TREC Form 20-19 — the current One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale), which replaces 20-18 and becomes mandatory for contracts executed on or after 07/01/2026 — adds a paragraph with no analog in the prior form: ¶7I, "Seller's Disclosure About Groundwater and Surface Water Rights (Seller's Water Disclosure)." This guide covers only what the contract paragraph itself says. For the standalone disclosure form it references — TREC No. 61-0 — see our separate guide to that form. Neither guide is legal advice; talk to a Texas real estate attorney about how either applies to a specific transaction.
Why it's here
Per Texas REALTORS®' forms-update memo, the new paragraph "arises from the directive from the Sunset Commission that TREC's contract forms provide prospective buyers with information on groundwater and surface water rights associated with a property." The contract paragraph opens with its own plain-language framing: "Access to surface water or groundwater on the Property may be regulated, restricted, or prohibited, including but not limited to the right to drill or operate water wells and the right to withdraw water from surface water sources on or adjoining the Property. The parties shall use the Seller's Water Disclosure published by TREC to identify information related to groundwater and surface water rights."
Three boxes, one choice
¶7I is a check-one-box paragraph:
- (1) Buyer has received the Seller's Water Disclosure.
- (2) Buyer has not received the Seller's Water Disclosure. The form sets a deadline (a number of days after the Effective Date) by which the seller must deliver the Seller's Water Disclosure to the buyer. Note: TREC's own printed text of this clause appears to be missing its verb between "Seller" and "deliver" — likely a drafting gap in the form itself rather than an OCR or transcription error on our part. If Buyer does not receive the Seller's Water Disclosure, Buyer may terminate this contract at any time prior to the closing and the earnest money will be refunded to Buyer. If Seller delivers the Seller's Water Disclosure, Buyer may terminate this contract for any reason within 7 days after Buyer receives the Seller's Water Disclosure or prior to the closing, whichever first occurs, and the earnest money will be refunded to Buyer."
- (3) Seller is not required to deliver the Seller's Water Disclosure to Buyer — but only if every one of five conditions is true.
The exemption — all five conditions must be true
Box (3) applies only if all of the following are true:
- (a) Seller is not aware of a water well on the Property (in use or not in use);
- (b) Seller is not aware of a pond, lake, or water tank on the Property;
- (c) Seller is not aware of any certificate of adjudication, certified filing, or permit for surface water rights associated with the Property administered by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality;
- (d) Seller is not aware that any groundwater rights to the Property have been severed, sold, or leased in whole or in part; and
- (e) the Property receives water only from a named municipality (City), municipal utility district (MUD) or other special district, water supply corporation (WSC), or private water supply company (PWC) — the form requires the specific entity to be named on the blank line.
All five have to hold at the same time. A single working or non-working well, a pond or water tank, a filed surface-water-rights permit, or a severed groundwater interest takes the seller out of the exemption and back into box (1) or (2).
How ¶7I connects to the standalone disclosure form
¶7I only governs delivery mechanics and the termination/refund rights tied to delivery or non-delivery — it doesn't restate what's actually asked on the disclosure itself. That's a separate, newly promulgated form: TREC No. 61-0, with its own water-well counts, Groundwater District questions, and surface-water-rights questions. See our TREC 61-0 guide for what that form asks the seller to disclose.