Texas Real Estate Commission adopted a rewritten Seller's Disclosure Notice this year, and the agency's own listing shows the new version, Form 55-1, took effect May 28, 2026. A companion form nobody has used before, the Water Notice, became mandatory July 1, 2026. Every Preston Hollow listing that has gone under contract since midyear is running on both.
The changes read like routine housekeeping in most of Texas: a box for insurance trouble, a box for private roads, a box for backup generators, a box for storage tanks, a standalone form for wells and water rights. In a typical subdivision with public streets, city water and a builder-grade HVAC system, a seller checks "no" five times and moves on.
Preston Hollow is not that subdivision. The neighborhood's housing stock and its ownership pattern both cut against the form's assumptions, in opposite directions. Estate-tier homes here are far more likely to trigger a genuine "yes" on several of the new lines. And a meaningful slice of the neighborhood's highest-value inventory, the kind that sits on Strait Lane or in Old Preston Hollow and hasn't traded in a generation, may not need the form at all when it finally does change hands.
What actually changed, in plain terms
Texas Property Code Section 5.008 already required sellers to disclose known material facts about a property before closing. The 2026 update adds five new categories to that existing obligation:
- Whether the seller has been unable to obtain homeowners insurance, been dropped, or been non-renewed
- Whether the property sits on a private road, and if so, who maintains it and whether a written agreement exists
- Whether there's a permanently installed standby generator, and its condition
- Whether there's an above-ground storage tank over 500 gallons on the property
- A standalone Water Notice covering groundwater rights, water wells, and whether the property sits inside a Groundwater Conservation District
None of this replaces the existing structural disclosure. It sits alongside it. And failing to disclose something you knew about still exposes a seller to the same liability it always has: if the notice is delivered late or not at all, the buyer can terminate within seven days of receiving it, no reason required.
Where the boxes actually land in this neighborhood
Preston Hollow averages roughly 1.5 acres per lot, spans more than 30 named subdivisions from Sunnybrook Estates to Volk Estates, and its estate tier runs from about $3 million to $10 million with trophy properties on Strait Lane and Park Lane priced well above that. That combination of scale and age changes how these five questions land.
| New disclosure line | What it asks | Why it lands differently here |
|---|---|---|
| Insurance history | Have you been dropped, non-renewed, or unable to get coverage | High replacement-cost homes are exactly the properties private carriers are pulling back from first |
| Private road maintenance | Who maintains the road, is there a written agreement | Several Preston Hollow subdivisions, including The Creeks of Preston Hollow, are HOA-governed with private streets and can carry road-resurfacing special assessments |
| Standby generator | Condition, fuel source, whether it works | Whole-home backup power is a common estate amenity rather than a rare add-on |
| Above-ground storage tank | Presence of a tank over 500 gallons | Larger lots more often carry propane tanks for generators, pools, or outdoor kitchens |
| Water rights and wells | Groundwater rights, wells, Conservation District status | Multi-acre grounds are more likely to use a well for irrigation separate from the house's municipal water |
A seller in a quarter-acre subdivision with public water and no generator can plausibly answer "no" across the board. A seller on a 1.5-acre-plus Preston Hollow lot with a pool, a generator, and a private street is answering "yes" or "unknown" on two or three of these lines before the inspection period even opens, which means the paragraph of detail the form asks for next has to be accurate the first time.
The insurance box is the one people underestimate
The insurance question sounds like it exists to catch homeowners who let a policy lapse. In this price band, it's doing something closer to the opposite. It's surfacing whether a private carrier will write the policy at all.
The Texas FAIR Plan exists as the state's insurer of last resort, activated in 2002 for homeowners who've been declined by at least two private carriers. Its dwelling coverage is capped at $1 million, paid on an actual cash value basis rather than replacement cost. Rates on that plan rose an average of 25 percent across greater Dallas-Fort Worth for policies effective August 1, 2025.
A $1 million cap on a $6 million house doesn't function as a safety net. It functions as a rounding error.
For a standard Preston Hollow home near the neighborhood's roughly $1.93 million median as of early 2026, the FAIR Plan's cap is already tight. For an estate-tier or trophy property, it's close to irrelevant as coverage and entirely relevant as a signal. If a seller checks "yes, I've had difficulty obtaining coverage," a sophisticated buyer isn't reading that as a minor administrative note. They're reading it as evidence that standard carriers looked at this specific house, its age, its systems, its risk profile, and passed. That's a conversation worth having before a listing goes live, not during option period.
The generational exemption most sellers don't think about
Here's the wrinkle that cuts the other way. TREC's disclosure exemptions include estate sales where the personal representative has never occupied the property. Old Preston Hollow and the Strait Lane corridor are known for exactly the kind of long, quiet ownership that eventually produces this scenario: a family holds a property for decades, turnover happens through probate rather than a market listing, and the estate that inherits the house has never lived in it.
That means some of the neighborhood's most consequential transactions, the ones with the highest dollar exposure and the least public visibility, can legally skip the disclosure form the rest of the market just watched get longer. That's not a loophole to exploit. It's a reason to bring in counsel early if a Preston Hollow estate is changing hands through a trust or an executor rather than a living seller, because the rules that apply to a typical resale simply don't map onto that transaction the same way.
The private road question has a real answer here
Preston Hollow includes HOA-governed communities, The Creeks of Preston Hollow among them, where monthly dues in the neighborhood's luxury pockets commonly run in the low hundreds to around a thousand dollars, funding landscaping, security, and shared infrastructure. Special assessments for resurfacing roads or repairing shared amenities aren't hypothetical here. They've happened.
If a seller's street is privately maintained, the new form asks a direct question: is there a written maintenance agreement, and who is actually responsible for keeping that road in shape. Lenders and appraisers look for exactly this kind of recorded agreement before financing closes. A seller who hasn't confirmed the paperwork exists before listing is inviting a delay that has nothing to do with the house itself.
What this means alongside the foundation conversation
None of this happens in isolation from the structural questions buyers are already asking. Dallas had a significant construction boom in 1983 and 1984, and a real share of Preston Hollow's housing stock dates to exactly that window, built to the standards of that era rather than today's post-tension slab requirements. Industry sources describing Turtle Creek and Preston Hollow together note a genuine mix of older and newer construction, with many of the older homes needing engineer evaluations before a sale closes cleanly.
A standard home inspection runs in the few-hundred-dollar range and flags visible symptoms. A structural engineer's evaluation costs more, typically somewhere between a few hundred and roughly $1,500 depending on scope, and it's the only report that actually assesses whether a foundation is stable. Sellers who get ahead of that evaluation, rather than waiting for a buyer's inspector to raise it, keep more control over the number that eventually shows up in negotiation.
What to actually do before listing
Pull your insurance file first. Know whether you're currently insured, whether you've been non-renewed anywhere in the last several years, and whether your current carrier is a standard admitted insurer or a surplus-lines policy that only exists because standard carriers passed. If your street is private, locate the recorded maintenance agreement before a buyer's lender asks for it. If you have a generator, a pool house, or a propane tank over 500 gallons, gather the installation records and any transferable warranties now rather than mid-transaction. And if the property in question is moving through an estate rather than a personal sale, get a real estate attorney's read on whether the disclosure exemption applies before assuming either way.
None of this is about avoiding the form. It's about answering it once, accurately, before a buyer's attorney or lender forces a second pass under worse timing.
Frequently asked questions
Does selling "as-is" get me out of the disclosure requirement? No. Texas allows an as-is sale, but it doesn't waive the disclosure obligation under Section 5.008. A seller still has to answer the form honestly.
What if I genuinely don't know the answer to one of the new questions? "Unknown" is a compliant answer under the statute, as long as it reflects your actual knowledge at the time you sign. It's not an invitation to guess in either direction.
If my property is inherited and I've never lived there, do I still have to complete the form? Possibly not. The exemption applies specifically to estate sales where the personal representative has never occupied the property. Confirm the specifics with an attorney before listing, since the answer depends on how the estate is structured.
Preston Hollow's paperwork now asks harder questions than it used to, and the answers depend on details specific to your street, your subdivision, and how your property came into your hands. If you're weighing a sale and want a straight read on how these changes apply to your specific address, The Rosen Group offers a private consultation and home valuation built around exactly this kind of detail.
