My Front Yards Being Taken By Eminent Domain
So for anyone who doesn't know what eminent domain is, it's when the government seizes private land for a project that benefits the public good. An example of this is they want to make a new highway or roadway and it will benefit the entire community and the residents so they will take private land in the path of the new roadway in order to make the roadway.
While this does suck for the person it's happening too, I realize it's a necessity in some cases. If everyone was able to hold out and refuse to sell roadways woudln't be built, power lines couldn't be run, etc. I think the bigger issue is fairly compensating people for their land and not just stealing it and saying here's what we'll give you. Which by the way is typically an amount which is unfair to the land owner.
More troubling however is in recent years this eminent domain has been used to steal people's land not for public or government use but for private use. You have a house near the beach you've lived there for 50 years. The area has been developed and now a new hotel wants your land. They work with the government to seize your land for private use, and the government uses the excuse it will be good for tax payers in that a hotel will pay more taxes than you would pay in just property taxes, that's not what it was designed for.
All that said I think the biggest issue is how unfairly the land is valued and how landowners are cheated. A couple years back in my area they wanted to build a new school. In order to do so they wanted to take a farmers land. They started the proceedings and told him they would give him $3,000 per acre, his land by the way was worth much more than that.
Now had this farmer not had money to fight it, they would have taken his land and given him peanuts and that would have been the end of it. Fortunately he had money to fight and through some sort of appeal the courts said yes the government can take his land, but fair market value is $33,000 per acre. The school obviously backed off and found a new property as they wanted his property if they could steal it for way under market value, however once they had to pay a fair amount they no longer wanted it.
This Is My Story
So a few weeks back I get a letter in the mail from the city/county/Comed saying that these huge trees in my front yard have the Asian Bettle and need to be removed. They will do it free of charge. Having trees removed can be very expensive so while I hated to see them go, it seemed like a good deal to me and I signed the papers and agreed. I had just moved in recently and it was winter time so I didn't really know if the trees were healthy or not or dead.
Fast forward a couple weeks I'm working in my front yard one day and a neighbor across the street who I hadn't met comes over and asks me "do you think it's fair what they're doing".
Me, assuming she's talking about the trees goes on rambling for a few minutes about how I hate to see my trees go, but if they have the beetle I guess it's good they are removing them for free. After a few minutes of her looking at me like I was crazy, I realize we're not talking about the same thing.
She explains to me she got a packet in the mail with an offer to buy her land in her front yard to make a roadway improvement. The offer for taking a fairly large slice out of her front yard was a measley $300. She showed me all the papers with the project and showed me that my new house I had just bought a few months earlier was also going to be affected.
It now occurs to me my trees may not have the asian beetle, these trees are in the pathway of the new road so I think they are just trying to get a headstart on clearing my land for the road project. I should mention fast forward a few months to now and these trees are in full bloom and look pretty healthy to me.
That day, a Sunday, I called the lawyer in charge of negotiating on the city's behalf and left him a pretty nasty message saying he's in for a fight if he thinks he's going to take my land period, let alone give me peanuts for it.
I wind up getting a call back from him, he says he's sending out a packet with my offer. A week or two later I get a packet in the mail. They are offering me $3700. I spoke to the lawyer and a guy at the county and asked if they would be compensating me for the fence they would have to knock down as well as the trees they were going to take out. I was told of course, we wouldn't give you a payout for your land and then tell you to use that money to fix our mess.
However after getting the contract $3700 is the all in amount. That includes damage to my fence, my trees, and my lawn, I will get nothing else. So in reality, after cleaning up the mess they make my $3700 I'm paid for a few hundred feet of my property there may be about $1,000 left over.
Here's the other part that rubs me the wrong way. In addition to permanently taking my land and making a road. In the interum during construction they want to take more of my land to use as a temporary easement and sidewalk for 5 years. For renting a large part of my front yard for 5 years they want to give me $500 which boils down to $100 per year. Just to give some context, I rent a small mailbox for my business very similar to the one below. I pay $200 per year for that box which is smaller than a loaf of bread and which doesn't disrupt anyone's life, however the city wants to pay me $100 per year for a couple hundred square feet and for tearing up my yard and having equipment all over my yard where I normally walk my dogs and play in the yard with my dogs.
I'm definitely getting screwed. They valued the land as vacant land in order to pay less. They valued my home $50,000 under market value. They state the project and taking my yard will only affect my home value to the tune of $2,000, a figure I disagree with. And they also are giving me nothing for proximity damages. Proximity damages being how your home value is affected by having the road closer to your house. Essentially I'm getting screwed pretty hard.
So technically speaking the process hasn't moved to "eminent domain" yet. Technically speaking they are negotiating with me, however negotiation essentially means here's a low offer, you can take it or you can fight it in court which will cost you attourney fees, hiring an appraiser and also paying said appraiser to testify and in the end the government will get their way anyhow.
While I'm not happy about this happening, I would at the very least like to be fairly compensated for this land grab and that's what really rubs me wrong about eminent domain as a whole. Land owners are not fairly compensated. Millions and millions of Dollars are given to these projects, I'm sure someone at the city or county kicks a no bid road contract to their brother in law and everyone eats well off the public money, and after all that they want to cheap out on a few thousand Dollars to justly compensate land owners like myself and others.
The situation gets a little shitter. So the other day I meet with the attourney and after a heated discussion I'm finally able to squeeze an extra $500 out of him and he tells me he'll send over new paperwork. I live in the not so great state of Illinois, you know the state that can't pay bills, the state that is losing Powerball and Mega Millions and the lotteries as we can't make the payments. The state where road construction is currently being halted because there's no money. So now I"m concerned if I'll even wind up being paid the measly couple thousand Dollars I was offered or if the check will bounce or the government will file bankrupcy and not have to pay me.
My point is this, eminent domain is shitty, but at least pay land owners a fair price. On projects that run into the millions the area to skimp is not in the area of fairly compensating someone for stealing their land, that's peanuts.
I'm sorry this is happening to you. Unfortunately what people find out is that most people never actually own there home. The bank does and a lot of people are paying a mortgage. Then when it comes to the land we NEVER actually own the land. The government does.
I'm glad you are putting up a fight. You could be a holdout like they do in China.
Haha, yeah in doing some research on this topic I stumbled upon this pic. There's another one I think in England where there's one lone house in between two highways.
Yeah right off the bat I told the guy I'm going to make this as difficult as possible for you and the city. Wrote up and passed out a letter to all the neighbors basically encouraging others to be difficult and hold out as well.
I know they are trying to be cheap but at the end of the day it will cost more to take me to court than to just pay me so I want to make sure I'm treated as fairly as possible but I know in the end the city will win. :(
In Great Britain the Queen has even more ownership of the land. The landowner just registers that they live on the plot of land but the government always owns the land. What that means is, if you strike oil on your land, it is not yours -- it belongs to the Queen.
In contract law, a contract consists of three parts. First, an offer. Second, acceptance. And third, consideration (aka payment).
Try formally DECLINING the offer in writing. Also, offer a COUNTER OFFER. The counter offer should be higher than the true value of the property, mirroring their low-ball offer. Alternatively, make the offer for your entire property (no portions).
Now, it is no longer a case where you are unwilling to sell, and that they must invoke some draconic law to force your acceptance. Now, it will be because of their unwillingness to pay.
Also, if there are any buildings that can be registered as historical buildings/property, no one can alter it.
Yeah, decline and counter. May be worth a shot. Maybe even a class action?
I guess until something like that happens directly to you, it never gets the attention it deserves. What is disturbing for me is that private corporations do it too like you had written. I went up to Standing Rock last fall for a bit and saw private corporations not only using eminent domain, but then witnessed the deployment of oil police/soldiers (couldn't tell which if you know what I mean) to suppress the opposition.
I hope this post makes up some of the difference for you :)
Hey buddy thanks for the comment. Honestly I'm a big proponent of freedom and government staying out of our lives so I personally had strong feelings about eminent domain prior to this happening to me but yeah definately hits close to home now.
Fortunately it's not like they are taking my entire home or taking my childhood home or anything like that, it's just a piece of my yard, I still have the rest of my property but some people aren't that fortunate.
I think someone did a movie a while back called little pink house I believe it was called about this very issue. I've been meaning to check it out.
I just took another look at your front yard. It is small! By the time they take their portion of land and build a city easement for a sidewalk, those people walking on the sidewalk will be able to look inside your windows!
The front yard isn't big by any means but I think the wide angle lens I used makes it look smaller than it is. That said you're right I like my privacy and I'm on an area where people walk to the train and walk downtown so it definately will affect me. I'm not looking forward to it.
Bull crap, dude! I'm sorry to hear about this. I hate it when government steps all over the little guy. I hope you can get this situation squared away in a manner that is better for you. This kind of thing really makes me unhappy.
I guess the reason for this project is they want to put a big concrete divider in the road forcing people to make a right turn off my street. They will no longer be able to go left or straight.
Now fortunately for me I have a horseshoe shaped driveway so I have exits onto two different streets but none the less I'm not a fan.
I'll admit traffic is a bit crazy by me and it is kind of a dangerous intersection however they could very easily have put up a street light and not had to take people's yards and honestly I think that would have been a better solution. On some other blocks they are outright turning a street that you can currently exit from into a cul-de-sac. I'm not sure which I would prefer
Being a staunch 2nd amendment supporter and owner. They'd be buying my entire property for double or my Zombie apocalypse arsenal would be defending my front yard. Your better than me Rules.
So a man is on a long flight, sitting next to an attractive woman he doesn't know. The inflight movie is Indecent Proposal.
After the movie, he turns to the woman and says, "Makes you think, doesn't it?"
"Given the choice, do you think you'd sleep with a stranger for a million dolllars?"
She thought it over and said, "That's a lot of money, and I could use it to do great things, you know what? Yes, yes I would"
The man nodded, "Would you sleep with me, for $50?"
She shot him an angry look and said, 'What kind of woman do you take me for?".
He said, 'Oh, we've established that, now we're just haggling over the price."
When you say that the state is justified in taking people's land against their will, on terms chosen by the state, you lose any right to say you're being treated unfairly.
They either should have the right or they shouldn't. Pick one.
I agree and disagree. At some point if we're going to say land ownership is a definitie and the government has no right to step in you wouldn't be driving to work because a highway woudln't have been built, you woudln't have power to your home because power lines couldn't be placed, etc.
Believe me, I hate government intrusion in our lives, I value freedom and rights but at the end of the day if property owenrs can hold out and say I want a billion Dollars nothing will ever get done.
That said I do think people should be paid fairly and I do think eminent domain should only be used in situations which are 100% a necessity. How that's decided I'm not sure maybe a public panel of citizens, a survey among neighbors I'm not sure but I think your absolute that property can never be taken isn't really realistic.
Just wanted to add a bit of follow-up and figured I'd do it here instead of editing. So I called a few property rights attourneys and they confirmed for me I was getting stiffed on the amount, but essentially said that the cost to hire them, plus get an appraisal, plus pay the appraiser to testify in court would wind up costing a lot of money.
I was told I probably should be paid somewhere between $7500 and $10,000, however good luck getting that without going to court, and if I did go to court that extra money would essentially all go to lawyer fees, court fees, and appraiser fees.
I did find a very nice attourney who spent a lot of time talking with me and gave me some tips in terms of how to negotiate for more money, gave me a bit of lingo to throw at the city such as proximity damages, in an effort to squeeze out a bit more money.
In the end I was able to get an extra $500 and essentially told be happy, most people are getting screwed over worse than you.
Sign the papers with a big F YOU on them. It's something, right?