What district is your well in?
That is one line on the new Texas Water Notice, the standalone disclosure form (TREC No. 61-0) that became mandatory for every Texas home sale on July 1, 2026. For a seller in a Round Rock subdivision on city water, the line takes ten seconds: not applicable, next question. For a seller on five acres off County Road 214 outside Liberty Hill, pulling water from a private well into the Trinity Aquifer, the honest answer is more complicated than the form assumes. It isn't that the seller doesn't know the answer. It's that, as the TCEQ's March 2026 district map shows, western Williamson County has no Groundwater Conservation District.
The Blank Line On The New Form
TREC rebuilt its disclosure paperwork this year on direction from the Sunset Advisory Commission, and the changes landed as two documents. The updated Seller's Disclosure Notice, now Form 55-0 or 55-1 depending on which version an agent uses, added new questions about insurance history, private roads, above-ground storage tanks over 500 gallons, and conservation easements. The Water Notice is new from scratch. It asks sellers to state whether the property sits inside a Groundwater Conservation District, name the district if so, disclose how many wells exist on the property and whether any are capped or abandoned, and note whether the property's water rights have ever been leased or sold separately from the land.
Groundwater Conservation Districts are the entities that regulate private wells under the Texas Water Code. For a buyer's agent working a file in Cedar Park or Round Rock, this section of the form is almost always a formality, because those areas sit on city or MUD-supplied water and the well question doesn't apply. For a Liberty Hill acreage listing, it's the section that actually matters, and it's the one where the correct answer runs against what most people expect a disclosure form to look like.
Why Liberty Hill Doesn't Have A Simple Answer
Western Williamson County pulls its groundwater from the Trinity Aquifer, and wells in the Trinity's middle layer, the source for roughly 99 percent of local wells, have shown measurable declines since 2006, according to the Liberty Hill Independent. That decline is what pushed a group of residents to organize. The Liberty Hill Independent reported that the Aquifer Conservation Alliance formed in 2022 with a straightforward goal: get western Williamson County under the oversight of an established Groundwater Conservation District, so wells would be registered, metered where required, and monitored for interference with neighboring properties.
The alliance settled on Clearwater Underground Water Conservation District, based in Bell County, as its partner and filed a formal annexation petition covering roughly 503 square miles west of I-35, including Liberty Hill, Leander, and Florence along with parts of Round Rock, Georgetown, Cedar Park, and Austin. Clearwater already manages the same aquifer system for Bell County landowners, and its general manager, Dirk Aaron, spoke at town hall meetings in Liberty Hill making the case, as the Liberty Hill Independent reported, that aquifers don't stop at a county line.
According to Community Impact, the petition went to a vote of the Clearwater board on February 14, 2024, and it failed. Some of the opposition came from residents who didn't want a Bell County entity setting rules for Williamson County wells. The same Community Impact account quoted one Liberty Hill resident putting it plainly at the hearing: she wasn't against a district, just against a Bell County one running it. Williamson County Commissioners Court didn't step in with an alternative. Precinct 1 Commissioner Terry Cook argued at the time that handing oversight to people unfamiliar with the area was its own kind of risk. Instead, the court allocated $1 million toward an independent study of the Trinity Aquifer rather than committing to a district.
No new Groundwater Conservation District has since formed for western Williamson County, and no later annexation effort has been reported. So when a Liberty Hill seller with a private well sits down to fill out the Water Notice, the line asking for a district name is correctly left blank, not because the paperwork is incomplete, but because the region genuinely doesn't have one. A buyer's agent unfamiliar with that history might read the blank line as a red flag on the specific property. It isn't. It's a fact about the whole area, and it applies whether the well was drilled in 1985 or 2024.
What The Rest Of The Form Actually Wants
Beyond the district question, the Water Notice and the updated Seller's Disclosure Notice ask for specifics that reward preparation before a home goes live:
- Well count and status: how many wells are on the property, which are actively used, and which have been capped or abandoned
- Flow rate and last test date, if known
- Whether groundwater rights have ever been severed, leased, or sold apart from the surface estate
- Insurance history, including any non-renewal or difficulty obtaining coverage
- Private road maintenance responsibility, if the property is accessed by one
- Above-ground storage tanks over 500 gallons and their current condition
None of this is exotic for a property that's been on well water for years, but it's the kind of detail that's easy to lose track of if it's never been written down. A seller who can hand a buyer's agent a folder with the well's last test date, the septic permit history, and a clear answer on groundwater rights closes out that section of due diligence before it ever becomes a negotiating point during the option period.
The Septic Half Of The Same Conversation
Water and wastewater travel together on most Liberty Hill acreage, and the paperwork trail on the septic side is separate from the TREC forms but just as time-sensitive. Williamson County's On-Site Sewage Facilities program, run through the County Engineer's Office, requires septic system owners to renew their operating license at least every two years, and when a property changes hands, the seller and buyer submit a License Renewal or Transfer of License form to move that authorization to the new owner. It's a short document, but it's easy to miss if nobody flags it before closing, and a missing transfer can hold up funding on a loan that requires proof the system is permitted and functioning.
For an aerobic system, which is common on Hill Country lots where shallow bedrock rules out a conventional drain field, the county also expects a current maintenance contract with a TCEQ-registered provider, since self-maintenance without a filed affidavit isn't allowed. A seller who pulls the OSSF permit history early, confirms the maintenance contract is active, and has the transfer paperwork ready removes one more place where a Liberty Hill closing can stall.
The Clock That Actually Matters
Texas Property Code section 5.008(f) gives a buyer seven days to terminate a contract and recover earnest money if the Seller's Disclosure Notice isn't delivered on or before the contract's effective date. That rule isn't new, but the 2026 forms make the window higher stakes, since there's now a second document to deliver alongside the first. That makes timely delivery of the Seller's Disclosure Notice the statutory trigger, while the new Water Notice adds another document to manage.
The fix is procedural rather than complicated: have both forms filled out, reviewed, and ready to hand over before the property goes under contract, not after. For a well-and-septic property, that means the district question, the well details, and the septic transfer status are settled on paper before a buyer's option period clock even starts.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You List
Does every home in Liberty Hill need the Water Notice? Yes. The notice asks whether the seller has actual knowledge of a well, groundwater rights, or surface water rights tied to the property. A home fully served by city or MUD water and sewer with no wells still completes the section, but most of it will be answered as not applicable.
Is a blank Groundwater Conservation District line going to alarm a buyer's agent? It can, if the agent hasn't worked wells in this part of Williamson County before. Having the Clearwater petition history ready to explain, along with the county's ongoing aquifer study, turns a confusing blank into a straightforward regional fact.
Does the septic transfer form need a licensed inspector? The transfer paperwork itself is administrative, but lenders and some buyers will still want a current inspection report.
What if the well hasn't been tested recently? A flow rate and water quality test before listing gives the seller a documented answer rather than a guess, and it's the kind of detail buyers on well water tend to ask about early.
If you're weighing a sale on well and septic in Liberty Hill and want a straight read on what the new disclosure paperwork means for your specific property, Dueñas Realty Group can walk through it with you 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.
