The Seller's Temporary Lease (TREC 15-6): Staying in Your San Antonio Home After Closing

You sold the house, but your new place isn't ready — the build slipped, the movers can't come until the 15th, or you closed early to lock a rate. The tool for this in a standard Texas resale contract is TREC form 15-6, the Seller's Temporary Residential Lease. It lets you stay in the property after closing for up to 90 days, on terms negotiated as part of the sale. Used correctly, it buys you a soft landing. Used carelessly, it turns your buyer into your landlord and puts your earnest-money-sized problems into daily-rent-sized ones.

Here is what San Antonio sellers actually need to know before signing it.

When a leaseback makes sense

A seller leaseback belongs in three specific situations:

• New construction delay. You're closing on a resale in Alamo Ranch or Cibolo and your new build off 1604 is 30 days behind. Common, and lenders on the buy side generally accept a short leaseback.
• Rate-lock pressure. Your buyer's rate lock expires and pushing closing costs them thousands. You close on time and lease back the days you needed anyway.
• School calendar. You don't want to move your kids mid-semester out of NEISD or Alamo Heights ISD. Closing in June with a lease back through early August is cleaner than a long option-to-close timeline.

What a leaseback is not for: unresolved probate, a divorce where one spouse hasn't agreed to leave, or a seller who "probably" has somewhere to go. If you don't have a firm move-out date, don't sign a form that promises one.

The 90-day ceiling and why TREC drew the line there

TREC 15-6 caps the term at 90 days. This is not arbitrary. Beyond 90 days, the arrangement legally starts to look like a full residential tenancy governed by Chapter 92 of the Texas Property Code — habitability duties, statutory notice requirements, security deposit accounting under § 92.103, the works. TREC's short-term form is designed to sit outside that world by staying short.

If you need more than 90 days, do not extend 15-6. Sign a separate residential lease drafted for the situation, ideally by a Texas real estate attorney. The buyer's lender may also have a problem past 90 days — more on that below.

How the daily rent is calculated

The form has a blank for daily rental. There is no statutory formula, but the market convention in Bexar County transactions is to set it equal to the buyer's new daily carrying cost — principal, interest, taxes, insurance, and any HOA dues, divided by 30. On a $350,000 home with a conventional loan, Bexar County property taxes running roughly 2.1–2.5% of assessed value depending on the taxing entities, and typical insurance, that PITI number usually lands somewhere between $2,400 and $3,200 a month. Divide by 30 and you have your daily rate.

Two negotiation points:

• Free days at the front. Some contracts give the seller the first 1–3 days at no charge to allow for the natural gap between funding and physical move-out. Put this in writing on the form, not verbally.
• Prepaid vs. per-diem. The form contemplates the seller prepaying the full anticipated rent at closing, deducted from proceeds on the settlement statement. If you leave early, you get a refund of unused days. If you stay past the term, you owe the buyer — and the daily rate typically escalates (often to 1.5x or 2x) as a holdover penalty.

The security deposit and end-of-lease damages

15-6 requires a deposit — again negotiated, but $1,000–$3,000 is typical for a standard San Antonio resale. This is not a formality. When the lease ends, the buyer walks the property and any new damage — a movers' gouge in the drywall, a broken banister, missing appliances that were listed — comes out of the deposit first and out of your pocket after that.

Document the condition at closing. Take date-stamped photos of every room, the garage, the yard, and the mechanicals the same day you fund. If the buyer took their final walk-through and signed off, you have a baseline. This is the single most useful thing you can do to avoid a deposit fight.

Utilities, insurance, and risk of loss

This is where the form is most often misread.

• Utilities stay in the seller's name. CPS Energy for electric and gas, SAWS for water and sewer. Do not close your accounts at closing. Notify them your service-end date matches your lease-end date.
• Property insurance shifts to the buyer. They own the house — their HO-3 policy is in force from the moment of funding. Your homeowners policy typically terminates at closing.
• You need renter's insurance. Your contents are no longer covered by a homeowners policy you no longer have. An HO-4 renter's policy for the leaseback period costs almost nothing and covers your belongings plus liability.
• Risk of loss for the structure sits with the buyer. If a hailstorm totals the roof during your leaseback — not uncommon in a San Antonio spring — that's the buyer's insurer's problem, not yours. But your stuff inside is your problem unless you carried renter's insurance.

The buyer's lender may cap your stay at 60 days

Most owner-occupied conventional and FHA loans require the buyer to occupy the property within 60 days of closing. VA loans have a similar occupancy requirement, which matters constantly in San Antonio given the volume of JBSA-Randolph, JBSA-Lackland, and Fort Sam Houston PCS buyers using VA financing.

What that means practically: even though TREC 15-6 permits up to 90 days, if your buyer is financing with a VA or FHA loan, or a conventional loan with owner-occupancy language, their real ceiling may be 60. Ask the buyer's agent to confirm with the lender in writing before you build a move-out plan around day 89. A buyer who violates occupancy terms can face loan-level consequences, and they will pass that pressure directly to you.

What most people get wrong

• Treating the leaseback as an option-period extension. It is not. Once you close, the buyer owns the house. If a repair issue surfaces during the leaseback, you are not on the hook the way you were before closing — but you are their tenant, and they can enforce the lease.
• Not prepaying rent at closing. If the daily rent isn't debited on the CD as prepaid, you're writing the buyer a check every week. Fold it into the settlement statement.
• Assuming holdover is negotiable. The form's escalated holdover rate is a real number. If you overstay by a week at 2x rent, that is a meaningful hit against what you netted. Move on time.
• Leaving utilities in the buyer's name. Buyers sometimes offer this as a "favor." Decline. You are the occupant. The bill is yours, and comingling accounts creates disputes at move-out.
• Skipping renter's insurance because "it's only 30 days." A single kitchen fire in those 30 days and you're uninsured on contents and exposed on liability to the new owner.
• Going month-to-month verbally past day 90. At day 91 with no written extension, you're a holdover tenant governed by Chapter 92 and § 24.005. The buyer can post a 3-day notice to vacate and file an eviction in the Bexar County JP court for the precinct where the property sits. That is not a hypothetical — it happens.

Getting it on paper before you sign the contract

The leaseback is negotiated in the sales contract, not after. If you know at listing you'll need post-closing possession, tell your agent so the language, daily rate, deposit, and term are baked into the offer response — not sprung on the buyer three days before closing when leverage is gone.

If you're preparing to list and think a leaseback might be part of your exit, browse recent San Antonio listings and comparable sales at HomeFinder to gauge your timing, list FSBO free at /list-your-home if you're going direct, or find a Bexar County agent at /agents who has closed 15-6 deals before. The form is short. The consequences of using it wrong are not.