Published: Oct 16, 2025
Understanding SB 140
Beginning September 1, 2025, Texas Senate Bill 140 (SB 140) took effect, expanding the state’s definitions and enforcement rules around telephone solicitation and telemarketing.
The law aims to protect consumers from false, misleading, or deceptive solicitation practices, including those made by phone call or text message. It also allows consumers to pursue private legal action for violations under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA). While this legislation has raised some understandable questions for companies that communicate with consumers via text or email, it’s important to note first and foremost: Opiniion’s feedback communications are not marketing solicitations.
What Opiniion Does
Our platform helps property owner and operator teams to understand and improve the resident experience. Messages are transactional and are sent on behalf of apartment communities at key touch points throughout the resident journey, including but not limited to:
- After a prospect takes a property tour
- When a prospect opts-in to chat with a resident
- When a new resident moves in
- After a maintenance request is completed
- At lease renewal
- Periodically throughout the resident’s stay
Each message is positioned to understand how residents think and feel about living in the community, allowing residents to share feedback on their experiences.
These communications are:
- Sent only to individuals who have already inquired, toured, or leased at a property
- Branded as the property itself (not Opiniion)
- Purely for service feedback and quality improvement, not to promote or sell anything
Why SB 140 Doesn’t Apply to Opiniion’s Messages
Under SB 140, a “telephone solicitation” is defined as a call or text message “initiated to induce a person to purchase, rent, claim, or receive an item.”
Because Opiniion’s messages:
- Contain no promotional or sales content,
- Are sent on behalf of an existing brick-and-mortar business (the property), and
- Go only to current or prospective residents with an existing relationship,
they do not meet the definition of a solicitation under the law.
Additionally, Texas law provides exemptions for:
- Brick-and-mortar businesses communicating with their own customers, and
- Existing business relationships, where the recipient has voluntarily provided contact information in the course of doing business.
Opiniion’s communications fit squarely within these exemptions.
Our Commitment to Compliance and Respectful Communication
Even though SB 140 doesn’t restrict the type of messages Opiniion sends, we continue to operate with full transparency and respect for residents’ communication preferences.
Our practices include:
- Providing clear opt-out options (“Reply STOP”, “UNSUBSCRIBE”, or unsubscribe links)
- Promptly honoring any opt-out requests, whether received electronically or directly through the property
- Maintaining messaging records, timing, and message content
- Restricting all SMS communications to 9 am-6 pm Mountain Time, which keeps deliveries well within customary business hours across U.S. time zones
- Limiting messages strictly to feedback and service quality inquiries tied to resident experiences and transactional messages
These measures are designed to ensure a positive, compliant, and trustworthy experience for both properties and residents.
The Bottom Line
SB 140 is a significant update for companies engaged in telemarketing or sales-based SMS campaigns, but it does not impact Opiniion’s feedback communications.
Our messages are service-related, not sales-related, helping apartment communities better understand and serve their residents.
Apartment operators and management companies in Texas can continue using Opiniion’s platform with confidence, knowing that all communications remain fully compliant, respectful, and focused on the resident experience.
