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Tex. Transp. Code § 251.057

ABANDONMENT OF COUNTY ROAD

Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case Rutledge v. Staner (2000)

Most recently applied in Chappell Hill Bank v. Smith (May 2008)

Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 165, Sec. 1, eff

How often courts cite this section

2000200810
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(a) A county road is abandoned when its use has become so infrequent that one or more adjoining property owners have enclosed the road with a fence continuously for at least 20 years. The abandoned road may be reestablished as a public road only in the manner provided for establishing a new road.

(b) This section does not apply to:

(1) a road to a cemetery, unless a property owner whose property adjoins the road enclosed with a fence under Subsection (a) files notice with the county clerk of the county in which the road is located that the owner agrees to provide reasonable access to the cemetery in accordance with Section 711.041, Health and Safety Code; or

(2) an access road that is reasonably necessary to reach adjoining real property.

Official source: Texas Constitution and Statutes. Reproduced from public-domain Texas statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.