Closing Attorney & Title Services in Maury County, TN

Maybe you have your eye on a house with a few acres off a county road, or maybe you are the one selling ground your family has held for decades. If the contract on the table is the standard Tennessee REALTORS form, it was written for every county at once. It will not tell you what Maury County now lets you build on that land, whether you can divide it, or what this year's tax bill will say. The county changed several of those answers in the past twelve months. Learn them before you sign, while the contract can still be written around them. Buying your first home? The road from offer to keys →

Before anything else, make sure the land is in Maury County at all. ZIP codes ignore the county line out here. The Census Bureau's file matching ZIPs to counties shows Hampshire's 38461 running into Lewis County, Williamsport's 38487 into Hickman, Culleoka's 38451 into Marshall, and the Mount Pleasant ZIP into Lewis, Giles and Lawrence. Chapel Hill gets talked about as if it were Maury, but it is a Marshall County town whose deeds go to the Register in Lewisburg. Pull the parcel up on the state's Tennessee Property Data site before you make the offer. A Maury deed is recorded at the Register's office on the Public Square in Columbia, which does not publish how long recording takes; if someone promises you a date, ask where it came from. ^{‡‡‡‡‡}

Outside the cities, the land now answers to a zoning ordinance that took effect January 1, 2026. The smallest lot allowed is 15 acres in the Agricultural Preservation district, five acres with 200 feet of frontage on a public road in Residential Rural, and one acre in Residential General. Residential General is where the second-house question lives: under five acres you get one house, at five acres or more you can have two. Want to carve off a piece smaller than five acres? A surveyor draws a minor plat, the planning commission approves it, and it is recorded at the Register - only then will the county issue a permit for a house or a mobile home on that piece. If you are buying to divide, or to put a second house on the land, find the parcel on the county's zoning map and make the contract depend on the district allowing what you have in mind. ^‡‡‡‡ What title insurance covers, and what it does not →

Then ask about the moratorium. In December 2025 the county commission voted 16-4 for a ten-month moratorium on development in its zoning area while it writes a comprehensive land use plan, and local reporting put the end date at October 1, 2026. That date has arrived; the plan has not. Its advisory committee meets again on October 27, a public event is set for November 12, and in the first round of comments residents asked the planners to protect the Duck River floodplain and farms held for generations. Whether the moratorium lapsed, was extended or gave way to something else is a question for the Building and Zoning Office on the square, and the answer belongs in writing before you sign for land you mean to develop. A house that is already standing is a different purchase; the exposure is in the lot nobody has built on yet. ^{‡‡‡‡‡}

If you plan to build, the first permit you need does not come from the county. Maury County's own building permit checklist starts with a septic permit from the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, at 1421 Hampshire Pike in Columbia. After that comes written proof of water - a tap or a source - from Maury County Water System or Columbia Power & Water Systems, and, on a county road, the county highway department's approval of the driveway. The new ordinance adds two rules worth knowing: the septic field has to sit on the same lot as the house, never on a neighbor's land or in an easement, and where there is no sewer the lot must be as large as TDEC requires whenever that is more than the zoning minimum. A new home also owes the county a development tax charged by the square foot, paid on a check separate from the permit fee. So call TDEC early, and make the septic permit and the water tap conditions of the contract - if the land cannot get a septic permit, you should be able to walk away. ^‡‡‡

Maury County reappraises every four years, and 2026 is one of them: the countywide total of assessed value rose 43.17 percent. After a reappraisal the state certifies a revenue-neutral rate, but the rate the county commission adopts is the one printed on your bill, so check the 2026 bill itself, not last year's. The Trustee mails bills in October; they can be paid from the first Monday in October through the last day of February, and penalty and interest start on March 1. Farmland brings a second calendar. Greenbelt can lower the bill on tracts of 15 acres or more, applications are due by March 1, and when land comes out of the program the county can collect rollback taxes for the past three years. Write into the contract who pays a rollback, and prorate this year's taxes on the 2026 figures. ^{‡‡‡‡‡} Who pays which closing costs in Tennessee →

The Duck River runs through the county, and in May 2026 the state made it a Class II scenic river. What that means for a privately owned lot on the bank is a question to put to the state before you sign, especially if you plan to clear, build or cut a road near the water. Flooding is the county's side of it: the Building and Zoning Office issues floodplain development permits, and a house in a mapped flood hazard area may need a certified first-floor elevation before it gets a building permit. Put the address into FEMA's Flood Map Service Center and get the insurance quote before the offer, while that number can still move the price. ^{‡‡‡‡‡}