Sure am glad I don't own property in the US (1 Viewer)

[Michael Reuben]

The footnotes give California as an example of a state that has imposed greater limitations on eminent domain than Connecticut.

M.

 

[Carl Miller]

Who is greedy? If it were me, would my desire not to be uprooted from my home make me greedy? I worked 20 years before I could afford to buy my home...Why on earth would I want to sell it so some company could build a store on the property?

I should give up my home for the greater good? For all mankind? For what? So some large corporation can open up a video store and employ three local high school kids at minimum wage, and pay one college student $25k to manage the store?

Where I live, home prices have soared so high that the listed fair market value of homes doesn't come close to what homes are actually selling for.

If my local township took my home from me, and paid me fair market value for it, I wouldn't even be able to buy another house anywhere in my county.

 

[JonZ]

"Where I live, home prices have soared so high that the listed fair market value of homes doesn't come close to what homes are actually selling for"

The average person in my area makes under 35K. Yet the average house is over 300K.There are more homes here for over 500k than there are under it. This used ot be a affordable area for peopel to commute towards the city. THats been changing slowly over the past 15 years and after 911, forget it. Its people who commute to the city and surounding areas who are buying up these homes, forcing the peopel who make less to move further into the sticks to survive and be able to find affordable rent (which is still about 1200 amonth here on average)

Another trend around here lately is for peopel to buy up property and not even live in it. Peopel with money are buying homes,and sitting on them then selling them after a bit time has passed.

Also, speaking of corporations, I see this getting much worse. Whats happening is corporations are going outside the company for employees. For example, IMHO in 20 years IBM will only have thei employees in management positions and will use vendors for all other positions. This will save them billions in benefits, retirement,etc.

A certain company who provides employees where I work has given their employees 2 pay cuts and a 80% loss of benefits in the past 3 years (yet the just got a huge contract where the number of employees they provide will more than triple)Peopel are unhappy, but need their jobs.

People used to look to corps for good pay, benefits,stability and that just not the case anymore.

Dave no offense,Im sorry I jumped down your throat as well.

 

[Carl Miller]

Sounds like Long Island, where I live.

Jon, it is ridiculous here. In our county, you can access tax information, FMV info, and other data on any house in the county. They put all this info online a couple of years ago when the county was sued and forced to do a tax reassessment of every home in the county.

Anyway, the county lists FMV for my house at nearly 100k less than what the exact same house a few doors down sold for last month. That house sold in 6 days, and the owner got his full asking price.

The reality is that my house is probably only worth the FMV, but the FMV means nothing in the housing market in our area these days.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Well, it isn't like there isn't a potential upside to this whole thing:

New York City Invokes Eminent Domain to Acquire New Jersey



Regards,

Joe

 

[Brian Harnish]

I almost thought that was real until I read the web site about section. I was almost falling over my chair when I read what they said Schwarzenneger said!!!

 

[andrew markworthy]

FWIW, we have a similar situation in the UK. A recent survey showed that nurses, teachers, etc (i.e. the detritus of society) cannot afford to buy a property in 90% of UK cities. :frowning:

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Which is the American way. This "for the public good" angle sounds like socialism.

This law has the potential to cause a major downswing in property values, as it really threatens the speculative real estate market. Why should an investor buy land with its future utilisation and profit in mind, when they stand little chance of making a profit due to a local council simply pulling the rug out? If this is allowed to continue, I could could see hundreds of billions of dollars moving out of the country to places where investors can buy real estate knowing they won't have it seized because some local official got a kickback.

There should be extremely limited circumstances where land can be taken.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Assuming the flow of capital were to be directed by such concerns, it would be far more likely that those dollars would flow toward states that impose greater restrictions on the use of eminent domain.

Some of those dollars might even flow toward lobbying state legislatures to impose such limitations.

Which is the American way.

M.

 

[RobertR]

Sounds like it all depends on which group is best at doing political lobbying. I consider it very unfortunate that this all too often is the American way.

 

[Carl Miller]

Solipsistic? Geesh, I had to consult my dictionary on this word. Don't do that to me again!

But yes, I did understand your point initially. Of course it could happen that someone might force a company to look elsewhere and deprive others from the possible benefits that would have arisen had they sold instead.

While this law may prevent such an event, it would also open the door to harming one person, to help another...Take the home away from one family, in order to give another family a job and also help a business make money.

If you allow the home owner and business decide the matter between them, the worst case scenario is that the business looks elsewhere...Nobody is worse off than they were the day before the business first disclosed its interest to buy.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

CNN followup .

I hope that the media keeps this story in the public view to discourage the kind of business tactics that would displace people against their will in order to install more shopping centers and big box stores. Although their may be more tax money to be gained by a WalMart, the employment is questionable, as it is staffed almost entirely minimum wage workers selling foreign made products, and WalMart has already closed two Canadian stores who tried to unionize.

The heart of capitalism is the ability to sell at what the market will bear. This ruling completely circumvents this principle.

 

[DaveF]

Well, a flawless nation like the UK, especially with your too-cool accents, might well look down upon us, I suppose, but I still think the US is a remarkable place on the whole. (But credit is due to the English for leading the way in abolition of slavery.)

Your description of the situation is snarkily correct. And I empathize with the greater community. If I lived in a chronically depressed community, I would be peeved if a path to economic revitalization was blocked by a single person so she could die in the house her gran-daddy died in.

And I think most reaction here has been hyperbolic -- we're not going to be tossed out of our homes willy nilly to make way for Wal-Marts and Pfizer plants.

That said, this is a troubling ruling. Philosophically, it's a stake to the heart of private ownership of land. It opens the doors for anyone to lose their private property at the whims of a business or a local government.

I don't know how it is in the rest of the world, but here we still have our "American Dream": a man (or woman) owning his own house, a piece of land to grow grass on, and freedom to live and die there if he chooses.

And private ownership is viewed as socially and economically important. Conventional wisdom is that homeowners take better care of their property, and their neighborhood, than renters. They are also more vested in their jobs and communities than non owners.

To join the hyperbole, this ruling undermines the entire American system and could destroy the nation.

 

[Jed M]

Now that is really saying something.

 

[Holadem]

--
H

 

[JonZ]

"A recent survey showed that nurses, teachers, etc (i.e. the detritus of society) cannot afford to buy a property in 90% of UK cities"

Same here. I know a nurse who had to move back home, she couldnt afford to live on her own here with her salary.Its crazy.

Houses and apts here will often disappear in a day!

I was lucky, the house I bought was sold but fell through. It went for sale on a friday morning, I left work at 10 to see it and made a offer at 12 noon.They had to sell it since the husband was relocating to another state for work.

I bought my house with my G/Fs help, who has excellent credit and the $$ to put a large sum down. Its a investment for her.She'll get 4% in a bank, she'll get 40% with me on the house, per our agreement.

Otherwise Id still be in a apt paying $1200-1400 a month +utilities(which I cannot afford to do)

(Previously Id been in the same place for 14 years.A duplex. I took care of it and the owner didnt raise my rent. He decided to sell the place and the new owner walks up one day saying rent is going from $850 to 1300!I said there was some things that needed to be fixed around the place and he said "Dont worry about it" I knew it was time to go. A friend who still lives there says theyre charging the new tenants 1300(section 8) and have done nothing to fix up the place.Same old carpet, same problems with appliances, etc)

 

[Greg Morse]

I know what you're saying is hyperbole, but as much as I wish the ruling went the opposite way, I think a lot of people are missing the point as this ruling changes absolutely nothing. It didn't suddenly make illegal land transfers legal. I'll put on my rose colored glasses right now and see the bright side. The spotlight has now been put on something that I think completely contravenes a basis of this country (and pissed a lot of people off) and legislators are already introducing bills to tighten the laws. This is a time for people to petition their state legislators to introduce laws to stop this and hold accountable those who would vote against said laws. This really isn't a SCOTUS issue, but a local issue.

But on the federal front
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2...tml#1119903026

ps. Too bad the Declaration of Independence doesn't maintain Lockes "Life, Liberty and Estate".

 

[Seth Paxton]

In fact maybe the real irony will be when rich Indian casinos use bribes to get gov't to allow them to seize the land of whites until eventually we give the whole damn place back.

 

[Yee-Ming]

It's interesting to see that even a place that respects individual liberties as much as the United States has laws that allow, in effect, the seizure of private property. We've had laws allowing "compulsory acquisition", for a "public purpose", for a long time, although fortunately I don't think they've ever been applied directly for the benefit of a big corporation. Generally, they've been exercised for public infrastructure projects (e.g. space for a station or "ell" line), road and highways. Alternatively, run-down abandoned properties have as i understand it been compulsorily acquired as well.

The big "problem" was that the legislation pegged the compensation as the price as at some date back in 1973 (I assume it's roughly when the bill was first passed), or market value, whichever is LOWER. So when property prices went through the roof in the early 1990s, people notionally lost a lot of money if their property was acquired. Fortunately, the law's since been refined so that the price is pegged to around 1996 (or market value, whichever is lower), so it isn't quite as far off as it used to be.

The new angle, though, is to do with what are called "strata-title" developments. These are subdivided condominiums (apartments), where each owner owns his/her own unit, plus a "share" of the common property of the development (e.g accessways, carparks, swimming pool/other facilities on the estate). When property prices shot up in the 90s, it became fashionable for owners of older developments to get together and jointly sell ALL their units to a property developer, at a premium price obviously, allowing the developer to tear down the old development and build a new one (usually squeezing more/smaller units into the same space), and turn a profit that way.

There were then stories about how one person might hold out and refuse to sell, often claiming "sentimental reasons" for not wanting to move out. In response, laws were passed that in essence allowed a forced sale if a certain percentage of other owners (90%; 80% if the development was quite old) had already agreed to sell to the developer.

So for us, it would be big bad rich property development corporations that go around exercising "eminent domain" over some poor little old lady's home.


Curious, this. When I started law school, we were told that our (Singaporean) Constitution does not include the "right to property", since this would mean compulsory acquisition would be unconstitutional.

 

[Brian Perry]

I think a big issue will be how the price paid to the homeowner is determined. Here in Chicago, there has been an ongoing battle to expand O'Hare airport, and the City of Chicago is trying to annex large parcels of adjoining suburban land to accommodate more runways. The problem is that some of the affected residential areas have already seen drops in property values (or lesser increases compared to the booms experienced in nearby areas). Would the price paid to homeowners be the new "depressed" price or the market price that existed before plans for airport expansion were announced? Determing fair value in this case will be even more difficult because the fight has dragged on so long and the project is still years away.