Utah's New 2027 REPC: What Actually Changed (Broker Breakdown)

Quick answer: Utah has approved a new Real Estate Purchase Contract (the REPC) that becomes mandatory January 1, 2027. It is a cleanup and modernization of the current form, not a dramatic rewrite. The real changes: smart home devices and EV chargers now convey with the house, the HOA reserve study must be disclosed, a seller’s service contracts no longer pass to the buyer, a holdover seller now owes a daily fee, and if a buyer keeps the financing condition, cancelling for financing reasons now releases a percentage of the earnest money to the seller, defaulting to 50 percent. A lot of what is circulating online overstates it, so below I compare the new form to the current one line by line.

By Kris Bowen, Real Estate Broker, LPT Realty, 23 years Utah real estate.

The REPC is the contract behind almost every home sale in Utah, and licensees are required to use the state-approved version. The Utah Real Estate Commission and the Office of the Utah Attorney General have approved a new one, and it becomes mandatory January 1, 2027. The update was more than a year in the making with input from a committee of brokers, agents, and attorneys.

I read the approved form side by side with the current one, clause by clause, because a lot of the early commentary is calling things “new” that have actually been in the contract for a while. Below is what genuinely changed, what it means for you, and a short list of the things that did not change even though you may hear otherwise. If you want a walkthrough of how the contract works today, I keep a full page-by-page guide at Utah REPC explained.

A quick note on timing. The Commission gave the new form its final approval in August 2026, with a few minor adjustments requested by the Attorney General’s office, and the official published version is expected shortly. It becomes mandatory January 1, 2027, and will appear in the Utah forms libraries in the coming weeks so agents can study it first. Until January 1, the current form is what gets signed on live transactions, and any deal written in 2026 stays on the form it started on, even if it closes in 2027.

Here is the whole thing at a glance, today’s form next to the new one.

What actually changed

Smart home devices now convey with the house

This is the clearest addition. The current form already includes things like solar panels, ceiling fans, and a security system. The new form adds a dedicated home automation section that also includes smart home devices when they are owned and in place: thermostat controls, home monitors, automated locks, video doorbells, and automated lighting systems, along with their dedicated controls. Your phone, tablet, and laptop are specifically not included, since those are not dedicated to the home.

What it means. Fewer walk-through arguments. If a seller wants to keep the video doorbell or the smart thermostat, that now has to be written in as an exclusion. Buyers should confirm the devices are handed over working, with the seller’s accounts removed.

Electric vehicle charging stations are now a listed item

The new form adds a checkbox for electric vehicle charging stations and associated equipment, alongside the familiar washer, dryer, and refrigerator boxes. On the current form an EV charger was not called out, so it lived in a gray area. Now it is a box you check or leave unchecked.

What it means. If a home has a wired EV charger, spell out whether it stays. It is exactly the kind of item that gets unbolted the night before closing when the contract is silent.

The HOA reserve study must now be disclosed

The current form requires the seller to disclose the HOA’s most recent minutes, budget, and financial statement. The new form adds the reserve analysis to that list.

What it means. This is a genuinely useful upgrade for buyers in an HOA. The reserve study is the document that signals whether a special assessment is coming, which is the kind of surprise that lands after closing. If you are buying in an association, this pairs well with understanding your Utah closing costs so nothing at the table catches you off guard.

A seller’s service contracts no longer follow the house

The new form adds a clause stating the buyer is not obligated to take over the seller’s personal service agreements, meaning things like property management, short-term rental management, security monitoring, pest control, and landscaping. The seller has to satisfy or terminate those by closing. The current form does not address this.

What it means, and what happens if the seller does not cancel. Buyers do not inherit the seller’s vendor contracts by default. The form does not set a penalty for a seller who fails to cancel, and it does not need one: the obligation and the liability simply stay with the seller. The buyer takes the property free of those agreements, and any early-termination fees, unpaid vendor fees, or fees earned before closing remain the seller’s to settle. So a seller who forgets to cancel the pest control or the property management contract does not bind the buyer to it, but they can still owe that vendor. Sellers should close out those accounts as part of the move so nobody comes looking after closing.

A holdover seller now owes a daily fee, and hands over the codes

Possession has always been tied to recording, and that did not change. What is new is the consequence if a seller does not leave on time. The new form sets a holdover fee of the amount written in or 300 dollars per day, whichever is greater, treats a seller who stays as a tenant at will, which opens the door to an eviction action, and requires the seller to provide a duplicate or master key and any keyless lock codes at closing. The current form has none of this.

What it means. The possession date now has teeth. Sellers need a real plan to be fully out on time, and buyers get a defined remedy and the keyless codes they will actually need.

Financing cancellation is now a percentage, with a 50 percent default

This one is subtle and worth understanding. On the current form, if a buyer keeps the financing condition and cancels for financing reasons before the deadline, the parties fill in a dollar amount of earnest money that goes to the seller. On the new form, that becomes a percentage, and if the box is left blank it defaults to 50 percent to the seller.

What it means. The default flipped. On the current form, leaving that blank meant nothing went to the seller. On the new form, leaving it blank means half the earnest money goes to the seller on a financing cancellation. Buyers and their agents need to read that line and choose the number on purpose rather than skip it. Being fully pre-approved before you write, not just pre-qualified, matters more than ever.

Expect that number to move with the market. In a slower or buyer-friendly market like much of what we are seeing now, most buyers will write in 0 percent, so a financing cancellation returns all of the earnest money, and plenty of sellers will accept it to keep the deal together. On a competitive listing, or if the market heats back up, sellers gain the leverage to push that percentage up, and the 50 percent default starts to look like a floor rather than a ceiling. Know which market you are in before you fill in that line.

To cancel on the appraisal, you now hand over the full report

This one is easy to miss and worth pointing out. On the current form, a buyer canceling because the home appraised low sends the seller a copy of the “Notice of Appraised Value,” which is essentially the number. The new form changes what you deliver. To cancel on the Appraisal Condition, the buyer must now provide the seller “a complete copy of the appraisal.”

What it means. The seller now sees the entire appraisal, the comparable sales the appraiser used, the adjustments, and any condition notes, not just the final figure. For buyers, that puts your full report in the seller’s hands. For sellers, it is real information to renegotiate with, challenge a low number, or price a relist. Either way, plan on the whole appraisal changing how a low-appraisal conversation goes.

Appraisal and financing now have separate deadlines

The current form uses one combined Financing and Appraisal Deadline. The new form splits it in two, an Appraisal Deadline and a Financing Deadline, listed separately in Section 4. It is a small structural change, but it lets the two contingencies run on their own clocks instead of sharing one.

What it means. During the transition, read your dates carefully. Two deadlines where there used to be one means two dates to calendar, and the appraisal date and the financing date may no longer land on the same day.

An upfront warning about non-refundable earnest money

The current form already lets earnest money become non-refundable once a deadline passes without cancellation. The new form adds a plain-language warning right on the first page, next to the Earnest Money line, that the deposit “may become totally non-refundable.” The rule is not new, but putting the warning up front is.

What it means. No one can say they were not told. Deadlines are the heart of a Utah contract, and the new form makes the stakes impossible to miss.

A fair carve-out on move-out condition

The current form already requires the seller to leave the home broom-clean, free of debris and personal belongings, and to repair moving-related damage. The new form keeps all of that and adds a fair carve-out: the seller is not responsible for normal wall damage from removing pictures and decorations, like nail holes or screw holes.

What it means. A reasonable line between real damage and the ordinary marks of moving out. Buyers should not expect a seller to patch every nail hole.

Electronic delivery is now defined

The new form updates the notices section to define when a notice is “Received” if it is delivered electronically, essentially when it enters the recipient’s email server or information processing system. The current form defines received notice but does not spell out the electronic version this way.

What it means. Fewer arguments about whether an emailed notice or counteroffer landed in time. In a deadline-driven contract, that clarity helps everyone.

Reorganized, and a few things removed

The form is renumbered and reorganized across seven pages. The buyer’s conditions are now gathered into a single Section 3 checklist (Due Diligence, Appraisal, Financing, and Subject to Sale) instead of being marked IS or IS NOT inside each condition section, and the deadlines and seller contributions are grouped together. A few items were removed, including the separate Additional Earnest Money Deposit section and a duplicate marketable-title paragraph.

What it means. The buyer’s protections now live in one checklist near the top, which is easier to review at a glance. The election itself works the same way, a condition applies only if it is affirmatively selected, but the format changed, so read that checklist carefully and confirm every protection you want is checked.

What did NOT change, even though you may hear otherwise

Because the early buzz overstates this update, here is what stayed the same. If someone tells you these are new in 2027, they are working from the hype, not the form.

• The election still works the same way. Due diligence, appraisal, and financing already applied only if you affirmatively selected them, and that is still true. What changed is the layout, from IS or IS NOT inside each section to a single Section 3 checklist, not whether the protections exist.
• Solar panels, TV brackets, speakers, and the security system were already included items on the current form.
• The Permissible Transfer to your own LLC or trust already exists on the current form.
• The final pre-settlement walk-through and the FIRPTA foreign-seller notice were already there.
• Seller-to-buyer brokerage compensation was already built into the current form after the 2024 update. It carries over, it is not a 2027 change.

A broker’s take: the pros, the cons, and a thank you

Now the honest opinion, from someone who runs this contract for a living. In my 23 years as a Utah broker, this is the best REPC update I have seen. It is cleaner, it is better organized, and it folds a lot of what used to ride along on separate addendums into the main contract itself, so there are fewer documents to assemble and fewer seams for something to slip through.

What I like.

• It consolidates. Situations that used to ride on their own separate addendums, or live outside the form entirely, are now built into the REPC itself: the 1031 tax-deferred exchange, the disclosure of interest when a buyer is related to or is an agent, the option to hold earnest money with a title company, seller service agreements, and the notices and electronic-delivery rules. That means fewer moving pieces, fewer documents to chase down, and fewer seams between them where a deal can get hurt.
• It finally matches how people actually live. Smart home devices and EV chargers are addressed head on, so the walk-through arguments over the video doorbell and the wired charger mostly go away.
• It protects buyers where it counts. Requiring the HOA reserve study is a real upgrade, because that is the one document that predicts a special assessment, and buyers almost never knew to ask for it.
• It closes quiet gaps. Seller service contracts no longer follow the buyer, a holdover finally carries a real cost, and the seller has to hand over the keyless codes at closing.
• It is fair in both directions. The nail-hole carve-out is reasonable to sellers, and the electronic-delivery definition takes away a common excuse for a blown deadline.
• It is simply cleaner to read. Pulling the deadlines, the seller contributions, and the buyer conditions into their own clear sections makes the whole form easier to follow and to teach.

What to watch.

• The financing-cancellation earnest money now defaults to 50 percent to the seller if that line is left blank, which can surprise a buyer who does not read it. This is the one that will trip people up.
• The consolidated Section 3 checklist is easier to review, but it also means a box left unchecked is a protection given up. It rewards attention.
• It is a bigger form to learn, so expect a short adjustment period while everyone gets fluent in the new numbering.

None of that outweighs the improvements. As a professional, I think these are genuinely good updates that fit the Utah buyer and seller better than the form we have used for years. A sincere thank you to the UAR Forms Committee, the brokers, agents, and attorneys who spent more than a year on this, and to the Utah Division of Real Estate, the Real Estate Commission, and the Office of the Utah Attorney General for the review and approval. Work like this is quiet and largely thankless, and it makes every Utah transaction a little safer and a little fairer. Well done.

When does the new Utah REPC take effect?

Using the new form becomes mandatory January 1, 2027, when it replaces the current version as the state-approved REPC. The form will appear in the Utah forms libraries in the coming weeks so agents can study it first. Until January 1, the current form is what gets signed, and any contract written in 2026 stays on the form it started on.

What buyers and sellers should do now

• Buyers: get fully pre-approved before you shop, and in 2027 read the financing line carefully, because leaving it blank now hands the seller half your earnest money if you cancel for financing.
• Sellers: if you are in an HOA, be ready to produce the reserve study, and if you use service contracts or run the home as a rental, plan to close those out by closing.
• Everyone: the deadlines are the contract. Know your dates and hit them.

Buying or selling on the new contract in 2027? I will walk you through exactly which boxes to check and which deadlines to guard, for free, so a single missed line never costs you. Start with a quick call or message, or reach me directly at 801-999-8005.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the new Utah REPC in effect yet?

No. It is approved and becomes mandatory January 1, 2027. Until then, the current state-approved form is what is used on live transactions.

What is the biggest real change in the 2027 REPC?

There is no single blockbuster. The most practical changes are that smart home devices and EV chargers now convey, the HOA reserve study must be disclosed, a holdover seller owes a daily fee, and financing-cancellation earnest money is now a percentage that defaults to 50 percent to the seller.

Do smart home devices and solar panels stay with the house?

Solar panels were already included on the current form. The new form adds smart home devices, meaning thermostats, video doorbells, automated locks and lighting, and monitors, as included items unless the seller excludes them in writing. Your phone or tablet is not included.

Did the new form change how buyer contingencies work?

The layout changed, not the logic. On the current form each condition is marked IS or IS NOT inside its own section. The new form gathers Due Diligence, Appraisal, Financing, and Subject to Sale into one Section 3 checklist. Either way, a condition applies only if you affirmatively select it, so read that checklist carefully. What also changed is the financing-cancellation earnest money, which is now a percentage defaulting to 50 percent to the seller.

When does the new Utah REPC take effect and when is it mandatory?

The form was approved and effective August 19, 2026, and it becomes mandatory on January 1, 2027. It will appear in the Utah forms libraries in the coming weeks.

Will a home I put under contract in 2026 use the new form?

No. A contract uses the form that was in effect when it was signed. Deals written in 2026 stay on the current form, even if they close in 2027.

The bottom line

The 2027 REPC is a sensible modernization: it accounts for smart home tech and EV chargers, tightens up holdovers and disclosures, and cleans up the layout. It is not the overhaul some of the early chatter suggests, and the honest version of the story is the one worth trusting. The change that deserves the most attention is quiet: the financing-cancellation earnest money now defaults to the seller, so read that line and choose the number on purpose.

This is a plain-language summary for Utah buyers and sellers, not legal advice. For how the new form affects your specific situation, talk with your agent or a real estate attorney.

If you are planning a move in 2026 or 2027 and want someone who reads this contract for a living on your side, reach out. Whether you are buying or selling, I will make sure every box that should be checked is checked, and every deadline is one we hit.

If this helped, share it with anyone buying or selling in Utah, and send it to your agent.

For agents and members of the media

Two quick notes for the professionals reading this.

Out-of-state agents: if you have a client heading to Utah, I take referrals across the Wasatch Front and will treat them like my own, then keep you in the loop through closing. Get in touch or call 801-999-8005.

Members of the media: I am glad to comment on the record on the 2027 REPC and the Utah market, in plain English and on deadline. The fastest way to reach me is here or 801-999-8005.