Texas Mold Assessment Report Requirements (TDLR 16 TAC Chapter 78)

Texas licenses mold assessors and mold remediators separately through the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) under Occupations Code Chapter 1958, and the rules TDLR adopted at 16 TAC Chapter 78, effective November 1, 2017, are the most detailed published statement anywhere of what an assessor's documents must contain. Most licensing states regulate who may do the work. Texas also regulates what the assessment report, the remediation protocol and the clearance report have to say, element by element. This guide quotes those elements from the rule text and explains what each one means for the document you hand a client. Licensing details are on the Texas licensing page.

What a Texas mold assessment is for

The rule states the purpose of the assessment in one sentence, and it is worth reading before any template: "The purpose of a mold assessment is to determine the source(s), location(s), and extent of mold growth in a building, to determine the condition(s) that caused the mold growth, and to enable the assessment consultant to prepare a mold remediation protocol." (16 TAC §78.100(b))

Three things follow. The assessment is a causal document, not an inventory: source and condition are named alongside location and extent. It is a scoped document: extent is a required finding, because the protocol's quantities depend on it. And its stated end is to enable the protocol, which is why Texas lets the two be combined in some cases (below). An assessment that reports growth but not the condition that caused it has answered half of the question the rule asks.

What the assessment report must include

The consultant's duty is stated at 16 TAC §78.52(b)(4): a licensed mold assessment consultant shall "prepare a mold assessment report, including the observations made, measurements taken, locations of samples collected, analysis results, and analysis and interpretation of results".

Five items, each with a concrete meaning for the reader:

1. Observations made. What the consultant saw, by location: visible growth, staining, water damage, odors, the condition of materials, and the moisture source where it could be identified.
2. Measurements taken. Moisture readings, temperature and relative humidity, with the instrument, the material and the location. A reading with no location cannot be repeated at clearance.
3. Locations of samples collected. Where each sample was taken, not just that samples were taken. A lab result without a documented location is a number with no address.
4. Analysis results. The laboratory's reported results for each sample, attached or reproduced, tied to the sample locations above.
5. Analysis and interpretation of results. The consultant's reading of those results against the observations and measurements. This is the element templates most often reduce to a pasted lab table; the rule asks for interpretation, meaning what the results mean for this building and why.

For how those five items fit into a full report structure, see how to write a mold inspection report.

Signature, date, licence number and expiry

Each report and plan carries the consultant's identity in a specific form. The consultant shall "sign and date each mold assessment report and each mold management plan that the mold assessment consultant prepares and include that consultant's license number and expiration date on each report and each plan" (16 TAC §78.52(f)(6)).

The expiration date is the item most templates omit. Name, signature, date and licence number are common; the licence expiration date is the fourth field, and a signature block without it is short of the rule. Build it into the block once.

When the report may be folded into the protocol

Texas does not always require a stand-alone assessment report. The consultant shall "provide to the client a mold assessment report following an initial (pre-remediation) mold assessment. If the consultant includes the results of the initial assessment in a mold remediation protocol or a mold management plan, a separate assessment report is not required" (16 TAC §78.52(f)(9)).

Two points matter here. The duty attaches to the initial, pre-remediation assessment; that is the report that must reach the client. And the folding rule is about the results, not the document title: a protocol that carries the observations, measurements, sample locations, results and interpretation from the initial assessment satisfies the reporting duty, while one that carries only the scope of work does not. Combined or not, the five §78.52(b)(4) items still have to be present.

The six remediation-protocol elements

Whatever else the assessment produces, its stated end is the remediation protocol, and 16 TAC §78.100(e) enumerates what the protocol must specify:

1. the rooms or areas where the work will be performed;
2. the estimated quantities of materials to be cleaned or removed;
3. the methods to be used for each type of remediation in each type of area;
4. the PPE to be used by remediators;
5. the proposed types of containment to be used during the project;
6. the proposed clearance procedures and criteria for each type of remediation.

Element (3) is where a protocol is most often thinner than the rule's wording: it asks for methods per type of remediation per type of area, so a single method paragraph covering a job that mixes drywall removal with duct cleaning does not answer the element as written. For the drafting side, see remediation protocol writing and scope-of-work language.

The four clearance items the protocol must pre-specify

Element (6) has its own sub-list. Under 16 TAC §78.100(i), the protocol's clearance procedures must specify:

1. at least one nationally recognized analytical method for use within each remediated area;
2. the criteria to be used for evaluating analytical results;
3. that post-remediation assessment shall be conducted while walk-in containment is in place;
4. the procedures to be used in determining whether the underlying cause has been remediated.

The reason these are fixed at protocol time rather than at clearance is 16 TAC §78.140(c)(2): at the post-remediation assessment the consultant must use "only the analytical methods and the criteria for evaluating analytical results that were specified in the remediation protocol", unless circumstances beyond the control of the consultant and the contractor require otherwise, and a deviation requires written documentation of the need for it plus the client's approval before the assessment proceeds, not an explanation afterwards. The protocol is the contract for clearance, so the analytical method and the criteria deserve careful drafting the first time.

The six passed-clearance-report elements

When the project passes, 16 TAC §78.140(d) says the passed clearance report must include:

1. a description of relevant worksite observations;
2. the type and location of all measurements made and samples collected at the worksite;
3. all data obtained at the worksite, including temperature, humidity, and material moisture readings;
4. the results of analytical evaluation of the samples collected at the worksite;
5. copies of all photographs taken by the mold assessment consultant;
6. a clear statement that the project has passed clearance.

Two of those "all"s do real work. Elements (2) and (5) mean the report carries the complete record, not a curated selection. A Texas clearance report that shows six representative photographs out of forty is short of the rule, and the practical answer is a complete photographic appendix rather than a longer narrative.

The consultant's duty to produce this document is stated separately at 16 TAC §78.52(f)(15): the consultant shall "provide a passed clearance report to the client as specified under §78.140(d) and complete applicable sections of a Certificate of Mold Damage Remediation as specified under §78.150(b)". That sentence ties the clearance report and the Certificate together as two distinct duties on the same licensee. The pass/fail criteria themselves, and the final status report for a project that does not pass, are covered on the post-remediation clearance criteria page; a section-by-section layout built around these six elements is in the mold clearance report template.

The Certificate of Mold Damage Remediation

The Certificate is the remediation contractor's document, and it is easy to misdescribe. Under 16 TAC §78.150(a), "Not later than ten calendar days after the project stop-date, the licensed mold remediation contractor or company shall provide the property owner with copies of required photographs of the scene of the mold remediation taken before and after the remediation." Under §78.150(b), the contractor provides the Certificate within the same ten days.

The assessment consultant's part is narrower and specific: a licensed mold assessment consultant, not the remediator, signs the top section of the Certificate confirming that the remediation was completed and stating whether the underlying cause was addressed. That is the "applicable sections" that §78.52(f)(15) refers to. The consultant does not issue or deliver the Certificate and is not the party bound by the ten-day clock.

The Certificate then follows the property. Under §78.150(e), "If a property owner sells the property, the property owner shall provide to the buyer a copy of each Certificate of Mold Damage Remediation issued for the property under this section during the five years preceding the date the property owner sells the property." A consultant's signature on that document may be read by a buyer years later, so the underlying-cause statement should match what the clearance report found.

Assessor and remediator are separate

Texas keeps the two roles apart at the statute level. Under Texas Occupations Code §1958.155, the same person generally cannot both assess and remediate the same property, which keeps the inspection independent of the remediation work. The rules above make that independence visible on paper: the assessor writes the protocol the remediator must follow, then verifies the result against the criteria the assessor set, and the remediator's Certificate carries the assessor's confirmation rather than the remediator's own. For how the two roles divide in practice, see assessor vs remediator. IICRC S520 frames the same independence as a principle of practice, keeping assessment separate from remediation (IICRC, S520).

How MoldMind maps to each element

MoldMind produces the assessment report, the remediation protocol and the clearance report as three separate documents from one job, so the Texas separation is built into the output. The protocol carries the six §78.100(e) elements as distinct sections, with the §78.100(i) clearance procedures written into element (6) so the analytical method and criteria are fixed before the remediator starts. The clearance report carries the six §78.140(d) elements with a complete photo appendix, not a selection. The signature block carries the consultant's licence number and its expiration date per §78.52(f)(6). A compliance panel beside the draft lists the elements the property's jurisdiction calls for and flags the ones it cannot find, a checklist that catches omissions, not a compliance guarantee. The inspector reviews and approves every document before it is issued.

For the New York counterpart, which regulates the remediation plan rather than the assessment report, see New York mold assessment requirements; for the report structure the Texas elements sit inside, how to write a mold inspection report; and for the clearance document, the mold clearance report template. See the sample report.

Free for your first 3 jobs, no card needed.

Sources

• 16 TAC §78.52 (TDLR) — assessment-report contents at (b)(4); signature block at (f)(6); folding rule at (f)(9); clearance-report and Certificate duties at (f)(15).
• 16 TAC §78.100 (TDLR) — purpose of assessment at (b); the six protocol elements at (e); the four clearance items at (i).
• 16 TAC §78.140 (TDLR) — protocol-only methods and criteria at (c)(2); the six passed-clearance-report elements at (d).
• 16 TAC §78.150 (TDLR) — the contractor's photographs and Certificate of Mold Damage Remediation; the consultant's signature section; the five-year seller duty at (e).
• Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Mold Assessors and Remediators: laws and rules — current rule text and statute links.
• Tex. Occ. Code Chapter 1958 (Mold Assessors and Remediators) — licensing and the separation of assessment from remediation.
• IICRC, S520 Standard for Professional Mold Remediation — assessment independent from remediation.