August 19, 2026
Senate Bill 973 takes effect August 28, 2026. Here is what changes, and what to do before then.
If you buy houses in Missouri, 2 new statutes are about to land on your desk. One creates a 14 calendar day disclosure requirement for wholesalers. The other regulates sale leasebacks and carries $10,000.00 in statutory damages per violation. Both come from Senate Bill 973.
The bill is easy to miss. Most of its 77 pages concern delinquent property taxes, land banks, and land trusts. The 2 sections that regulate how investors buy houses sit at the very back.
The new wholesaler disclosure. RSMo §407.3600
Who is covered
A wholesaler is a person or entity that, for a fee or the expectation of one, enters into a purchase contract for residential real property and then assigns or novates it. The definition reaches 2 positions: the grantee side (the buyer on the contract) and the grantor side (a person selling under a contract for property to which they hold no legal title).
The fee need not be paid. Expecting one is enough. Residential real property means property improved by a structure with 1 to 4 dwelling units. A duplex is covered. A 5-unit building, a vacant lot, and a strip center are not.
Who is not covered
The statute carves out 2 situations. An individual who assigns or novates to a relative within the 3rd degree of consanguinity or affinity. And a person or entity that assigns or novates to a parent, affiliate, subsidiary, or affiliated group under common control.
That carveout is broad, and it matters to any investor running several entities. But common control is a relationship, not a label. Forming an LLC the week of closing and calling it an affiliate is a different thing. If you plan to rely on this exemption, document the control relationship now, before anyone asks.
The duty
A wholesaler acting as a grantee, or the wholesaler’s representative, must give the record owner a written disclosure statement not less than 14 calendar days before entering a contract that transfers an interest in residential real property. It must be separate from the purchase contract, boldface, in a font not smaller than 12 points, and contain the statutory language. Weekends and holidays count.
Subsection 3 adds a second, independent requirement. A wholesaler acting as the grantee cannot enter into a binding contract until both parties have signed and dated the disclosure. Satisfying one does not satisfy the other. A disclosure signed at the kitchen table with a contract signed that afternoon violates the 14 day rule. A disclosure mailed early that nobody signed also violates the signature rule.
What the form says
The statute writes the language for you. The form tells the seller that the buyer is a wholesaler who does not represent them, who intends to assign the contract to a third party for a profit without their consent, who may charge that buyer a fee, that the price may be below market value, and that the seller should seek legal advice.
Reproduce that language. Do not improve it. Rewriting it creates a fact question about whether you complied, and fact questions cost more than most assignment fees are worth. You can also find a sample Wholesaler Disclosure Statement and instructions located at https://mokslaw.com/forms/.
Record owner, not property owner
This is the detail most people are going to miss. The Senate’s own summary of the bill uses the phrase property owner. The enacted text says record owner in subsections 2, 3, and 4. When the summary and the statute disagree, the statute governs.
The record owner is the last grantee in the recorded chain of title. You find this on the recorder of deeds, not by asking the person who answers the door. In the deals that wholesalers chase, those are often different people. The heir in a house never probated. The unrecorded deed. The divorce where nobody recorded the quitclaim. The revocable trust. The dissolved LLC.
You now need to run title before you deliver the disclosure, not before you close. This moves the title order to the front of the funnel, on deals that may never happen. It is a compliance cost now, not a due diligence cost.
What happens if you skip it
If a wholesaler acting as the grantee fails to disclose before entering into a binding contract, the record owner may cancel any time before the close of escrow, without penalty. The escrow agent must then disburse any earnest money the wholesaler paid to the record owner within 30 days. Your earnest money goes to the seller and not back to you.
There is no cure period and no deadline other than closing, so every noncompliant contract is a free option for the seller. The section is nonwaivable, and any waiver in an agreement executed, modified, or extended after the effective date is null and void.
Who can come after you
Three sources. The seller has an express private right of action. The Attorney General may sue for damages, injunctive relief, and attorney fees. And any violation is an unlawful practice under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, RSMo Chapter 407.
The practical exposure is not the damages; it is the fees. The reason to comply is not that you might lose your earnest money, it’s that a small dispute now makes economic sense for a lawyer to take these cases and if you lose you pay for both sides’ lawyer fees. This type of fee shifting is what turns a statute that looks toothless into one that gets enforced.
One thing the text leaves open
The definition in subsection 1 covers both the grantee side and the grantor side wholesaler. But the disclosure duty, the contracting bar, and the cancellation remedy in subsections 2, 3, and 4 each reach only a wholesaler acting as the grantee. Read literally, the grantor side wholesaler is defined but not regulated.
That is our reading, not settled law. There is no case law and no Attorney General guidance, and a court could read the definition as supplying the scope of the whole section. If you operate on the grantor side, it is conservative to comply anyway. Compliance costs 1 page and 14 days. The cost of being wrong is your fee, your earnest money, and the other side’s attorney fees.
Sale leasebacks. Section 442.920, RSMo
The second statute is the Missouri Residential Sale Leaseback Protection Act. It reaches any transaction, or series of transactions, in which a person sells a home that is or was their residence and, as part of the same or a related transaction, enters into a lease to remain in or reoccupy it.
If you have ever bought a house from a homeowner in trouble and let them stay on as a tenant, this applies to you. It has no carveouts, and its sequence differs from the wholesaler section. Do not run 1 checklist for both.
- Give the seller a single page disclosure in the statutory language, clear, conspicuous, and boldface, not less than 14 calendar days before execution.
- Both parties sign it concurrently with execution of the agreement, not at delivery.
- A copy of the signed disclosure goes to the seller within 5 days of execution.
- No transfer of title may occur until 30 days after execution.
From first contact to recorded deed, the minimum is 44 days. Plan your capital and instruct your title company accordingly.
The penalties are the largest thing in the bill. The Attorney General may seek up to $10,000.00 per violation, plus injunctive relief and restitution. A harmed seller may recover actual damages, statutory damages of $10,000.00 on top, attorney fees, and equitable relief. The section is nonwaivable, and any waiver executed, modified, or extended after the effective date is void.
Examples of violations are delivering the disclosure 13 days out instead of 14, or recording on day 28 instead of day 30. That is paperwork, and it carries $10,000.00 plus fees. You can locate a sample Sale Leaseback Disclosure and instructions located at https://mokslaw.com/forms/.
Tax sales, land banks, and land trusts
Most of SB 973 rewrites Chapters 140 and 141. Four changes matter to investors.
- Vacant residential property moves faster. Under Section 141.520.3, there is no redemption where the property is assessed as residential and the judgment finds it vacant for at least 6 months before judgment. Sale on execution is immediate.
- The notice burden in partial opt in counties is heavier. A title search 120 days before the sheriff’s sale, a records search across the recorder, treasurer, assessor, Missouri CaseNet, and the Secretary of State, mailed notice 30 days out, a posted weatherproof notice 20 days out with photograph and affidavit, and attempted in person notice 20 days out. That paperwork is your title defense if you buy, and your attack if a sale wiped out your interest.
- Bidding costs more, and the date is fixed. A non-reimbursable $200.00 bidder fee is added to the minimum bid. In partial opt in counties, the sale is held on the 4th Monday in August.
- Setting a sale aside got expensive. Under Section 141.580.6, an interested party other than the purchaser who moves to set aside a sale after the deed issues must first pay the redemption amount into court.
Section 140.987 repeals the bar on a land bank selling to the original owner or a relative within the 2nd degree of consanguinity. A family that lost a house to tax foreclosure may buy it back, though each land bank’s policy still governs.
What to do before August 28
- Build the 2 disclosure forms, one for Section 407.3600 and one for Section 442.920. Statutory language verbatim, boldface, 12 point minimum, standalone pages.
- Gate your CRM. No Missouri residential purchase contract generates until the disclosure date is logged and 14 calendar days have run.
- Move the title order to the front of your funnel. You cannot identify a record owner without it.
- Train everyone who talks to sellers, including virtual assistants and cold callers. The duty reaches the wholesaler’s representative.
- Review any contract signed before August 28, 2026 that you may extend or amend later. Both non-waivability provisions reach agreements modified or extended after the effective date.
- Rewrite marketing that promises a fast close. On a Missouri residential assignment, you no longer can move quickly.
- Tell your title companies. They will hold deeds for 30 days and disburse earnest money to sellers.
What nobody knows yet
Neither section is effective yet, so there is no case law and no Attorney General guidance. Open questions remain as to what a binding contract means in Section 407.3600.3, how far the affiliate carveout reaches, whether extending a pre-effective date contract pulls it into the statute, and how aggressively the Attorney General will enforce. Anyone who tells you in the next 6 months exactly how these provisions will be applied is guessing.
Our read is that this statute does not end wholesaling in Missouri. It ends a particular way of doing it, the version where the seller never learns what happened. Compliant operators will be slower and spend more on title work, and they will be fine. The ones who get hurt are the ones who do not know this passed.
Who can help
Anderson & Associates represents real estate investors, property management companies, banks, and lenders across Missouri and Kansas. Contact us today for a consultation.
Missouri Office: 1903 Wyandotte St., Suite 100, Kansas City, MO 64108 | (816) 931-2207
Kansas Office: 1901 W. 47th Place, Suite 300, Westwood, KS 66205 | (913) 262-2207
Email: julie@mokslaw.com | Web: www.mokslaw.com
Disclosure
This article is general information about Missouri law as of August 2026. It is not legal advice and does not create an attorney client relationship. SB 973 is a Missouri statute and does not apply to Kansas property. Verify the current text at revisor.mo.gov and consult counsel before acting.