A new form landed on Texas real estate contracts on July 1, and if you're buying or selling acreage anywhere in our part of the state, you've probably already seen it or you're about to. TREC Form 61-0, officially the Seller's Disclosure about Groundwater and Surface Water Rights, asks sellers to put in writing what they know about the wells, water districts, and water rights tied to their property. It sounds like one more piece of paperwork to sign at the same table as everything else. On a tract in Johnson County or Parker County, it isn't. The form asks the same six questions everywhere in Texas, but the honest answer to those questions, and how much work it takes to get there, depends entirely on which county line the property sits inside.
TREC adopted the form on May 4 after the Sunset Advisory Commission's review of the agency directed staff to put real water-rights information in front of buyers before closing. It went mandatory July 1. The Texas Land Title Association says a new Paragraph 7(I) in the standard contract, or 7(K) if you're using the Farm and Ranch Contract, triggers the disclosure. Turnkey Wells notes that it doesn't apply to the Residential Condominium Contract, which tells you who this is really built for: buyers and sellers of rural, acreage, farm, ranch, and private-well property, not someone closing on a townhome with city water.
What the Form Actually Asks
The disclosure walks a seller through six areas
- Whether the property sits inside a groundwater conservation district, and which one
- How many water wells exist on the property, how many are active, and how many have been capped, plugged, or abandoned, along with any district registrations or permits tied to them
- Whether the property draws water from a well that sits on someone else's land, or relies on groundwater rights leased from outside its own boundary
- Whether groundwater rights were ever severed from the surface estate by a prior owner, the same way mineral rights sometimes are
- Any surface water rights or permits tied to a creek, river, or lake on the property
- Ponds, tanks, or other water features and what's known about them
None of that is a hydrology report. It's a disclosure of knowledge. But knowing the right answer requires knowing something that most sellers, and a lot of agents, have never had to look up before this year: whether a groundwater conservation district covers the property at all, and if so, which one.
The Same Six Questions, Two Different Answers
Most of the acreage we work with across Johnson, Ellis, and Hill counties falls under the Prairielands Groundwater Conservation District, created in 2009 by the Texas Legislature to cover Ellis, Johnson, Hill, and Somervell counties. Most of what we work with in Parker and Hood counties falls under the Upper Trinity Groundwater Conservation District, which covers Hood, Montague, Parker, and Wise counties. Both districts regulate new wells. Upper Trinity goes further: a new well needs at least two acres to sit on, has to be at least 50 feet from the property line, and has to be at least 150 feet from any other registered well.
Compare that to a well in a county with no district covering it at all. According to Well Drilling Costs, the only requirement there is a State Well Report filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation—no permit, no spacing rule, no registration fee.
Here's what that looks like laid out side by side.
| Coverage | Counties | To drill a new well | What the disclosure has to reflect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prairielands GCD | Ellis, Hill, Johnson, Somervell | New-well rules apply | GCD name, well registration status, permit numbers if any |
| Upper Trinity GCD | Hood, Montague, Parker, Wise | Minimum 2 acres; 50 ft from property line; 150 ft from other wells | Same, plus spacing compliance on newer wells |
| No groundwater conservation district | Portions of Tarrant County and other unregulated counties | File a State Well Report with TDLR only | GCD box answered "no district applies," little else to disclose |
Same form. Same six questions. A materially different amount of homework behind the answers.
Why Parker County Regulates Harder Than the County Next Door
The Upper Trinity district didn't appear out of nowhere. The Texas Water Development Board flagged counties in north central Texas back in 2006 as facing current or coming groundwater problems, and by one account from a public hearing on the district's rules, the aquifers under Parker County sit roughly half as deep as the ones under Tarrant County and are much cheaper to reach, while Tarrant has the benefit of deeper aquifers backed up by lakes and pipeline systems that most rural stretches of Parker never had. That difference in geology is a real part of why one side of the county line ended up with well spacing rules, registration requirements, and a governing board, and the other side largely didn't.
For a buyer, that history isn't trivia. It's the reason the same disclosure form can be a two-line formality on a Tarrant County property with city water and a genuine research project on a Parker County ranch with three wells of unknown vintage.
What a Buyer Actually Has to Do With This
If you're under contract on acreage inside a groundwater conservation district, the disclosure should point you toward real paperwork: a well registration number, a permit, and confirmation of who currently holds that registration. If the seller can't produce it, that's worth raising before closing, not after. Domestic well permits inside a GCD typically run $100 to $300, with irrigation or commercial permits running higher, and the district's own permitting process for a new well typically takes two to four weeks. That's a timeline worth building into a closing schedule if the plan is to drill rather than use an existing well.
If the property has no groundwater conservation district at all, the disclosure should say so plainly, and there's genuinely less to chase down. That's not a loophole. It's the actual regulatory reality of that patch of ground, and the form is doing its job by reflecting it.
What a Seller Should Have Ready Before the Form Goes Out
If you're listing acreage this fall, the practical move is to gather your well registration, any permit numbers, and your groundwater district status before a buyer's agent asks for it. Texas rural land reached $5,246 per acre in the first quarter of 2026, up 6.02 percent year over year, and water access is one of the factors cited as driving that number, alongside region. A tract with clean, organized water paperwork isn't just easier to disclose honestly. It's easier to defend the price on.
If part of the appeal of your land is that a buyer could eventually split it into smaller tracts, there's one more piece of paperwork worth knowing about, separate from Form 61-0. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality says Texas has required a certification of groundwater availability before a county or municipality will approve a new subdivision plat drawing its water from the ground beneath it since January 1, 2024. That's a plat-level requirement, not part of the water disclosure form, but it's the kind of detail a seller marketing land for potential subdivision should have an answer for before a buyer asks.
A Few Questions Worth Settling Early
What does Form 61-0 cover? It covers water specifically.
What if the seller genuinely doesn't know the answer to something on the form? The form isn't a hydrology report. Escrow officers and title professionals are being trained this year on how to handle an honest "unknown" answer without either side guessing at facts nobody has.
Does this apply if the property is on city water with no well at all? The disclosure still gets triggered under the new contract paragraph, but a property with no well, no groundwater district, and no surface water feature will have a short, simple answer to walk through.
Water paperwork is not the part of a ranch or acreage transaction anyone wants to spend an evening on, but it's become the part that decides how smoothly the rest of the closing goes. If you're weighing a purchase or getting a property ready to list anywhere across Johnson, Ellis, Hill, Parker, or Hood counties, The Alexa Boedeker Team can walk you through exactly what your specific tract's water disclosure needs to say before it ever reaches a buyer's desk.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
