Court: Cities May Seize Homes For Economic Development

[Kevin]

While the SC decision allows this to happen, can't it still be forbidden by state law?

For me, this decision will probably be very nice since my dad's firm does so much work in condemnation. In Oklahoma, we have some laws on the books that go a long way towards protecting the land owner when the city, state or county takes their land through eminent domain. If an attorney is able to secure them 10% more than the "FMV" offered by the condemning entity, the condemning entity has to pay attorney's fees. What y'all have been saying about the FMV that is offered is generally correct though. I've never seen a case where we didn't get at least 10% higher than what was the property was originally appraised to be worth.

There are also loopholes that have been being used for quite some time in these parts when it came to the taking of property through eminent domain to build something like a Wal-Mart. In those cases, the city would simply condemn the land, then lease it for some low price to whatever business they wanted to have there. For example, Oklahoma City obtained a large piece of property for Bass Pro Shops in our riverwalk area, even built their building, and now leases it to them for something like $75,000/year.

In the long run though, don't expect to see much land grabbing or anything like that. In fact, due to the public finally having the awareness that this is going on, perhaps we'll start to see legislation appear that will give landowners more protections.