Just bought land in the Texas Hill Country? Your first-90-days checklist.

Verify your lines — get (or read) the survey.

Your title policy tells you what you bought on paper; it does not show you where your lines sit in the dirt. Ask your title company for any existing survey. If it's decades old or nonexistent, budget for a new boundary survey from a Texas Registered Professional Land Surveyor (RPLS).

Then walk the perimeter. Find the corner monuments (usually iron rods or pins) and note where the fences actually run. In the Hill Country, fence lines routinely don't match the deeded line — an old fence, a neighbor's shed, or a ranch road crossing your corner can all become encroachment disputes. Catch those now, before you build, fence, or subdivide.

Find it, test it, understand your rights.

Figure out your water source: an existing well, a shared well, a rural water supply corporation/co-op, or none (hauled water or a cistern).

• If there's a well: locate the wellhead and pull the well report — submitted well logs are kept by the Texas Water Development Board. Test the water (bacteria, nitrates, hardness) and have the pump, pressure tank, and casing checked.
• Know the rules: Texas groundwater generally follows the “rule of capture,” but many areas fall under a local groundwater conservation district that regulates new wells, spacing, and metering. Rules vary — verify with your local groundwater conservation district.
• If there's no well: get drilling bids early. Depth and yield swing widely across Hill Country limestone, so “the neighbor hit water at X feet” means little.

Locate and inspect the OSSF.

Almost every rural tract out here is on a private septic system — an On-Site Sewage Facility (OSSF), not a municipal sewer. Find the tank and drainfield, and ask the seller or county for the OSSF permit and as-built diagram.

If you have no service records, have the tank inspected and pumped. Note the system type: a conventional system and an aerobic system are very different animals — aerobic systems require an ongoing maintenance contract in Texas. Repairs and new systems are permitted through the county or its authorized agent — verify the permitting authority for your county.

Confirm legal access and read every easement.

Confirm you have legal, recorded access to a public road — not just the caliche road you happened to drive in on. Landlocked parcels and handshake access are a genuine Hill Country problem, and they're far cheaper to discover now than at resale.

Read every easement on your title commitment: ingress/egress, shared road, utility, pipeline, and water easements all tell you who has the right to cross your land and where. If you share a private road, find out whether there's a road-maintenance agreement — if there isn't, that's a neighborly conversation to have before the next washout, not after.

Protect your ag / wildlife valuation — the time-sensitive one.

This is the item most likely to cost real money if you miss it. Many Hill Country tracts carry a 1-d-1 “ag” (open-space) valuation or a wildlife-management valuation that dramatically lowers the taxable value. That valuation does not automatically follow you — a change of ownership can require a new application with the county appraisal district.

• File with your County Appraisal District (CAD) within their window. Miss it and you can lose the valuation — and if land use changes, you can face a rollback tax (back taxes plus interest).
• Minimum acreage, “degree of intensity” standards, qualifying uses, and deadlines vary by county and appraisal district — verify with your CAD before you change how the land is used.
• If it's currently grazed, hayed, or under a wildlife plan and you want to keep the valuation, keep that use going and keep records. Switching to wildlife management has its own written plan and annual reporting.
• If you'll live on the property, also ask the CAD about filing a homestead exemption.

Every one of these systems — well, septic, roads, fences, tax use — becomes a document you'll want in one place at resale, at refinance, or when a contractor asks “where's the drainfield?” A free HDS+ Property Score builds that baseline picture of your property for you in a few minutes, no obligation.

Get Your Free Property Score →

Line up the right coverage.

Raw land, land-with-a-house, and a future rental are three different insurance conversations — and a standard homeowner's policy may not cover vacant land or a home you don't occupy full-time.

• At minimum, carry liability coverage — you're now responsible for people on rural acreage, invited or not.
• If there's a structure, insure it and its contents. If it'll sit empty between visits, ask specifically about a vacant/unoccupied dwelling endorsement — many policies limit coverage on unoccupied homes.
• Ask about wildfire: much of the Hill Country is wildfire-prone, and carriers may rate it heavily or require brush clearance. Get specifics from a licensed Texas agent.

Set up power, propane, and a 911 address.

• Electricity out here is usually served by a rural electric cooperative, not a big-city utility. Find out which co-op and open the account early — a new service drop can take weeks.
• Most rural homes run on propane for heat, hot water, and cooking. Locate the tank, find out whether it's owned or leased, and set up a supplier.
• If the tract has no address, get a 911/emergency address assigned through the county so first responders, deliveries, and contractors can find the gate. Verify the process for your county.
• Internet: check fixed wireless, low-earth-orbit satellite, and any local fiber co-op before you assume there's nothing.

Assess fences, gates, and cattle guards.

Texas has a deep open-range history, and local stock laws vary — whether you're legally responsible for fencing livestock in or out can differ by county. Verify your county's stock law.

Walk your fences and note condition, materials, and — by agreement or long custom — who maintains each shared boundary fence with a neighbor. A solid entrance gate (and a cattle guard if you run or lease livestock) is both security and, if you hold an ag valuation through a grazing lease, a working part of that land use.

Secure the property for absentee ownership.

Hill Country land often sits empty between owner visits, and empty land attracts trespass, dumping, and theft of anything not bolted down.

• A locked, visible gate is the first deterrent. Add gate sensors, trail/game cameras, and a solar cellular camera at the entrance where there's no power.
• Post the property with signage and know your recorded boundaries so trespass is enforceable.
• Meet your neighbors. Rural security runs on watchful neighbors more than on gadgets — exchange numbers with the people who can see your gate from theirs.
• Don't leave fuel, tools, or a trailer visible from the road, and keep dated photos of any equipment.

Decide who cares for the land when you're not here.

If you're a part-time or out-of-state owner, be honest about the gap: who checks on the place after a storm? Who keeps the well and septic serviced, mows and clears defensible space for wildfire, and meets contractors at the gate when you're a flight away?

That's exactly the job a professional caretaker / property manager does — routine checks, vendor coordination, seasonal maintenance, and a single point of contact so a small problem doesn't quietly become a big one before your next visit. It's the Manage and Operate half of owning Hill Country land, and it's why absentee owners sleep better. Here's how we think about ranch caretaking and ongoing property management.

Planning to rent it out when you're away? Short-term-rental care is its own discipline — see short-term rental management.