What is a T-47 affidavit in Texas?

A T-47 is a notarized affidavit in which a Texas seller states that nothing has changed on the property since the existing survey. With it, the lender and title company can often accept that survey instead of requiring a new one. A T-47.1 declaration does the same job without notarization; both took effect November 1, 2024.

The problem the form solves

A survey shows where the improvements sit relative to the boundary lines, the easements and the setbacks. It is what the title company relies on to insure against boundary and encroachment problems, and it is what the lender relies on to know the collateral is where it is supposed to be.

The existing survey in the seller's file might be five years old, or twenty. The title company has no way to know whether a shed, a fence, a pool, a driveway extension or an addition went in after the surveyor left. A stale survey plus an unknown five years of construction is an uninsurable gap.

The T-47 closes that gap with a sworn statement from the person who would know: the seller.

What the seller is actually swearing to

The T-47 Residential Real Property Affidavit is a form published by the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI T-47). The seller identifies the existing survey, states that they are the owner, and states that there have been no changes to the property since that survey was made — no new construction, no additions, no new improvements, no changes to boundary lines or fence lines, no encroachments added.

It is signed and notarized. The form itself identifies the title insurance company as the party issuing the policy in reliance on the statements in it.

That is the weight of the document, and it is why "just sign the T-47, it's routine" is bad advice. It is a sworn statement made to induce an insurer to issue a policy. A seller who put in a fence or a covered patio since the survey needs to say so, and then the survey probably needs updating. A Texas real estate attorney is the right person to advise a seller who is not sure what counts as a change.

The current TDI form carries the notation "Sec. V Effective November 1, 2024."

The T-47.1 alternative

The T-47.1 Residential Real Property Declaration in Lieu of Affidavit was introduced effective November 1, 2024 (TDI T-47.1).

It makes the same substantive statements. The difference is that it is signed by the seller but not notarized.

That difference is entirely practical. Getting a notary in front of an out-of-state seller, an estate representative, a seller mid-relocation, or two sellers in two different cities used to add days to a transaction for what was otherwise a routine form. The declaration removes the notary bottleneck.

Which one to use is not the buyer's or seller's call alone. The title company and the lender decide what they will accept, and they may still require the notarized T-47 on a given file.

The purchase contract names both forms

This is not a side agreement between the title company and the seller. It is written into the promulgated contract.

Paragraph 6C of the One to Four Family Residential Contract (Resale), TREC form 20-19, is the survey paragraph, and it carries the instruction "Check one box only." The first of its three options has the seller furnish, within a stated number of days, the existing survey together with a "T-47 Affidavit or T-47.1 Declaration" — both named explicitly on the face of the form (TREC form 20-19, ¶6C(1)).

Then comes the consequence that makes the form worth taking seriously, and it falls on the seller:

If Seller fails to furnish both the existing survey and the affidavit or declaration within the time required, "Buyer shall obtain a new survey at Seller's expense no later than 3 days prior to Closing Date."

The operative word is both. A seller who emails the old survey but never gets around to signing the T-47 has not partially complied — they have failed ¶6C(1), and they are paying for a new survey. There is no checkbox and nothing to negotiate at that point; the contract already decided it.

A separate and different branch handles the case where the seller did furnish both but the package is not good enough: "If the Title Company or Buyer's lender does not accept the existing survey, or the affidavit or declaration, Buyer shall obtain a new survey at [ ] Seller's [ ] Buyer's expense no later than 3 days prior to Closing Date." That one is an election the parties make when the contract is written, and it is frequently left blank.

Seller's fault, seller pays. Nobody's fault, whichever box got checked.

What the form buys

Two things.

The buyer may not need to pay for a new survey. If the title company and the lender accept the existing survey together with a T-47 or T-47.1, no new survey is ordered (TDI T-47). That is the cost saving people are usually after.

The survey exception in the title policy can be amended. Every Texas owner's title policy contains a standard exception for matters a survey would disclose. Paragraph 6A(8) of the contract describes it as the exception "as to discrepancies, conflicts, shortages in area or boundary lines, encroachments or protrusions, or overlapping improvements," and gives the parties a choice: it "(i) will not be amended or deleted from the title policy; or (ii) will be amended to read, 'shortages in area' at the expense of [ ] Buyer [ ] Seller" (TREC form 20-19, ¶6A(8)).

Option (ii) is what an acceptable survey plus a T-47 or T-47.1 unlocks. It shrinks the exception down to shortages in area alone, so encroachments, conflicts, protrusions and overlapping improvements are covered by the policy instead of carved out of it.

The second one is the more valuable half, and it is the half buyers usually do not know they are getting. A cheap deal that ends with an unamended survey exception is not actually cheaper — it just moved the risk onto the buyer.

Texas title insurance premium rates are promulgated by the Texas Department of Insurance, so the cost of coverage does not vary by title company. The current schedule is "Texas Title Insurance Premium Rates, Rates Effective March 1, 2026" (TDI). Ask your title company what the amendment costs on your file.

Where it goes wrong

The seller does not have the survey. No survey means nothing for the affidavit to reference. The buyer is buying a new one, or the deal has no survey at all.

The seller forgot the improvement. A pool put in three years ago, a detached garage, a fence moved to the neighbor's apparent line. The affidavit is signed anyway and the change surfaces later. That is the scenario the form's sworn character is designed to deter.

The lender says no regardless. Some lenders require a current survey as a matter of policy, whatever the title company will accept. That is a lender decision and not something the parties can negotiate around.

The parties assumed instead of checking. Who furnishes the existing survey, and who pays for a new one if the existing one is not acceptable, is ¶6C of the TREC contract — a check-one-box-only election with a nested expense checkbox inside the first option (TREC form 20-19, ¶6C). It is a negotiated term. Read it before assuming the seller is handling it.

The T-47 arrived, but too late to object to what the survey showed. Under ¶6D the buyer's right to object in writing to matters disclosed on the survey expires at the earlier of the closing date or a stated number of days after receiving the commitment, exception documents and the survey, and "failure to object within the time allowed will constitute a waiver of Buyer's right to object." A survey delivered at the last minute is a survey with nothing left to do about it.

In the Hill Country specifically

Acreage tracts in Kendall County and the surrounding Hill Country are where survey issues actually bite. Fence lines that have never matched deed lines, easements for a shared drive, wells and septic systems whose locations matter for setbacks, and platted lots that were split informally years ago. An older survey on a rural tract is more likely to be genuinely out of date than one on a subdivision lot, and the cost of finding out after closing is higher.

A licensed Texas surveyor is who determines where the lines actually are. The T-47 is a statement about change since the last survey, not a substitute for one.

Questions about a specific property?

Call or text 830-446-3847 · Email heath.shepard@kw.com

This page explains what the T-47 and T-47.1 forms do. It is not legal advice. A seller unsure whether something counts as a change since the last survey should talk with a Texas real estate attorney, and a licensed Texas surveyor determines the actual boundaries.