Land Due Diligence Checklist: What to Check Before You Buy Raw Land

About 80% of raw land buyers I talk to skip at least one critical due diligence step before closing. And most of them don’t find out until they’re trying to build, sell, or develop what they bought. The Texas Real Estate Research Center estimates that boundary disputes, title defects, and access issues affect roughly 1 in 5 rural land transactions in the state. That is not a small number.

So yeah, a proper land due diligence checklist is not optional. It’s the difference between a smart investment and a very expensive lesson. I’ve helped buyers work through this process on everything from 2-acre lots in Dripping Springs to larger tracts further out in the Hill Country, and the mistakes I’ve seen are almost always preventable (which is the frustrating part right). Lets walk through every item you need to check before you wire that earnest money.

If you’re evaluating whether raw land is worth the investment at all, start there first. This article assumes you’ve already decided to buy and need the tactical checklist to protect yourself. And if you’re looking at the bigger picture of building wealth through property, this is part of our Real Estate Investing resource hub.

Understand Your Due Diligence Period (and Why Land Is Different)

The due diligence period on a house in Texas is usually 7 to 17 days. For raw land, you should be negotiating 30 to 90 days minimum. And I would push for the longer end every single time.

Why? Because land investigations take longer. There’s no home inspection report you can order in 48 hours and call it done. You need surveyors, soil tests, title searches, county planning meetings. Some of these take weeks to schedule, especially in rural counties where the permitting office might have two people working there (I’m not exaggerating, I’ve waited three weeks for a callback from a county office in the Hill Country).

Here’s the thing most buyers don’t realize. There is no legal requirement for a land inspection in Texas. Nobody forces you to do any of this. You can waive everything and close tomorrow. But that would be a terrible idea, and I’m saying that as someone who has seen what happens when people skip steps. The checklist below is what separates the buyers who build wealth from the ones who end up posting “land for sale, motivated seller” six months later.

1. Title Search and Ownership Verification

This is step one, always. Before you fall in love with the view or start sketching your dream house on a napkin, make sure the person selling you this land actually owns it, and owns it free and clear.

A title company will run a search of public records going back decades. They’re looking for outstanding liens, unpaid taxes, judgments, and anything else that could cloud the title. In Texas, property tax liens are especially common on vacant land because owners sometimes stop paying taxes on land they’re not actively using. Travis County alone had over 4,000 properties with delinquent taxes in 2025.

What you’re looking for specifically:

• Clear chain of title (no gaps in ownership history)
• No outstanding tax liens or judgments
• No pending legal actions against the property
• Confirmation that the seller has the legal authority to sell

Budget about $200 to $600 for a thorough title search. That’s nothing compared to the cost of discovering a $40,000 tax lien after you’ve already closed. If you want more detail on what closing costs look like in Texas, we break that down separately.

2. Survey and Boundary Verification

Never, and I mean never, buy land based on a fence line, a treeline, or what the seller says the boundaries are. Get a licensed surveyor out there.

A boundary survey costs $500 to $3,000 depending on the size and terrain of the parcel. I’ve seen deals where the actual boundary was 40 feet different from where both parties thought it was. That’s not a rounding error, that’s a chunk of land somebody is going to fight over in court.

The surveyor will also identify:

• Exact acreage (which should match what you’re paying for)
• Any encroachments from neighboring properties (fences, structures, driveways)
• Physical features that affect usability (ravines, slopes, water crossings)
• Existing improvements on the property

Mark Podolsky talks about this in Dirt Rich. His whole thing is that most land deals fall apart not because the land was bad, but because the buyer didn’t verify what they were actually getting. And he’s right. The survey is the single most important document in a land transaction. It tells you exactly what you own.

3. Zoning, Land Use, and Entitlements

Can you actually build what you want on this property? You’d be surprised how often the answer is no.

Every county and municipality in Texas has its own zoning regulations (or in some rural areas, almost none at all, which creates a different set of problems). You need to visit the county planning and zoning office and verify:

• Current zoning classification of the parcel
• Permitted uses under that zoning (residential, agricultural, commercial, mixed)
• Setback requirements (how far your structure must be from property lines)
• Maximum building height and lot coverage restrictions
• Whether you can subdivide the property
• Whether the zoning allows your intended use (this is especially important if you’re planning an investment property or short-term rental)

In areas like Bee Cave and Lakeway, the rules are pretty well defined. But go 20 miles further into the Hill Country and you might find yourself dealing with county-only jurisdiction where the rules are different, or in an ETJ (extraterritorial jurisdiction) where a nearby city has some control over development but not all of it.

And here’s a thing nobody tells you. Zoning can change. Just because the parcel next to yours is vacant today doesn’t mean someone won’t get it rezoned for a concrete batch plant next year. Ask about any pending zoning applications in the area while you’re at the planning office.

4. Easements and Right-of-Way

An easement gives someone else the right to use part of your property for a specific purpose. They don’t own it, but they can use it, and you can’t stop them.

Common easements on raw land include:

• Utility easements for power lines, water mains, or gas pipelines
• Access easements where a neighbor has the legal right to cross your property
• Drainage easements where water runoff is directed across your land
• Conservation easements that restrict development on all or part of the property

Your title search should reveal recorded easements, but not all of them are recorded. Prescriptive easements (established through long-term use) are a real thing in Texas. If your neighbor has been driving across the back corner of your property for 10 years with no objection from the previous owner, that might be an easement now.

I’ve seen easements that cut a buildable lot in half. One buyer I worked with in the Hill Country found a 60-foot utility easement running right through the middle of what they thought was their best building site. That’s not something you can just move.

5. Utilities and Infrastructure Access

This is where raw land gets expensive in a hurry if you’re not careful.

For an existing home, you flip a switch and the lights come on. For raw land, somebody has to bring those utilities to your property, and that somebody is usually you. Here’s what to check:

Water: Is municipal water available? If not, you’ll need a well. Well drilling in the Texas Hill Country runs $15,000 to $50,000 depending on depth, and there’s no guarantee you’ll hit water at a productive rate. Some parts of the Edwards Aquifer region have strict pumping restrictions too.

Electricity: How far is the nearest utility pole? Getting power extended to your property can cost $15 to $25 per linear foot. If the nearest connection point is half a mile away, do the math on that. Adds up fast.

Sewer/Septic: This is the big one. If you’re not on municipal sewer (and most raw land isn’t), you need a septic system. Which brings us to the next section.

Internet: Don’t assume. Starlink has changed the game for rural properties, but if you need fiber or cable internet for work, verify coverage before you buy. I’ve had clients discover they couldn’t get anything faster than satellite internet after they closed (not great if you’re working remote from your Hill Country dream property).

6. Soil Testing and Perc Test

If you need a septic system, the soil has to cooperate. And in Texas, especially in the Hill Country, the soil does not always cooperate.

A percolation test (perc test) measures how fast water drains through the soil. TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) requires a licensed site evaluator to perform this test. It costs $250 to $600, takes 1 to 3 days, and results are valid for 5 years.

Here’s why this matters so much. If the soil drains too fast or too slow, you can’t install a conventional septic system. You’ll need an alternative system, and those run $8,000 to $30,000 instead of the $3,000 to $8,000 for conventional. I’ve seen that price difference kill deals.

The Hill Country is notorious for this. Clay soil and shallow limestone mean a lot of properties need engineered alternative systems. And here’s a pro tip from years of watching buyers learn this the hard way. Test in spring or fall, not during a drought. Summer drought makes soil appear to drain faster than it normally would, and you might get a passing test that doesn’t reflect reality. The county representative usually needs to observe the test too.

If I’m buying land in the Hill Country (or helping a client do it), the perc test is one of the first things I order. Make the contract contingent on a passing result. Full stop.

7. Flood Zone and Drainage

Pulling the FEMA flood map is free and takes about two minutes on the FEMA Map Service Center website. There is absolutely no excuse for skipping this step.

What you’re looking for:

• Zone X: Minimal flood risk. You’re fine.
• Zone A or AE: High-risk flood zone. Required flood insurance if you have a mortgage. Premiums run $1,500 to $3,000 per year, and that’s before you factor in any construction restrictions.
• Zone V or VE: Coastal high hazard. Less common for inland Texas properties but worth knowing about.

But here’s the thing that FEMA maps don’t tell you, especially in Central Texas where flash flooding is a serious concern. Ask the county floodplain administrator about local flood history. Drive the property after a heavy rain. Talk to the neighbors. Some areas that look dry on FEMA maps have very real drainage issues that only show up during major rain events.

I tell every buyer the same thing. Flood zone designation can completely change the economics of a deal. If you’re in Zone AE, your annual carrying costs just went up by $2,000 or more, your construction costs go up (elevated foundations, flood-resistant materials), and your eventual resale value takes a hit because the next buyer has to deal with the same issues.

For context on how this fits into the broader question of whether land is a good investment, flood risk is one of the biggest variables that can swing a deal from profitable to painful.

8. Environmental Concerns

Environmental issues can be deal-killers, and they’re sometimes invisible until you hire someone to look.

What to investigate:

Wetlands: The Army Corps of Engineers has jurisdiction over wetlands, and developing on them requires federal permits (Section 404). This process can take months or years. Get a wetland delineation if the property has any low-lying areas, standing water, or certain plant species.

Endangered species: Some areas have habitat restrictions. In Central Texas, the golden-cheeked warbler and the Barton Springs salamander have affected development projects. If your property is in a known habitat zone, building permits may require biological surveys and mitigation plans.

Soil contamination: If the property was ever used for agriculture, industry, dumping, or fuel storage, there could be contamination. A Phase I Environmental Site Assessment ($1,500 to $3,000) investigates this through records review and site inspection.

Protected aquifers: Parts of Central Texas sit over the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone, which comes with strict development regulations from the Edwards Aquifer Authority.

This is one of those areas where spending $1,500 on a Phase I assessment could save you $100,000 in remediation costs later. Benjamin Graham’s whole thing was margin of safety right. Buy at a discount to intrinsic value so you have a cushion when things go wrong. The same principle applies here. Your due diligence IS your margin of safety on a land deal.

9. Road Access and Legal Ingress/Egress

This seems obvious until it isn’t. Can you legally access your property from a public road?

Some rural parcels are “landlocked,” meaning there’s no direct access from a public road. You’d need an easement from a neighboring property owner to get in and out. And if that neighbor doesn’t want to grant an easement, or wants to charge you a fortune for it, you have a problem.

Verify these things:

• Is the road fronting your property a public road maintained by the county or state?
• If it’s a private road, is there a road maintenance agreement? Who pays for repairs?
• Is there a deeded right-of-way or access easement?
• What condition is the access road in? (Some “roads” on a plat map are barely more than a dirt path)
• Can emergency vehicles reach the property? (Some counties require this for building permits)

I worked on a deal in the Hill Country where the buyer assumed the gravel road leading to the property was a county road. It wasn’t. It was a private road maintained by an HOA for an adjacent subdivision, and they had the right to gate it. That discovery came during due diligence and it saved that buyer from a nightmare scenario. If you’re buying land in the Texas Hill Country, road access verification is absolutely critical.

10. Mineral Rights

Ok this is a big one in Texas. And it’s the one that catches more out-of-state buyers off guard than anything else on this list.

In Texas, the mineral estate and the surface estate are two separate things. You can buy 100 acres and own zero percent of the mineral rights underneath it. Those rights might have been severed decades ago, and the person or company holding them has the legal right to access your property to extract those minerals.

Texas law holds the mineral estate as dominant over the surface estate. The mineral rights holder can drill, dig, build roads, and install pipelines on your land. And you get to watch. That’s not my opinion, that’s Texas property law as described by the Texas Railroad Commission.

What to do:

• Have your title company search for mineral reservations in the deed chain
• Ask a real estate attorney for a mineral title opinion (goes deeper than a standard title search)
• Check with the Texas Railroad Commission for any active leases or permits on the property
• Ask neighboring property owners about any drilling activity in the area

If the mineral rights have been severed, it doesn’t necessarily mean the deal is dead. But you need to understand what you’re buying and what you’re not buying. And the price should reflect it. A surface-only purchase with active mineral leases nearby should be priced very differently than a property where you own everything above and below ground.

11. HOA, Deed Restrictions, and CCRs

Even raw land can have deed restrictions. Especially in planned developments and rural subdivisions where you might not expect them.

These covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CCRs) can control:

• Minimum home size (some require 2,500+ square feet)
• Architectural style and materials
• Whether you can have livestock or agricultural use
• Whether you can park an RV or boat on the property
• Short-term rental restrictions
• Fencing requirements
• Whether you can subdivide

And they run with the land, meaning they apply to every future owner regardless of whether you agreed to them. The previous owner agreed, and that’s enough.

Get a copy of the CCRs from the title company or the HOA (if there is one). Read every page. I know that sounds miserable, but I’ve seen buyers discover after closing that their 10-acre tract required a minimum 3,000 square foot home with a specific exterior finish. That changes the economics of the whole project and nobody warned them because nobody read the fine print.

12. Property Tax History and Assessment

Pull the tax records from the county appraisal district. You want to know:

• Current assessed value and annual tax amount
• Whether the property has an agricultural (ag) exemption that you’d need to maintain
• Whether there are any delinquent taxes (these become your problem as the new owner if not handled at closing)
• What the rollback tax situation looks like

That last one is important. If the property has had an ag exemption and you change its use (say, from grazing to residential), the county can charge rollback taxes for the difference between the agricultural rate and the full rate for the previous five years. In some cases that’s tens of thousands of dollars that nobody mentioned during negotiations.

Our Austin property tax guide covers the broader tax landscape, but for raw land specifically the ag exemption and rollback calculation are the two things that surprise buyers the most.

13. Topography, Grading, and Building Site

Walking the land is not optional. You need to physically be on the property, preferably after a rain, and look at it with your own eyes.

• Where would you actually put a house? Is there a level building pad or does the site need major grading?
• What does water do when it rains? Where does it flow and collect?
• Are there significant elevation changes that affect construction costs?
• What’s the tree coverage like? (Removing mature oaks in some Texas jurisdictions requires permits)
• Is the view what you expected from the photos? (Drone shots can be very misleading)

Grading and site preparation can cost $5,000 to $50,000 depending on the terrain. I’ve seen Hill Country lots where the grading alone cost more than the land itself. Beautiful view right. But that 30-degree slope adds six figures to your construction budget in a hurry.

Your Land Due Diligence Budget

Here’s what all of this actually costs. The total is usually $2,000 to $8,000 depending on parcel size and complexity:

• Title search: $200 to $600
• Boundary survey: $500 to $3,000
• Perc test: $250 to $600
• Phase I environmental: $1,500 to $3,000 (if needed)
• Well drilling test: varies significantly by depth and geology
• Attorney review: $500 to $1,500

Should you spend $3,000 to $5,000 to protect a $100,000 to $500,000 purchase? Absolutely. No question about it. That’s 1% to 5% of the deal, and it’s the cheapest insurance you’ll ever buy.

The Bottom Line

A land due diligence checklist is really just a structured way of asking one question over and over: what am I actually buying here? Not what does the listing say. Not what does the seller promise. What does the data, the survey, the title report, the soil test, and the county records actually show?

I’ve been working this market for 19 years, and the best land deals I’ve seen are the ones where the buyer did their homework upfront and negotiated from a position of knowledge. The worst ones are where somebody got excited about a pretty view and wired money before asking the hard questions.

If you’re looking at raw land in the Austin area or the Texas Hill Country, lets talk. I can walk you through the land purchase due diligence process specific to whatever county and property type you’re considering, and connect you with the surveyors, attorneys, and environmental consultants who do this work every day. No pressure. Lets just make sure you know exactly what you’re buying before you sign anything.