Texas Business and Commerce Code 56.001 – Definitions
Terms Used In Texas Business and Commerce Code 56.001
- Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
- Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
- Person: includes corporation, organization, government or governmental subdivision or agency, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, association, and any other legal entity. See Texas Government Code 311.005
- Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
- Property: means real and personal property. See Texas Government Code 311.005
- Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
In this chapter:
(1) “Contingent payee” means a party to a contract with a contingent payment clause, other than an architect or engineer, whose receipt of payment is conditioned on the contingent payor’s receipt of payment from another person.
(2) “Contingent payment clause” means a provision in a contract for construction management, or for the construction of improvements to real property or the furnishing of materials for the construction, that provides that the contingent payor’s receipt of payment from another is a condition precedent to the obligation of the contingent payor to make payment to the contingent payee for work performed or materials furnished.
(3) “Contingent payor” means a party to a contract with a contingent payment clause that conditions payment by the party on the receipt of payment from another person.
(4) “Improvement” includes new construction, remodeling, or repair.
(5) “Obligor” means the person obligated to make payment to the contingent payor for an improvement.
(6) “Primary obligor” means the owner of the real property to be improved or repaired under the contract, or the contracting authority if the contract is for a public project. A primary obligor may be an obligor.