North Carolina: No Wholesaling Law Yet, But One Is Moving

State: North Carolina | Proposed bill: HB 797, the Residential Property Wholesaling and We Buy Houses Homeowner Protection Act (introduced April 7, 2025) | Status in legislature: Not law. Passed the House 103-0 on April 30, 2025 (Amendment A1 adopted 102-0), then referred to the Senate Rules and Operations Committee on May 1, 2025, where it has sat since with no recorded action since that date | Bottom line: Wholesaling in North Carolina is unchanged today. But this is the furthest-along pending bill on our board: it already cleared one full chamber unanimously, and what it proposes (license required, triggered by solicitation itself, plus a 30 day seller cancel right) would rewrite how deals work here.

Where Things Stand Today

As of July 8, 2026, North Carolina has no wholesaling-specific statute. No required disclosure, no cancellation period, no registration, no restriction on assigning the purchase contract you signed. Your buyer position under a purchase agreement is an assignable contract right, and selling that right for a fee is legal under ordinary contract law.

The line that already exists is the general licensing line: market your contract position, never the property itself, and only assign deals where you are the contracted buyer. Advertising a house you neither own nor have listed is the unlicensed brokerage pattern regulators already act on.

What the Proposed Bill Would Do

HB 797 would amend North Carolina's Real Estate License Law (G.S. 93A-2) and create a new homeowner protection article (G.S. 93A-89.1 through -89.3). Based on the House-engrossed bill text:

1. Wholesaling would be brokerage, requiring a license, and the trigger is solicitation itself, not just the assignment. Under the engrossed definition (G.S. 93A-2(a3)), "residential property wholesaling or related transactions" covers three separate acts: (1) soliciting a homeowner to enter into a purchase contract, unless the soliciting party will live in the property, (2) marketing, assigning, or selling a purchase contract or an equitable interest in the property for a fee, and (3) buying, selling, negotiating, or otherwise dealing in contracts, equitable interests, or options on the property. Clause (1) alone means the kitchen table conversation, the cold call, or the direct mail piece is what trips the law, not just the paperwork at the back end. "Soliciting" is defined broadly (a6) to include mail, telephone, in-person conversation, or electronic communication made for the purpose of offering to enter into a purchase contract.
2. Double closing and novation would not escape it. Because clause (1) is triggered by soliciting the homeowner, independent of how you later structure the exit, taking title and reselling (double close) or restructuring the deal as a novation would not remove you from coverage. You already solicited the homeowner to sign, which alone satisfies (a3)(1). Clause (2) separately reaches wholesale-style assignments and equitable-interest sales made for a fee, so both the entry and the exit are covered.
3. Property scope: any property with a dwelling unit, not capped by unit count. "Residential property" is defined (a5) as real property containing one or more dwelling units legally used or held out for people to live in, regardless of whether it is owner-occupied, rented, or vacant. There is no single-family cap in the engrossed text. Raw land with no dwelling unit on it would fall outside this definition.
4. Sellers would get a non-waivable 30 day cancellation right. The homeowner could cancel the purchase contract for any reason until midnight of the 30th day after signing, or until the deed or title is conveyed, whichever comes first (93A-89.2(a)). Non-waivable means no contract clause can remove it. Practical read: your signed contract, your escrow, and your assignment fee would all stay at risk for up to 30 days, and the only thing that cuts the window short is actually closing.
5. Enforcement. A violation would be an unfair or deceptive trade practice under G.S. 75-1.1 (93A-89.3), which brings North Carolina's damage-multiplier and attorney fee exposure, and the Attorney General is empowered to enforce it directly.

The bill's stated purpose (93A-89.1) is protecting homeowners from deals where they are not given accurate information about market value or about the money the person soliciting the contract stands to make.

Worth flagging: the net is wider than "wholesalers." Because clause (1) catches any non-owner-occupant who directly solicits a homeowner to sign a purchase contract, the definition is not limited to wholesalers. A buy-and-hold investor or a fix-and-flip buyer who cold-calls or door-knocks a homeowner would trip the same definition, even if they always intend to close in their own name and never assign. That is broader than the bill's stated purpose of policing wholesaling specifically, and worth keeping in mind if this moves.

If HB 797 Becomes Law: Required Disclosure Content (Not Yet Law)

This is proposed language only. HB 797 has not passed the Senate, has no chapter or session law number, and none of the following is required today. It is reproduced here so you know what a compliant contract would need to say if the bill is ever enacted as currently engrossed.

HB 797 does not mandate exact wording (there is no script to quote verbatim). It mandates required content and formatting (G.S. 93A-89.2(e)). If enacted as drafted, the purchase contract used in a covered transaction would have to include the following, in at least 14-point font, immediately above the homeowner's signature:

1. A statement that the homeowner has the right to cancel the purchase contract until midnight of the 30th day after signing, or until the deed or title is conveyed, whichever happens first, and that the cancellation notice can be delivered by certified return receipt mail or any other bona fide means, including electronic or personal delivery, as long as the homeowner gets a receipt.
2. The mailing address, email address, and physical address where the homeowner can send a cancellation notice.
3. A statement that within 10 business days of receiving a cancellation notice, all payments made by the homeowner will be refunded, and the homeowner will not be liable for any damages as a result of cancelling.

Separately, the wholesaler would have to hand the homeowner an exact copy of the fully signed contract, including these disclosures, at the moment of signing (93A-89.2(f)).

What to Watch

• Nothing is required of you today. The bill is not law. Keep operating under current rules.
• Watch Senate Rules and Operations. In North Carolina, Rules is often where bills wait, sometimes for a long time, but a bill that passed one chamber unanimously does not need much to finish the trip. The 2025-2026 biennium runs through August 2026, so the bill is stalled, not dead. Check status when the legislature is in session.
• If it passes, the license is the pivot, and restructuring the exit will not help. Because the trigger is solicitation itself, and double closing or novation would not escape it on this text, the compliance path would run through a North Carolina real estate license, not through how you structure the back end of the deal.
• The 30 day right is the number to plan around. If a version of this becomes law, speed to closing becomes the defense, because conveyance of the deed ends the cancellation window. Slow dispo would mean carrying cancel risk on every deal.
• Start the cheap habits now. Put the plain truth in writing at signing (you are an investor, you intend to assign or resell for profit) and give sellers a complete copy of everything they sign. That is most of this bill's disclosure demand, at zero cost, and it defuses the deception argument that is driving bills like this.

This is analysis, not legal advice. Confirm anything you rely on with a North Carolina real estate attorney.

Sources: North Carolina House Bill 797, Second Edition (House-Engrossed, 4/30/2025), official bill text from the North Carolina General Assembly (ncleg.gov), retrieved 2026-07-08, and the NC General Assembly bill-status page for current legislative status.