ETJ-Removal Petitions

Reason to get out of the ETJ:

• Your land is worth less because you’re stuck in the ETJ.

  • Some clients who left their ETJ saw an immediate jump in their land’s value. Often, that’s because potential buyers will pay more if they know they can develop your land to its highest and best use—and won’t have to deal with ridiculous city regulation. While each property is unique, some clients saw their land value more than double because of ETJ removal.

• Your land is subject to an abusive and overbearing city authority.

  • Perhaps the city is using its platting or utility authority to coerce property owners into “voluntarily” annexing their land into city limits.

• You’re tired of not having a say in how you and your property are being treated.

• If you live in the ETJ, you cannot vote in city elections and thus have no say in who regulates your property. You should decide how to use your property; don’t let someone else control your future.

• You believe city government should get out of your business.

Reasons to stay in the ETJ

• You like city regulations and hope everyone will stay in the ETJ.

• Getting out wouldn’t make much difference because your land is already subject to intense restrictive covenants.

• Your land is located in an area where county regulation would be even worse than the regulation from the city. So getting out of the ETJ would be “jumping from the frying pan into the fire.”

To learn more, you can visit our blog posts on this topic:

The Empire Strikes Back: Cities Sue to Reclaim Undemocratic Power Over ETJs

My ETJ: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Texas Legislature Gives Landowners a “Get Out of Jail Free” Card From Cities’ ETJ

Do I Live In My City’s Extraterritorial Jurisdiction?

This site provides a quick and easy way to file a petition seeking to get your land out of the ETJ.

Fill out our form to begin creating your ETJ-removal petition

Begin by clicking on the “Get me out!” button on the left side of this webpage. Locate the information you will need to complete the questionnaire (title work, names of all property owners, property ID, and so on), and accurately fill out the form.

Completing the form will add the service item to your “cart.”

Complete a new form for each additional tract

If you’re looking to release multiple tracts from the ETJ, click on the button (“Get these out, too!”) on the right side of this webpage after you have successfully submitted the main questionnaire. This new form will provide us with the information needed to submit a removal petition for each additional tract.

You can add as many additional tracts as you want to your cart, but please indicate the correct property type (contiguous or noncontiguous) and complete a form for EACH tract. Don’t try to add more than one tract at a time to your cart. Rather, add additional tracts one by one.

Checking out

After you have added the correct items to your cart (one ETJ-removal petition and the correct number and type additional tracts), you can click on the cart icon to complete the rest of the checkout process.

Our team will then review the information you provided. And once we decide to take on your matter, we email a digital engagement agreement to the primary person on your petition.

For a detailed explanation of next steps, please read the next FAQ drop-down page.

Working through the whole process on this website means that you’ve:

• decided that getting your property out of the ETJ is right for you;

• submitted the main questionnaire (which adds one ETJ-removal petition to your shopping cart);

• submitted a form for each additional tract (thereby adding them to your cart); and

• completed the checkout process and provided us with your preferred payment information, authorizing Cobb & Johns PLLC to charge your form of payment either before or after it has sent an engagement letter to you.

After completing the steps above, you can expect the following:

• We’ll review your information and decide whether it makes sense to prepare an ETJ-removal petition for you.

• If we agree to take on your matter, we’ll send an engagement agreement to the person designated as the primary applicant for the ETJ-removal petition. Cobb & Johns PLLC will not be your lawyers until after the firm has signed and returned a fully executed engagement agreement to you. If Johns & Counsel PLLC declines to represent you but has already charged your form of payment, Cobb & Johns PLLC will refund or reverse the payment within 10 business days of declining the representation.

• If the firm decides to represent you and has sent you a fully executed engagement agreement, our team will create an ETJ-removal petition using the information you provided. We may ask you for additional information before creating your custom petition. We will work with you to obtain all necessary signatures on the official petition and will then submit the petition to the appropriate city official.

• We will update you on the status of your petition after receiving a response from the city. We will hope—but cannot guarantee—that the city will remove your land from its ETJ maps and will not lodge objections to your petition. If the city refuses to honor your petition, we can discuss potential legal action against the city, which would be covered under a separate engagement agreement that would require payment of separate, additional compensation. You can cross that bridge if and when you come to it; you’re not committing yourself to hiring us for any litigation matters right now.

Please contact us if there’s something else we can do to help you protect your property.