What do you check before you buy land in Texas?

Everything, because nobody is required to tell you. Property Code §5.008 requires a seller's disclosure of property condition on residential property with a dwelling. On unimproved acreage there is no such notice. The title commitment, the survey, the access, the floodplain, the leases already running on the land, and the ag status are yours to verify inside the option period.

What order does the work go in, and who pays?

What are you actually reading in the title commitment?

Four schedules, and the money sits in two of them. Schedule A names the insured, the amount, and the legal description — read it against the survey, and if they do not match, stop.

Schedule B lists the exceptions — everything the policy will not cover. Recorded easements, mineral reservations, oil and gas leases, restrictive covenants, and setback lines live here. Do not read the one-line summaries. Order the underlying instruments by volume and page and read them. A pipeline easement summarized in one line may grant a 100-foot working corridor through your homesite.

Schedule C is what must be cured before closing — liens, probate gaps, missing releases, unresolved heirship. Schedule C is what delays closings. Schedule D discloses the title company and its underwriter.

Two structural items on acreage: minerals are excepted and the policy does not insure you own them, covered on the mineral rights page, and the area-and-boundary exception can only be amended with a survey the title company will accept.

Why a new survey rather than the seller's old one?

Because an old survey documents an old world. Fences move, creeks migrate, neighbors build, roads get widened, and a plat drawn in 1978 to different standards may not close on today's coordinates.

A current survey fixes the boundary, locates improvements and encroachments, plots the recorded easements from the title commitment onto the actual dirt, and gives the title company something to work with on the area-and-boundary exception. Ask for a land title survey prepared to current Texas Society of Professional Surveyors standards, and hand your surveyor the commitment so the easements get drawn.

Order it the day the contract goes effective. Survey turnaround, not financing, is what most often forces an option period extension on Texas land.

Do you have legal and physical access?

Two questions, and a tract can fail either. Physical access is whether a truck and trailer can get there. Legal access is whether you have a recorded right to be on the ground you cross.

• Is the road a county road? Ask the county road and bridge department whether it appears on the county maintenance map. "Everybody uses it" is not a legal answer.
• Is your access a recorded easement? Get the instrument. Check the width, the permitted uses, and whether it runs with the land or was personal to a prior owner.
• Is there a road maintenance agreement? On a shared private easement, the absence of one is a future dispute with a neighbor.
• Landlocked risk. Texas recognizes an easement by necessity, but the elements are strict: unity of ownership of both tracts before severance, strict necessity rather than convenience, and necessity at the time of severance. That is a lawsuit, not a driveway. Never buy a landlocked tract believing a court will fix it.
• State highway frontage. A new driveway onto a state highway takes a TxDOT access driveway permit under 43 TAC Ch. 11, Subchapter C, on TxDOT form 1058.

What is on the land that the listing does not mention?

• Floodplain. Pull the Flood Insurance Rate Map at the FEMA Flood Map Service Center. Zone A and Zone AE are special flood hazard areas, and federally regulated lenders require flood insurance on structures inside them. Floodplain does not ruin a ranch. It decides where the house goes.
• Wetlands. Discharging dredged or fill material into waters of the United States requires a Clean Water Act §404 permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In the Corps' Fort Worth District, which covers North Texas, compensatory mitigation is required for the loss of more than one-tenth of an acre of waters of the United States or 300 feet of streambed. Delineations follow the 1987 Corps of Engineers Wetland Delineation Manual.
• Endangered species. Screen the tract through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service IPaC system. Taking a listed species is prohibited under §9 of the Endangered Species Act. Where an otherwise lawful activity may cause incidental take, the path is a §10(a)(1)(B) permit with a habitat conservation plan.
• Soils and topography. The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service Web Soil Survey is free, and it tells you what the pasture can carry, whether the soil will take a septic drainfield, and where the clay is. Read it beside the contours.
• Pipelines. Property Code §5.013 requires a seller of unimproved property intended for residential use to disclose transportation pipeline locations. Check the notice against the survey and Schedule B.
• Conservation easements. Perpetual, running with the land, and binding on you. If one shows in Schedule B, read the entire instrument before going further.

What about fences, boundaries, and the leases already running?

Fences in Texas are not boundaries. A fence is where somebody once built a fence. The survey is the boundary, and where the two disagree you have a conversation with a neighbor to have before closing, not after.

Texas is open range by default. Under Agriculture Code Ch. 143 a county may hold a stock law election closing the range as to particular animals, shifting the duty from fencing livestock out to fencing them in. Ask the county clerk what the status actually is. State and federal highway right-of-way is closed range statewide under §143.102.

Then ask for every lease in writing — grazing, hay, hunting, farming, oil and gas, wind, solar, tower, billboard. Agricultural leases in Texas are frequently oral and long-running. An unwritten grazing lease can survive your closing, and it may be the only thing keeping the ag valuation alive. Know which before you terminate it.

What does the tax status do to your first year?

Ag valuation runs with the land, not the seller. A change in ownership requires the new owner to file a new application with the county appraisal district, on Comptroller form 50-129, between January 1 and April 30 of the tax year. Miss April 30 and a late application may be accepted with a penalty of 10% of the tax difference between ag value and market value.

Rollback is separate, triggered by a change of use rather than by the sale. Under Tax Code §23.55, the lookback is three years, and HB 3833 (87th Legislature, effective June 15, 2021) removed interest from the statute entirely for a change of use on or after that date. Mechanics are on the ag exemption and rollback tax pages.

The order of operations

1. Execute the contract and open title the same day.
2. Order the survey immediately. It is the long pole.
3. Get the commitment and order every Schedule B exception document.
4. Verify access with the county before you spend another dollar.
5. Pull FEMA, soils, topography, and the IPaC species screen in one sitting.
6. Run the water work: district, well reports, pump test, water quality.
7. Book the septic site evaluation and the utility quotes: building on rural land.
8. Call the appraisal district about ag status and rollback exposure.
9. Collect every lease in writing.
10. Walk the fence line with the survey in your hand before the option period ends.

Frequently asked questions

Does a Texas seller have to disclose problems with raw land?

Not under Property Code §5.008, which applies to residential property with a dwelling. On unimproved acreage there is no statutory condition disclosure. A separate rule, §5.013, requires disclosure of transportation pipeline locations on unimproved property intended for residential use. Everything else is on you to discover during the option period.

How long should a land option period be?

Long enough to get a survey back, which is usually the constraint. Thirty days is common on straightforward North Texas acreage. A tract with wetlands, a wandering boundary, a septic question, or a groundwater district permit needs more. Buy the days up front — extending later costs leverage as well as money.

Who pays for the survey on Texas land?

It is negotiable, and on raw acreage the buyer usually pays. That is not a bad outcome, because whoever pays controls the surveyor, the scope, and the timing. Give the surveyor the title commitment so the recorded easements get plotted onto the drawing.

Is a fence line a legal boundary in Texas?

No. A fence marks where a fence was built. Boundaries come from the recorded legal description as located by a licensed surveyor. Long-standing fence discrepancies can raise adverse possession and boundary questions, which is why the survey and the neighbor conversation belong before closing rather than after.

What if the property is in a floodplain?

It changes siting, insurance, and sometimes lending, not necessarily the deal. Zone A and Zone AE are special flood hazard areas, and federally regulated lenders require flood insurance on structures inside them. Pull the map at the FEMA Flood Map Service Center, then have your surveyor show the flood line against the buildable ground.

Sources and method

Sources and method

Texas Property Code §§5.008 and 5.013 · Texas Tax Code §§23.51 and 23.55, as amended by HB 1743, 86th Legislature, effective September 1, 2019, and HB 3833, 87th Legislature, effective June 15, 2021 · Texas Comptroller form 50-129 · Texas Agriculture Code Ch. 143, including §143.102 · 43 TAC Ch. 11, Subchapter C, and TxDOT form 1058 · Clean Water Act §404 and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District · 1987 Corps of Engineers Wetland Delineation Manual · Endangered Species Act §§9 and 10(a)(1)(B), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service IPaC screening tool · FEMA Flood Map Service Center · USDA NRCS Web Soil Survey · Texas Real Estate Commission Farm and Ranch Contract · Verified August 2026. County appraisal districts set their own degree-of-intensity and acreage standards, and counties differ on roads, stock laws, and septic administration. Confirm current requirements with the appraisal district and the county your land sits in before you rely on anything here. This is general information, not tax or legal advice.

Send us the address and we will run this checklist with you — the survey order, the Schedule B documents, the county calls, and the appraisal district conversation, in the order they need to happen. We live here, and we have made these calls before. Start at Texas Land & Ranch.

The Agency Dallas is independently owned and operated by Damon & Megan Williamson.

Damon Williamson, Broker-Owner · Licensed Real Estate Agent, State of Texas.

Dallas, Dallas County, Texas 75205. Equal Housing Opportunity.

Texas Real Estate Commission Information About Brokerage Services and Consumer Protection Notice are available at trec.texas.gov.

This is not intended as a solicitation of property currently listed for sale.