§ 136.001.Certified Mail

A substitution provision resolving an old distinction that still appears throughout Texas law.

Subsection (a): a person may use certified mail with return receipt requested in any case in which registered mail is required by law. Mailing a notice of hearing, citation, bid request, or other notice, information, or material by certified mail has the same legal effect as if sent by registered mail — if the receipt is validated with an official post office postmark.

The postmark condition is the whole of the requirement, and it is what supplies the proof. Certified mail produces a dated, official record of mailing and a receipt of delivery, which is what registration was being relied on for.

The two services differ in purpose. Registered mail is a chain-of-custody and insurance service, built to protect valuable items in transit. Certified mail is a proof-of-delivery service, cheaper and quicker, that tracks nothing but the fact of mailing and receipt.

Most legal requirements for registered mail were asking for proof, not for security — so the substitution costs nothing and saves a good deal.

Subsection (b) preserves the exception that follows from that difference: an article shall be sent by registered mail if registration is required by law to provide insurance against loss.

Where a statute wants the article protected rather than the mailing proved, certified mail does not do the job, and the section says so.

Certified mail with return receipt is the standard method throughout this code — the sign trespass demand, the tort claims notice, and the unsealing motion all use it.