§ 16.005.Action for Closing Street or Road

When a city council closes and abandons a street or alley, or a commissioners court does the same for a county road, anyone seeking relief has two years from the day the ordinance or order is passed.

Accrual is fixed by subsection (b) and leaves nothing to argue about: the clock starts when the order or ordinance is passed or adopted, not when someone discovers it or feels its effects. There is no discovery rule built into the section.

That is a demanding rule for a neighbouring landowner, who may have no notice that a council item was passed and no reason to look for one.

Subsection (c) is what gives the section teeth, and it does two separate things. If no suit is brought in time, the person in possession of the real property receives complete title by limitations; and the right of the city or county to revoke or rescind the order or ordinance is barred.

The second half is easy to miss. The bar runs against the government as well as against private claimants — a council that changes its mind three years later cannot undo the closure, because the property has passed.

The first half is not a procedural bar at all. It transfers ownership, which puts this section closer to the adverse possession provisions later in the chapter than to the ordinary limitations periods around it.

The section reaches attempted closures as well as effective ones — the text says "closing and abandoning, or attempting to close and abandon" — so an ordinance that was defective from the outset still starts the two years running.

State highways are excluded from both branches, which keeps the section confined to local decisions about local roads.