Selling a Manvel Home With Flood History: What You Disclose and What to Gather

Three items on the Texas seller's disclosure notice. Item 6 asks what you know about present flood insurance, flooding from a reservoir and water entering the house in a natural flood, and whether the lot lies in a mapped floodplain or floodway. Item 7 asks whether you ever filed a flood claim, and item 8 whether you ever received FEMA or SBA flood assistance.

Senate Bill 339 set out these questions for contracts entered into on or after September 1, 2019, and each item ends with room to explain a yes. Water damage that did not come from a flood, such as a plumbing leak, is asked about separately in item 4.

Yes. Item 7 of the seller's disclosure notice asks whether you have ever filed a claim for flood damage to the property with any insurer, the National Flood Insurance Program included, so an old claim is still a yes. Explain it on the line the notice provides: the date, the damage, what was paid and what was repaired.

Item 8 asks the same about FEMA or Small Business Administration flood assistance. If that aid came with a condition that the property carry flood insurance, federal law also has you tell the buyer in writing, in the transfer documents and by closing, that flood insurance must be bought and kept.

Say so on the notice. Texas Property Code Section 5.008(d) has a seller fill in the disclosure to the best of their belief and knowledge on the date of signing, and a seller who marks information as unknown complies with the section by doing that. Then write down what you do know, including anything a previous owner told you in writing.

If you received a seller's disclosure notice when you bought the house, keep it with your own records, since it states what the owner before you knew on the day they signed. Answer every flood question from your own knowledge on the day you sign yours.

A National Flood Insurance Program policy can be assigned. The standard dwelling policy lets the insured assign it in writing when transferring title, except a policy covering only personal property or a building under construction. Have the declarations page ready so the buyer's insurance agent can weigh taking it over against writing a new policy.

Homeowners' insurance does not cover flooding, so a buyer prices flood cover separately during the option period. The city and county rules a buyer checks on one lot are in Manvel flood zones and drainage.

Start with your closing papers, then ask the city. For a new home in a floodplain inside the City of Manvel, the city's permit packet has an engineer, architect or land surveyor submit elevation certifications to its floodplain administrator with the permit application, before the foundation inspection and at completion. Ask the city's Development Services office what it holds for your address.

Outside the city limits, in Pomona or elsewhere in the extraterritorial jurisdiction, ask Brazoria County's floodplain office instead. If no certificate exists, an engineer, architect or land surveyor can prepare one. FEMA describes the certificate as the record that a building in a mapped flood hazard area is properly elevated, and a buyer uses its lowest-floor height to price flood insurance.

Request a home valuation with the address and tell Yolanda Ames what the house has been through: when it flooded, any claims, and the repairs with their permits. She prices it from closed sales of similar houses in its own section and reads the flood records beside them, so the price reflects the house a buyer will see on paper.

Have the elevation certificate, the flood insurance declarations page and the claim records ready when you ask. As of October 2026, Manvel sales closed at 98.1 percent of the list price.