Almost every buyer of a prop firm passing service checks the price. Very few check whether the service is permitted where they intend to use it. Those two checks take about the same amount of time, and only one of them can cost you the account.
Where the clause lives
Firms do not put the relevant term in one place. It shows up in three documents, and they are enforced at different moments:
| Document | What it governs | When it bites |
|---|---|---|
| Evaluation terms | Who may trade the evaluation account | During the evaluation |
| Funded account agreement | Account ownership, delegation, sharing | Before the funded login is issued |
| Payout conditions | What must be true at withdrawal | At payout review |
The third one is the one people miss. Passing the evaluation is not the same permission as being paid from the funded account, and the two are governed by separate text.
The clause that actually matters
Search the firm's terms for these terms, in this order:
- third-party trading — the direct one
- account sharing or shared access
- delegation / discretionary management
- automated or algorithmic trading, if a bot is involved
- ownership of the account and whether it can be operated by someone other than the named holder
Most firms prohibit at least one of these outright on the funded account. Several permit it on the evaluation and forbid it afterwards, which is the worst combination for a buyer, because the service succeeds and the payout still fails.
Why enforcement lands late
A prohibited arrangement is usually not detected at account issue. It is detected after the account is traded and a payout is requested, when the firm reviews the trading record against the person who requested the logins. That review is where the term is applied.
The practical consequence: the risk is not spread evenly. It is concentrated at the single moment when the money is supposed to move. A service that does not tell you this is not protecting you from it.
What the check should look like before you pay
Four questions, and the answers should arrive in writing:
- Has the specific firm and account size been checked, or is the answer about firms in general?
- Which clause was read, and on the evaluation or on the funded account — or both?
- What happens if the answer is no? The correct answer is a refusal before payment, not a refund after a breach.
- What access is requested, and when does it end? Scope limited to the evaluation account, returned on the pass, password changed afterwards.
If the service cannot answer the second question, the "terms check" is a slogan. Reading the terms is a specific action with a specific output, and the output is a sentence naming the clause.
The uncomfortable part
Some firms forbid this entirely, on both accounts. There is no version of the service that is permitted there, and any provider willing to accept that job has decided your account is worth more to them than the restriction is.
That is why the refusal matters more than the acceptance. A provider that says yes to every firm has not read anything — and the place you find that out is the payout stage, after you have paid twice and waited six weeks.
The terms-check step in the process I run happens before payment and has one of two outcomes: we name the clause and proceed, or we decline and the process stops at no cost. The funded stage is deliberately not covered — once the account is in your hands, sizing and drawdown management are yours, and no passing service can trade it for you.
Disclosure: I run ElitePropX, a prop firm challenge passing service. This post describes the check we are supposed to perform; if a firm's current terms prohibit third-party trading, we decline the job. Verify the terms yourself for the firm and account size you are considering — terms change, and this post is general rather than specific to any firm's current rules.
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