Check if there's a content type published
Something like this?

hook_form_alter() {
  /* check that you're looking at the right form here.. */
    global $user;
    $type_to_check = 'House';

    $query = db_query("SELECT nid FROM node n JOIN users u ON n.uid = u.uid WHERE n.status = 1 AND u.uid = %d AND n.type = '%s'", $user-&gt;uid, $type_to_check);

    if(empty(db_result($query))) {
      /* kill the thing you don't want here */
    }
}