For Houston agents who want the answer in writing before they join
What Happens to My Clients If I Leave a Real Estate Team in Houston?
Updated
Bottom line: At Houston Properties Team the answer is written into the membership agreement before you join, and it turns on one thing: where the client came from. The people you brought stay yours. The leads the team generated stay with the team.
Which clients are mine?
Two kinds of lead exist in the agreement. An Agent-Sourced Lead is a contact from your own sphere or your own activity, added to the team CRM by you and marked as yours in the Lead Source field within five days. An HPT-Sourced Lead is one the team, its inside sales agents or its marketing produced.
The five-day marking is the whole test, so do it the day you add the contact.
If I leave, what happens to my own sphere?
You keep the right to contact and work your Agent-Sourced Leads after you leave. If one of them has no active representation agreement or executed contract with the team on the day you leave, you owe the team nothing on that client going forward.
Your own deals under contract stay with you, close at Real Brokerage, and are paid under the agreement you signed.
And the team's leads?
HPT-Sourced Leads stay the team's property. If you close a transaction with one of them within two years after you leave, whether or not it was under an agreement when you left, the standard team split on that closing is still payable to the team.
Leads under contract when you leave may stay with you to finish, at the team's discretion, or the team completes them; a Separation and Client Communication Plan is written at the time, built around the client's interest.
What stays in the system?
Every contact and lead you add to the team CRM stays in the CRM after you leave, so the record of each client is complete for compliance and accountability. That does not change who may work an Agent-Sourced Lead; it changes where the record lives.
Team branding comes off your marketing when you go, and neither side disparages the other, before or after.
Questions & answers
What else do Houston agents ask?
Do I lose my clients if I leave a real estate team in Houston?
Not the ones you brought. Houston Properties Team's agreement lets a departing agent keep contacting and working their own Agent-Sourced Leads, with no team split owed on any of them that had no active agreement or contract at the time of leaving. Leads the team generated stay with the team.
The test is the source, recorded at the time. A contact from your own sphere, added to the team CRM by you and marked as yours within five days, is Agent-Sourced. Anything the team, its inside sales agents or its marketing produced is HPT-Sourced, and the separation policy reads that mark and nothing else.
How does a Houston real estate team decide whose lead it is?
By source, recorded at the time. On Houston Properties Team an agent marks a contact from their own sphere as Agent-Sourced in the CRM within five days of adding it. Anything the team, its inside sales agents or its marketing produced is HPT-Sourced. The mark is what the separation policy reads, so it is worth getting right on day one.
Five days is the whole test, so mark the contact the day you add it. A sphere contact left unmarked past the window reads as the team's when the policy is applied, and no amount of history changes what the field says.
Do I owe a team anything after I leave?
Only on team-generated business. At Houston Properties Team the standard team split stays payable on any HPT-Sourced Lead you close within two years of leaving. On your own sphere with no active agreement at departure, nothing is owed. The numbers are in the agreement you read before you join; nothing about them changes at separation.
Leads under contract when you leave may stay with you to finish, at the team's discretion, or the team completes them, and a Separation and Client Communication Plan is written at the time around the client's interest. Either way the split on a team-generated closing is the one you agreed to on day one.
Can I read the separation policy before I join?
Yes. Houston Properties Team's Separation Policy is one section of the membership agreement, and Sibel goes through it on the first call with your own book in mind, so you know before you sign what stays yours, what stays the team's, and how a client under contract is handled on the day you go.
Bring your book to the call as a list: how many contacts, how many transacted in the last three years, how many you still speak to. That is what the policy is applied to, and reading it against your own names is the only way to know what it means for you.