In Fulshear, "New Construction" No Longer Means the Same Warranty for Everyone

Ask a builder's sales rep in Fulshear how long the structural warranty runs, and you'll get a confident number. Ask that same question at a different sales office three miles away, in a different community, and you might get a different number entirely. Both answers can be correct. That's the part most buyers don't expect.

For more than a decade, new construction in Texas came with an unspoken assumption: one year on workmanship, two years on mechanical systems, ten years on structural defects like foundation and framing. Everyone quoted the same numbers because everyone followed the same informal template. A state law passed in 2023 broke that uniformity, and Fulshear's builder-heavy market is exactly where the difference shows up.

The Ten-Year Standard Was Always a Choice, Not a Law

Texas actually did require builder warranties at one point, through the Texas Residential Construction Commission Act. That agency was abolished when the Act expired in 2009, and since 2010 Texas builders have had no legal obligation to offer a warranty at all. What kept the familiar one-year, two-year, ten-year structure alive for the next thirteen years was industry habit. Builders kept writing warranties that mirrored the old statutory language because it was good practice, gave them a clear definition of "good workmanship," and reassured buyers, according to a builder-defect explainer from Holmes Firm PC.

That's the part worth sitting with. The ten-year structural term was never required. It was a norm, and norms can change the moment the incentive to hold them does.

What Changed in June 2023

A Texas law that took effect June 9, 2023 gave builders a new option: shorten the structural statute of repose from ten years down to six, but only if they issue a written "1-2-6" warranty in its place, one year workmanship, two years mechanical, six years structural. If a builder doesn't put a 1-2-6 warranty in writing, the old ten-year window still applies by default, according to a legal analysis published by Lexology.

That last detail matters more than the headline. The law didn't shrink every Texas warranty. It handed builders a lever, and whether they pull it is a business decision made contract by contract, builder by builder.

A ten-year structural warranty used to be the assumption. Now it's a line item you have to ask about, printed in a document most buyers don't read closely before closing.

The Builders Actually Building in Fulshear Right Now

This is where it gets concrete for anyone shopping Fulshear's new-construction inventory. The city currently has close to twenty active builders working across more than forty communities, with new-build pricing spanning roughly $270,000 to $1.3 million. Two names show up constantly in that mix: Lennar, active in communities including Jordan Ranch and Cross Creek West, and D.R. Horton, active in communities including Tamarron.

Both are still writing the traditional ten-year structural term, not the shortened six-year option. D.R. Horton's own homeowner guide states plainly that its homes carry a ten-year structural warranty backed by a separate warranty company. An investigation by Hunterbrook Media into both companies' warranty practices confirms the same pattern for Lennar, which markets a comparable one-year, two-year, ten-year structure to its buyers. As of February 2026, D.R. Horton and Lennar were also the two builders pulling the most new-home permits in the Houston area, ahead of every other production builder in the market that month.

So the two builders putting up the most new homes in Fulshear haven't shortened anything. That's genuinely useful for a buyer standing in a Jordan Ranch or Tamarron sales office today. It's also exactly why this can't be treated as settled market-wide. Jordan Ranch alone is built out by nine different homebuilders, not one. A production builder's standardized contract rarely varies from closing to closing, but a smaller or custom builder working under fifty homes a year has more room to write its own terms, and some of those builders have moved to the shorter six-year window while offering to extend it back to ten if a buyer asks before signing. The only way to know which version you're getting is to ask the specific builder building your specific lot, not to assume the neighborhood sets the rule.

Why the Timing Favors Asking Now

Fulshear's new-construction market hasn't slowed to the point where buyers feel like they're negotiating from weakness. As of late June 2026, the average Fulshear home value stood at $608,322, up a modest 0.5 percent over the prior year, with homes moving to pending in about 33 days. That's not a stalled market. But it sits inside a broader Texas picture where, earlier this year, statewide inventory had climbed well above its recent averages and days on market had stretched compared to the year before, the kind of backdrop that gives buyers more room across the board to ask for paperwork concessions before they sign rather than after.

Warranty terms are exactly the kind of concession that costs a builder nothing to put in writing and costs a buyer nothing to ask for. The leverage exists at the contract stage, before earnest money changes hands, not after move-in when a builder has no reason to revisit terms it already delivered on.

The Deadlines Inside Whatever Tier You Get

Whichever version of the warranty you end up with, the tiers work the same way and the deadlines are unforgiving:

• Year one, workmanship and materials. Cosmetic and finish-quality issues have to be documented and submitted before the one-year anniversary. Miss it, and the claim is typically denied outright regardless of how legitimate it is.
• Years one through two, mechanical systems. Plumbing, electrical, and HVAC defects are covered through month 24. These systems tend to reveal problems within that window, which is exactly why the coverage stops there.
• Years two through six or ten, structural. Foundation, framing, and load-bearing elements stay covered for whichever term your specific builder wrote into the contract.

Industry guidance consistently points to two checkpoints worth putting on a calendar: an independent inspection around month 11, before the workmanship tier closes, and a second one near month 23, before the mechanical tier closes. These run roughly $300 to $500 each and routinely surface issues a homeowner wouldn't notice on their own. Structural repairs, when they do surface, aren't cheap. Foundation work in Texas commonly runs from $5,000 into the tens of thousands depending on severity, and a crack discovered even a month after the structural tier closes becomes an entirely out-of-pocket expense with no builder or warranty company on the hook.

What to Ask Before You Sign

For anyone comparing lots across Fulshear's builder field, a short list of questions does most of the work:

• Ask for the warranty document in writing before closing, not a verbal summary from a sales rep.
• Ask specifically whether the structural term is six years or ten. Don't assume it matches the neighboring builder's terms.
• Ask whether the structural coverage is backed by a third-party insurer, such as 2-10 or StrucSure, since that coverage survives if the builder itself runs into financial trouble later.
• Put the 11-month and 23-month inspections on your calendar the day you close, not the week before the deadline.

None of this requires a lawyer to start the conversation. It requires asking the same question at every sales office you visit and writing down the answer.

A Few Questions Worth Answering Directly

Does this change anything for a home that already closed years ago? Homes built and warrantied before the June 2023 change fall under the framework that was standard at the time, generally the full ten-year structural term. The shift only affects warranties written under the new option going forward, so the build and closing date on your specific contract is what determines which rules applied.

I'm looking at a resale that's two or three years old. Does the original warranty still apply? Structural warranties typically transfer to subsequent owners, with the remaining coverage period counted from the original closing date rather than restarting. That makes the original builder's warranty tier, and the date that home first closed, worth confirming during due diligence on any near-new resale in communities like Cross Creek West or Jordan Ranch.

Is a builder-backed warranty enough on its own? It's a starting point, not a substitute for an independent look. The 11-month and 23-month inspection windows exist because the warranty clock doesn't pause for anyone, and catching an issue with time to spare is the only way the coverage does what it's supposed to do.

If you're weighing a new build in Tamarron against a resale a few streets over, or trying to figure out what a Jordan Ranch contract actually promises compared to a smaller builder's paperwork elsewhere in Fulshear, this is exactly the kind of detail worth getting right before you sign anything. Kellye Casey works these communities and these contracts regularly. Let's Connect before you're staring down a closing date with questions still unanswered.