deadline applies again, and the association may request the information from time to time. Know where to send it before closing. An association records a management certificate in each county where any part of the condominium sits, stating the condominium's name, the association's name and mailing address, the recording data for the declaration and its amendments, the management company's name, mailing address, telephone number and e-mail address, and the website where the dedicatory instruments are available. The county clerk records that certificate in the real property records, and the association also files it electronically with the Texas Real Estate Commission, which collects it to make the data public. All of this sits after the deed rather than before the contract, which is the distinction worth holding on to: a deadline to report, rather than a decision to be made about you.