This section says how a conservation easement may be created, changed, and how long it lasts, and it imposes a tax adjustment if the easement ends.
Sec. 183.002. CREATION, CONVEYANCES, ACCEPTANCES, AND DURATION. (a) Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, a conservation easement may be created, conveyed, recorded, assigned, released, modified, terminated, or otherwise altered or affected in the same manner as other easements. (b) A right or duty in favor of or against a holder and a right in favor of a person having a third-party right of enforcement does not arise under a conservation easement before its acceptance by the holder and the recordation of the acceptance. (c) Except as provided by Section 183.003(b) of this code, a conservation easement is unlimited in duration unless the instrument creating it makes some other provision. (d) An interest that exists in real property at the time a conservation easement is created is not impaired unless the owner of the interest is a party to the conservation easement or consents to it. (e) A conservation easement must be created in writing, acknowledged and recorded in the deed records of the county in which the servient estate is located, and must include a legal description of the real property which constitutes the servient estate. (f) If land that has been subject to a conservation easement is no longer subject to such easement, an additional tax is imposed on the land equal to the difference, if any, between the taxes imposed on the land for each of the five years preceding the year in which the easement terminates and the taxes that would have been imposed had the land not been subject to a conservation easement in each of those years, plus interest at an annual rate of seven percent calculated from the dates on which the differences would have become due. Added by Acts 1983, 68th Leg., p. 2438, ch. 434, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1983.