I have seen deed restriction enforcement in Williamson-Travis Counties MUD No. 1 from two very different places.
I have experienced it as a homeowner trying to provide for my family. I have experienced it as a resident accused of violating deed restrictions and forced to hire an attorney to defend myself. And eventually, I experienced it from behind the dais as an elected member of the Board of Directors.
Those experiences changed the way I look at deed enforcement.
I want to make one thing clear from the beginning: I am not arguing that the MUD has no authority to enforce deed restrictions. Texas law plainly gives a municipal utility district that authority. Texas Water Code §54.237 says a district “may” take enforcement action when, “in the reasonable judgment of the board of directors of the district, enforcement of the restriction is necessary to sustain taxable property values in the district.”
My problem is not with the existence of that authority. My problem is with how that authority is exercised.
After experiencing the system from both sides of the dais, I continue to ask the same fundamental question: Where is the evidence showing that a particular enforcement action is necessary to sustain taxable property values? That question matters because government action forces a family to choose between simply surrendering or spending thousands of dollars to fight.
It Started With a Treehouse
My first real experience with deed enforcement was roughly ten years ago. I built a treehouse for my kids. I wasn’t selling hazardous substances out of my garage. I wasn’t damaging my neighborhood. I built something for my children. Then a letter arrived from the MUD telling me that I had not received permission to build it and that I could face fines. I was confused. I thought I lived in a neighborhood without a mandatory HOA. There were already other treehouses in the community. I didn’t understand why I needed permission, and I didn’t understand what authority the MUD had to fine me over something on my own property. I was younger then. I didn’t understand municipal utility districts, restrictive covenants, or Texas Water Code. So I ignored the first letter. Then another came. If my memory is correct, the first fine was around $100. Another followed, around $150.
But what happened next is what stayed with me. At the time, the District had a system under which payments made toward a water account could be applied toward older debt. In my case, money I intended to pay toward my water service was applied toward the deed-restriction fines.
My water was disconnected.
At that point in my life, I was making somewhere around $10 an hour. We were raising a family and watching every dollar. Now I had to deal with the original fine, a disconnected water service, another deposit and reconnection costs. For a government entity, those numbers might look small on a spreadsheet. For a family living paycheck to paycheck, they aren’t small. They’re groceries. They’re gasoline. They’re electricity. They’re the difference between making it through the month and falling behind.
Ultimately, I tore the treehouse down. Not because somebody persuaded me that it was damaging taxable property values. Not because I suddenly agreed with the enforcement action. I tore it down because I could not afford to keep fighting. Years later, I came to understand serious legal questions existed around the District’s old practice of using water service as leverage for deed restriction fines.
That experience taught me something I have never forgotten: The government’s ability to impose a financial burden can become the enforcement mechanism itself. You don’t necessarily have to convince somebody that you’re right if they cannot afford to challenge you.
Then I Was Sued
Years later, before I was elected to the Board in 2022, deed enforcement entered my life again. This time the allegation was that I was operating an automobile repair business from my home. That allegation was false. The reported vehicles were my personal vehicles. I brought vehicle registration information. It didn't matter. Eventually, I was defending a lawsuit filed by my own MUD.
Think about that for a moment. The government has attorneys. It has taxpayer money. It has an institution behind it. A homeowner has his paycheck. I hired an attorney because I wasn’t willing to simply surrender to an accusation I believed was untrue. The MUD eventually dropped the case.
My attorney didn’t work for free. I was out roughly $5,000. There was no check returning that money to my family. That experience reinforced the lesson the treehouse had taught me years earlier. Sometimes the punishment isn’t the final judgment. Sometimes it's having to defend yourself at all.
When a resident receives a threatening letter from an attorney representing the government, most people aren’t thinking about some abstract legal principle. They’re wondering: How much is this going to cost me? Do I need a lawyer? Can I afford a lawyer? What happens if I lose? And eventually: Would it just be cheaper to give them what they want? To me, that can become a form of strong-arming. And government should be extremely careful when using that kind of power against the people it exists to serve.
Then I Got Behind the Dais
When I was elected to the Board in 2022, I thought something would change. I thought that once I was on the inside, I would finally understand the process. I thought I would see the evidence. I thought somebody would be able to explain exactly how a particular trailer, vehicle, trash can, structure or other alleged violation translated into a threat to taxable property values.
Instead, I found many of the same questions I had as a resident.
The historical records show that deed enforcement once had a much more visible public process. A December 2020 meeting, for example, was expressly held jointly with a regular meeting of the Deed Restriction Committee. Its agenda publicly addressed fine appeals, coordination of fines with the operator, enforcement letters, restrictive-covenant enforcement and pending deed-restriction lawsuits.
Whatever someone thinks about the enforcement policies of that period, there was at least a recognizable public mechanism where deed enforcement appeared on an agenda and could be seen. As a director, I became increasingly concerned about who was making enforcement decisions and where those decisions were being made. That concern appears directly in the District’s own minutes. In March 2023, the Board publicly discussed an enforcement structure involving an enforcement contractor and a two-member committee. During that discussion, concerns were raised about decisions over alleged violations and fines being made through that process. The District’s general counsel explained that, generally, a subcommittee brings its findings to the full Board for a decision and vote.
Those discussions mattered to me. When government is going to tell somebody what they can do with their property, especially when litigation is a possibility, the public should be able to see how the decision was reached. The following month, the Board again publicly discussed Sage Management, missing photographs, its reports and how deed enforcement had been handled in previous years. The Board also discussed the pending request for proposals for deed enforcement management.
At the September 2023 meeting, the full Board publicly discussed a proposed resolution concerning deed restrictions and specifically discussed the District’s ability to enforce the restrictions listed in it.
That is what I believe government should look like: Put the issue on the agenda. Show the information. Ask questions. Let directors disagree. Make the decision publicly. Then vote.
What Changed for Me
By 2024 and into 2025, my experience was very different. I increasingly felt shut out of deed-enforcement decisions even though I was one of five elected directors. That is a remarkable thing to experience from inside government. I had run for office partly because I believed sitting on the dais would finally give me access to the information necessary to understand these decisions. Instead, I was being locked out.
That concern eventually became part of the public record. At the June 23, 2025 meeting, the Board considered hiring a separate attorney specializing in deed restriction enforcement. The minutes state that the Deed Enforcement Committee had already discussed the matter even though the proposed legal-services agreement had not yet been finalized for the full Board. I specifically expressed concern that decisions were being made outside of meetings. The majority voted to move forward with hiring a deed-enforcement attorney and authorized the Deed Enforcement Committee to negotiate contract terms before a future special meeting. I voted no. The contract gives serious powers. They deserve serious transparency.
What I Began Seeing Again
Then came the letters to residents. I saw letters from the District’s deed-enforcement attorney alleging violations that, when I examined the restrictions for the particular section involved, I could not find in that section’s deed restrictions. I saw another communication referring to skateboard ramps supposedly not being allowed by an “HOA” that didn’t exist. Different sections of this District have different restrictive covenants. Something prohibited in one section may not be prohibited in another. Government cannot treat every house as though every deed is identical. And an attorney’s letter carries weight. Most residents receiving one aren’t going to pull county records, study decades-old restrictive covenants, compare sections and research Texas property law. They’re going to see a lawyer’s letter and think: I better comply.
That is exactly why accuracy matters. That is exactly why transparency matters. And that is exactly why I believe an elected board should understand what is being enforced in its name.
I Am Not Arguing for a Free-for-All. There will be people who read this and conclude that I simply oppose deed restrictions. I don’t. Texas law gives municipal utility districts authority to enforce qualifying restrictions. That isn’t the argument. The argument is about the words that come afterward. The Legislature did not simply say that a MUD can enforce anything it wants whenever it wants. The statute says a district “may” act when, “in the reasonable judgment of the board of directors,” enforcement is “necessary to sustain taxable property values in the district.”
Every one of those words matters:
- May: Not must.
- Reasonable judgment of the board: Not merely the preference of a contractor, committee member or attorney.
- Necessary: Not just probably.
- Sustain taxable property values: Not aesthetics. Not personal taste. Not “I don’t like seeing that.” Not “that’s not how I keep my house.”
My question throughout my service has been remarkably consistent: What is our reasonable basis for concluding that enforcing this particular restriction against this particular resident is necessary to sustain taxable property values? I am not saying a Board could never answer that question. I am saying I believe it should have to answer it before unleashing the financial power of government against one of its own residents.
The View From Both Sides
I know what an enforcement letter feels like. I know what a disconnected water service feels like when your family is already struggling. I know what it feels like to tear down something you built for your children because you cannot afford another financial hit. I know what it feels like to be accused of something you didn’t do. I know what it feels like to write a check to an attorney for thousands of dollars just so you can defend yourself. And now I also know what deed enforcement looks like from behind the dais.
That combination has shaped my position more than any political philosophy ever could. Government has power. Sometimes government needs power. But the greater the power, the greater the obligation to exercise it openly, carefully, consistently and fairly. Because there is a human being on the other side of every enforcement letter. There is a family behind every address.
When the government gets it wrong, the government doesn’t necessarily feel the consequences. The resident does. That is why I continue to ask for evidence. That is why I continue to ask for public discussion. That is why I continue to question enforcement that I believe is inconsistent or unsupported. And that is why, after experiencing deed restrictions first as a homeowner and later from inside the government enforcing them, my position is actually very simple:
I do not dispute the MUD’s authority to enforce deed restrictions. I dispute the idea that possessing authority means government should exercise it without first being able to explain—openly, reasonably and with evidence—why doing so is necessary to sustain taxable property values.
Because when government has the power to bring its resources against one homeowner, “because we can” should never be good enough.