Eminent Domain: This is an outrage!

[FreshPrince]

Originally posted by: MangoTBG
You guys are morons if you feel bad for someone who has not paid their proper taxes and loses their home. Sorry buddy, but you owe it to this country for that thing you walk around with, everyday, called "freedom".

Nah, we're talking the gov. taking land from people even if they've been perfectly good citizens. How would you feel if you own your home for 5 years and pay everything you're supposed to pay. One day the gov. comes by and tells ya, ya gotta get out because they're putting in a CVS pharmacy? They make some city apraiser give your land a "fair" value and tells ya to take a hike. I mean even if they paid you a million dollars, and your property is only valued @ $250K, it's still wrong. You as a model citizen should be able to say: "no, I want want to sell my land." Now if it's for stuff like national security, then yes, you should vacate your property for the good of the nation. But, we're talking about the gov. trying to collect more tax dollars from businesses. They're basically saying: ya, you're pay $3K in taxes...that's great. But we want 10K in taxes from a small business so get out!

 

[alkemyst]

it's true eminent domain is becoming abused.

The way it's supposed to work (for non-planned or government issues) is say there is a terrible area and the people vote to 'clean it up'. This means kicking out the undesirables, paying them more than fair market (which is really nothing in these situations) and sending them packing.....the people voted for it, that's the way the country works, not everyone wins. The biggest losers are the ones that hold out thinking if they are last instead of $50k for their shack, they will get $500k....

Then a nice set of stores and apartments/condos goes up and what not.

Sometimes these things are on the plat maps as planned developments....it pays to research where you buy.

What has been happening though is a big company comes in and says "You are collecting this amount in taxes from these 10-20 houses", "the land is worth $X million dollars", "We will pay you 10x$X Million dollars and guarantee an increased tax revenue of $x dollars"....then what happens is the government first nails those that haven't paid taxes or have outstanding liens....then does a whole bunch of things to lower the value of property and make their buy out easier. Now it's up to the say 8 people to sue the government for the buyout and risk losing money or accept it and move on.

The people really hurt by these things a mom and pop businesses in the same location decades and people that got exception deals on where they lived and were relying on that to stay there and also the people who overpaid for property and now end up at a net loss once they are bought out.