When a pipeline company, an electric utility, TxDOT or a city wants your land, Texas law gives you rights that the first offer letter will not explain. Sadovsky & Ellis represents property owners only — never condemnors — across Bexar County, the I-35 and I-10 corridors, and the Eagle Ford Shale.
Eminent domain is the government’s power — and, in Texas, the power of pipeline companies and utilities — to take private property for a public use on payment of adequate compensation. The owner cannot usually stop the taking. What the owner can do, and what the condemnor is counting on the owner not doing, is insist on the full compensation the Texas Constitution and Chapter 21 of the Property Code require.
The first offer is a negotiating position, not an appraisal of what the land is worth to you. It is typically based on the condemnor’s own appraisal, it often ignores the damage to the land you keep, and it arrives with a deadline that is shorter than the law actually allows.
Jon B. Ellis, the firm’s lead eminent domain and condemnation attorney, represents Texas property owners against municipalities, utilities and private condemnors. The consultation is free, and fee arrangements are explained in writing before you decide anything.
Article I, Section 17 of the Texas Constitution requires adequate compensation for property taken, damaged or destroyed for public use. Section 21.042 of the Property Code turns that into two numbers: the market value of the part actually taken, and — in a partial taking, which is nearly every pipeline, transmission line and road-widening case — the damage to the remainder, measured by the difference in the market value of the land you keep before and after the taking, considering the effect of the condemnation and the use the condemnor will make of the property.
That second number is where most of the money usually is, and it is the number the initial offer most often understates or omits. A 50-foot pipeline easement across a 200-acre ranch does not just take 50 feet; it can restrict building, affect financing and insurance, split a pasture, and change what a buyer will pay for every acre.
Since 2011, a condemnor cannot file a condemnation suit until it has made a bona fide offer under Property Code section 21.0113. That requires, in short:
A condemnor that skips these steps can be ordered to pay the owner’s attorney’s fees and costs and made to start over. More practically, the appraisal it must hand you tells you exactly how it built its number, which is where the negotiation begins.
For pipeline and electric transmission easements, section 21.0114 goes further: the easement the condemnor offers must state the maximum number of lines, their diameter and depth, what may be transported, above-ground equipment, the easement’s exact location and maximum width, whether it is exclusive, restoration duties, gates and fences, access rights, and whether it can be assigned. An easement missing these terms is not a lawful offer. Our pipeline easement page walks through each of them.
Initial offer, appraisal, final offer. Everything above. Most cases resolve here, and the quality of the counter-appraisal decides on what terms.
If no agreement is reached, the condemnor files in the county where the land sits. The court appoints three disinterested local landowners as special commissioners under section 21.014; each side may strike one. The commissioners hold an informal hearing on value and file an award.
Either side may object to the award under section 21.018, which converts the matter into an ordinary civil suit tried to a jury on the question of compensation. The condemnor may take possession in the meantime by depositing the award into the court registry.
If the condemnor later cancels the public use or fails to make progress on it within ten years, the owner may have a right to repurchase the property under section 21.101 at the price the condemnor paid.
The Public Utility Commission approved the Howard–Solstice 765 kV line on September 11, 2026, and CPS Energy has five more 138 kV and 345 kV dockets touching Bexar County. Owners on those routes are receiving survey requests and offer letters now.
Howard–Solstice, Omicron, Spruce–Pawnee, Ranchtown–Talley, Legend Falls–San Geronimo and SAT15: status, dockets, the PUC-to-jury timeline and the easement-terms checklist.
765 kVAEP Texas · CPS EnergyThe approved route, what happens next on parcels in Bexar, Medina, Bandera and Atascosa Counties, and why a 765 kV easement is different.
PUCRouting & CCN casesThe route is decided at the Public Utility Commission before any condemnation. The 30-day intervention window is the only chance to move it.
Condemnors appraise on a corridor basis and pay per rod or per acre of easement, treating a working ranch outside Cotulla and a Hill Country tract outside Boerne as if the taking affects only the strip. Neither is true. The Cotulla ranch loses surface use, hunting value and water-well siting; the Boerne tract loses its buildable envelope and the view that was most of its price. A competent counter-appraisal values the whole property before and after, and the difference is frequently a multiple of the offer.
Condemnors also count on isolation. A landowner in Gonzales County dealing with a pipeline’s land agent alone, on a two-week deadline, signs. A landowner who knows that the deadline is not what the law requires, that the appraisal must be produced, and that three local commissioners will hear the case if it comes to that, does not.
A survey permit is one thing; an option that fixes the price is another. Both arrive as “routine.”
You are entitled to both. If the agent will not produce them, the bona fide offer has not been made.
Improvements, fences, water features, roads, crops and livestock operations, before construction begins.
We review offer letters at no charge and tell you plainly whether the number is fair, whether the easement terms comply with section 21.0114, and what a counter-appraisal would likely show.
Bexar, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Wilson, Atascosa and Medina Counties along the I-35 and I-10 corridors, and Karnes, La Salle, Dimmit, Frio, McMullen, Live Oak, Gonzales, Bee and Webb Counties in the Eagle Ford. Condemnation suits are filed in the county where the land lies, and special commissioners are drawn from that county, so local knowledge of land values matters. We are in those counties regularly.
The power of a governmental body — or, in Texas, a common-carrier pipeline, a utility, or another entity the Legislature has authorized — to take private property for a public use on payment of adequate compensation. Chapter 21 of the Texas Property Code governs the procedure.
No. The initial offer starts a process; it does not end one. Section 21.0113 requires a written appraisal, a final offer at least 30 days later that meets or exceeds that appraisal, and at least 14 days for you to respond before any suit can be filed. Most owners who obtain their own appraisal do materially better than the first number.
Rarely, but sometimes. Pipelines must actually qualify as common carriers serving the public, and transmission-line routes are set at the Public Utility Commission where landowners can intervene. In most cases the realistic fight is over the easement terms and the compensation, not whether the line is built.
An informal hearing before three disinterested landowners of the county, appointed by the court, who hear evidence of value and issue an award. Either side may object and take the case to a jury. Owners should treat the hearing seriously; it sets the number the condemnor must deposit to take possession.
Generally each side pays its own fees, though a condemnor that fails to make a bona fide offer or that dismisses its case can be ordered to pay the owner’s fees and costs. We explain our fee arrangement in writing at the free consultation, before you engage us.
That may be an inverse condemnation claim — flooding from a public project, lost access, or a regulation that leaves no viable use. These have their own deadlines and proof requirements, and they are worth an early call.
Howard–Solstice 765 kV and every CPS Energy line docket in Bexar County, with the easement-terms checklist.
Learn moreCommon-carrier status, the section 21.0114 easement terms, and remainder damage on ranch land.
Learn moreTxDOT and transmission-line condemnations across Comal, Guadalupe and Kendall Counties.
Learn moreTransactions, title and easement work for owners and investors.
Learn moreOffer letters carry deadlines. Call for a free review of the offer, the appraisal, and the easement terms.