A friend of mine bought a place out near Elgin a few years back — cute little farmhouse, some acreage, a dry creek bed running along the back property line. She figured the creek was a feature. Seasonal drainage, maybe somewhere her dogs could splash around after a good rain.

What she didn’t figure on was that her neighbor held a water right that let him divert flow from that drainage way onto his property for agricultural use. She found out when she tried to put in a small pond and got a very unpleasant conversation instead of a pond.

The seller’s disclosure form was right there in her transaction. She’d signed it, her agent had signed it, everybody moved on. But nobody sat down with her and actually talked through the sections on groundwater and surface water rights — and that’s the gap I want to close for you today.

What the Seller’s Disclosure Is Actually Asking

Texas uses the Seller’s Disclosure of Property Condition, sometimes called the SDPC or just “the disclosure.” It’s required on most residential sales and it covers a lot of ground — pun absolutely intended. There’s a section in there specifically about water, and it asks about things like:

  • Whether the property is served by a well or public water
  • Whether there are any known limitations on groundwater use
  • Whether any portion of the property is in a floodplain
  • Whether the seller is aware of any water-related easements or rights that affect the property

The form is yes/no checkboxes in a lot of places, with a notes section. Sellers fill it out to the best of their knowledge — and that phrase, “best of their knowledge,” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. If a seller doesn’t know about a water district overlay or a neighbor’s surface water right, they check “no” in good faith, and that answer isn’t a lie. It’s just incomplete.

When to Actually Read It Carefully

Here’s my blunt take: if you’re buying inside the Austin city limits in a dense neighborhood, water rights probably aren’t your biggest worry. Your water comes from Austin Water, your lot is platted, and the main water issue you’ll run into is figuring out whether that old cast iron pipe under the slab has been replaced.

But the moment you’re looking at anything with acreage, anything with a creek or pond or tank on the property, anything more than maybe fifteen or twenty minutes outside a city center — you need to sit down with that disclosure and actually read the water sections before you make an offer. Not after. Before.

I’d especially pay attention to the disclosure when any of these are true:

  1. The property is in an area served by a Groundwater Conservation District. Texas has dozens of these, and they regulate how much water you can pump. The Edwards Aquifer Authority is probably the most well-known around central Texas, but there are others. A GCD can limit your well production even on your own land.
  2. There’s a stock tank, pond, or creek shown on the property survey. Surface water in Texas is generally owned by the state, not the landowner. Rainwater you capture is yours; water flowing in a defined channel often isn’t, or comes with rules attached.
  3. The property has any agricultural exemption or history. That history sometimes comes with water arrangements — old irrigation easements, agreements with neighboring operations — that might not be obvious from a drive-by.
  4. The area has had drought issues recently. If neighbors have been fighting over water access, that’ll sometimes show up in the disclosure notes if the seller knows about it, but it also might not.

The Disclosure Tells You What the Seller Knows — Not What’s True

This is the part people gloss over. The seller’s disclosure is a sworn statement about the seller’s knowledge and belief. It is not a title search, it’s not a water rights survey, and it’s not a conversation with the relevant groundwater district.

If I were buying rural property anywhere in central Texas — out toward Bastrop County, say, or up in the Hill Country near Marble Falls — I’d use the disclosure as a starting checklist, not a finishing line. The items the seller marks “yes” or flags in the notes section tell you where to dig in. A “yes” on any water-related question should trigger a real conversation and probably a call to the local GCD or a water rights attorney before you commit.

And honestly, even a clean “no” on every water question doesn’t mean you skip due diligence. It means the seller doesn’t know of any issues. That’s different.

What You Can Actually Do Before You Close

Here’s the practical piece. If water rights are a concern on a property you’re seriously considering, here’s how I’d approach it:

  • Pull the well permit records if there’s a well on the property. The Texas Water Development Board has an online database — it’s clunky but it’s free, and it’ll show you permitted wells near the property along with their registered uses.
  • Check the groundwater conservation district for that county. Most have websites where you can look up whether the property falls within their jurisdiction and what the current rules are on new wells or production limits.
  • Ask your title company about water-related easements when they run the title search. Easements that affect water access sometimes show up on the deed, and your title search should flag them.
  • Talk to a water rights attorney if the numbers are big. I’m not saying you need one for a standard suburban lot. But if you’re buying forty acres with a pond and you’re planning to irrigate or run livestock, a couple hours with someone who knows Texas water law is cheap compared to the alternative.

The seller’s disclosure is a tool. A useful one. But like any tool, it only helps you if you know what it’s designed to do — and where its edges are.

My friend out near Elgin eventually worked things out with her neighbor, but it took about a year of awkward fence-line conversations and a mediator. The creek is still there. The pond never got built. She told me she wishes someone had just handed her a list of questions to ask before she signed anything.

Consider this that list.