The New Missouri Wholesale Disclosure Law: What Passed, What It Means, and What the Industry Is Saying

Missouri Legislative Update · For MAREI Members

The New Missouri Wholesale Disclosure Law: What Passed, What It Means, and What the Industry Is Saying

Senate Bill 973 is now law. Here's what it requires of Missouri wholesalers and sale-leaseback investors — and exactly how to stay compliant.

SB 973 is the most significant change to Missouri real estate transaction law in years. It doesn't ban wholesaling or sale-leasebacks — it regulates how you do them, with mandatory disclosures, hard waiting periods, and real penalties for skipping the steps. What follows is what the law requires and how to comply.

The Bill

What Just Passed

SB 973 is a sweeping real estate transaction bill that touches dozens of sections of Missouri law. For investors, three provisions matter most:

• Mandatory disclosure requirements for real estate wholesalers — including a 14-day waiting period before any contract can be signed.
• Consumer protections for sale-leaseback transactions — including a hard 30-day waiting period before title can transfer.
• Reforms to delinquent property tax procedures — including changes to redemption rights on vacant residential properties.

📄 Read the Full Bill Text (Official PDF)

Already in Effect

SB 973 took effect August 28, 2026. There is no grace period. If you're doing residential wholesale or sale-leaseback deals in Missouri, you need to be following these rules on your very next transaction or maybe on transactions in progress. Julie's advice was to back up and start over.

The Target

What the Law Is Trying to Stop

The disclosure rules exist to shut down a specific set of practices. Reading them is the fastest way to audit your own business — if any of these describe how you operate, this law is pointed squarely at you:

• Sellers — often elderly, financially distressed, or unfamiliar with real estate transactions — entering contracts without understanding that the person they're dealing with is not buying the property, but intends to profit by selling the contract to someone else.
• Purchase prices significantly below market value, agreed to by sellers who did not know they had other options.
• Contracts assigned to third parties without the seller's knowledge or consent.
• Affidavits of equitable interest filed against properties to cloud title when deals fell through.
• Predatory or unconscionable contract clauses buried in purchase agreements.
• Properties marketed publicly — on social media and elsewhere — by wholesalers who do not yet own or control the property, in potential violation of real estate license law.

Compliance

What This Means for Missouri Wholesalers

The Core Requirement: A Mandatory 14-Day Disclosure Window

Under SB 973, anyone who meets the definition of a wholesaler must now provide a written disclosure to the seller at least 14 calendar days before any purchase contract is executed. The disclosure must be:

• A separate, standalone document — not embedded in or attached to the contract.
• Printed in boldface type at a minimum 12-point font size.
• Signed and dated by both parties at the time of delivery.

The disclosure must tell the seller, in plain terms: who the wholesaler is, that the wholesaler represents themselves (not the seller), that the contract can be assigned to a third party without the seller's consent, that the wholesaler intends to profit from the assignment, and that the agreed price may be below market value.

The Practical Workflow Going Forward

1. Visit 1: Meet the seller, discuss the property, present the standalone disclosure form. Both parties sign and date it. Leave a copy. Document the date.
2. Wait: A minimum of 14 full calendar days must pass. Do not rush this. The date is your legal protection.
3. Visit 2: Return no earlier than Day 15. Execute the purchase contract. It is now legally binding.

Who Is — and Is Not — a Wholesaler Under This Law

The law defines a wholesaler as any person or entity that, for compensation or the expectation of compensation, enters into a purchase contract for residential real property and then either assigns the contract to another buyer or novates the contract to another buyer without ever holding legal title.

Two quick definitions that matter here:

Both structures are explicitly covered by this law. A wholesaler cannot avoid the disclosure requirement by choosing one method over the other.

Who Is Exempt

The following are explicitly excluded from the definition of wholesaler:

• Assignments to a family member within the third degree of consanguinity or affinity.
• Assignments to a parent company, subsidiary, affiliate, or entity under common control — meaning if you assign a contract to an LLC you own, a company that owns you, or a sister company under the same ownership umbrella, the disclosure requirements do not apply to that transaction.

What Happens If You Don't Comply

Before closing: If the wholesaler failed to provide the required disclosure, the seller can cancel the contract at any time before the close of escrow — penalty-free, no deadline, no permission needed from the wholesaler. And here's the part that should get every wholesaler's attention: upon cancellation, any earnest money the wholesaler deposited goes to the seller, not back to the wholesaler. The escrow or closing agent is directed to disburse those funds to the seller within 30 days of the cancellation.

After closing: The seller can pursue a civil claim under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act — one of Missouri's broadest consumer protection statutes — for actual damages, punitive damages in willful cases, and attorney fees. The Missouri Attorney General can also independently pursue enforcement.

Industry Question

Does This Apply to Double Closes?

This is the question generating the most conversation in the Missouri investor community right now, and it's a fair one.

Note: We are not attorneys. What follows is how investors and practitioners are reading the statute, not legal advice. Confirm with your attorney before relying on any interpretation.

In a true double close, the investor actually takes title to the property — even if only briefly — before selling to the end buyer. That's two separate, sequential purchase transactions. The investor holds legal title, however momentarily, between the two closings.

The wholesaler definition in SB 973 specifically covers someone who assigns or novates a contract without holding legal title. A double-close investor does hold legal title, which on a plain reading of the statute appears to take that transaction structure outside the definition of wholesaler entirely.

The practical result is that a double close — where the investor actually buys and then sells — lands differently under this law than a straight assignment does. If that's your model, the key is being able to show you genuinely took title, however briefly.

Also in SB 973

Sale-Leaseback Transactions: The 30-Day Rule

For investors who purchase a seller's home as part of a transaction where the seller simultaneously agrees to lease the property back and remain in it, SB 973 creates a separate and significant set of requirements.

The core rules:

• A written disclosure must be provided to the seller at least 14 days before signing the sale-leaseback agreement.
• Both parties must sign the disclosure at the same time they sign the agreement.
• The seller must receive a copy of the signed disclosure within 5 days of execution.
• No title can transfer for at least 30 days after the agreement is signed — no exceptions, no waivers, no contracting around it.

The 30-day title-transfer delay has a practical downstream effect: because the buyer cannot take legal ownership until Day 31 at the earliest, the leaseback tenancy itself cannot legally commence until then either. The buyer is not a landlord until they own the property.

Penalties for violation are steep: up to $10,000 per violation in civil penalties, plus the seller can sue for actual damages plus an additional $10,000 in automatic statutory damages on top of those, plus attorney fees.

📋 See full sale-leaseback details in the Advisory Brief →

Also Worth Noting

Delinquent Tax Sales: A Change That Matters

Buried in the tax-sale provisions of SB 973 is one change that tax-sale investors should pay close attention to. Under the new law, a property owner loses their right of redemption entirely — with no waiting period before the sheriff's sale — if two conditions are both met:

• The property is assessed as residential, and
• The property has been vacant for at least six months prior to the foreclosure judgment.

Previously, owners typically retained a redemption period after judgment. This change removes that window on qualifying vacant residential properties and allows a sale under execution to proceed immediately once the judgment is final. For investors pursuing vacant residential properties through the tax-sale process, this is a meaningful efficiency gain.

Common Questions

Where Do I Fall Under This Law?

We're not attorneys — this is how practitioners are reading the statute, not legal advice. Confirm your own situation with your attorney before you rely on it.

"I buy houses for my own account. Does this apply to me?"

If you're a cash buyer purchasing for your own account with no intent to assign or novate the contract to another party, our reading is that this law does not apply to you. You are not a wholesaler under the statute, so the 14-day waiting period, the standalone disclosure form, and the earnest-money forfeiture risk are all irrelevant to your transaction. The requirements attach to the assignment and novation model — not to buying and holding.

"What if I run my deals as double closes?"

On a plain reading, a true double close where you take title — even briefly — appears to fall outside the wholesaler definition (see the double-close section above). The safe move is to document the transaction structure clearly so you can show you genuinely held title, and confirm the approach with your attorney.

"Does this cover commercial deals?"

No. These rules apply to residential 1–4 unit properties only. Commercial transactions are not covered by the disclosure requirements.

Still not sure where your model lands? Talk it through with other Missouri investors on Facebook — and bring the specifics to your attorney.

Quick Reference

What You Need to Do — At a Glance