Here’s how to find the legal description of a home in Texas.
When submitting a home purchase offer, it’s important to have the legal description of the home filled out. This way there’s no confusion on what property the home is for. Imagine putting in an offer for a duplex or triplex, which unit are you buying? Unit A or B?
Having the legal description of the property filled out will serve as a way to identifying the exact property.
Here’re the steps to find the legal description of a Texas property.
This is the most common identification of a home. Example: 123 Main Street, Austin, Texas 78757
Go to County Explorer and enter the zip code of the property in the top right. This will tell you the county the property is located.
In this case, I am searching for “Travis county property search” on Google
Look for the websites that end in .org or .gov. Typically those are the domains used by the local governments.
Each site will look different. Spend a little time to find the page that looks like the one below. Look for words such as “Compound text search”, “address search”, “Owner search”.
The legal description of the property might be a column displayed in the results page. You should also be able to see the property detail, where it will have the legal description of the property.
For our address 123 Main Street, Austin, Texas 78757., the legal description of the property is LOT 19 BLK DD HIELSCHER SEC 14 THE.
On the one-to-four contract there is a section to input the legal decription of the property in the format of: Lot______ Block_______, _______________ Addition, City of __________, County of ______________, Texas, known as ____________________
This will translate to
Lot 19 Block DD, HIELSCHER SEC 14 THE Addition, City of Austin, County of Travis, Texas, known as 123 Main Street, Austin, Texas 78757
Hope this is helpful! Remember here at diyhomebuyer.com we provide you with the resources to buy a home without a realtor. Checkout our Offer Submission Tool to write a home purchase offer without a realtor and save potentially thousands in commission.
Disclaimer: Be sure to verify the purchase contract and all information with a realtor or an attorney as information provide here is intended for general education and not personalized real estate or legal advice.
