No One’s Home Is Safe: Government Land Grabs Surge as Eminent Domain Looms

In New Jersey, two property owners are fighting to stop the government from taking their homes. I’ve talked about Medicaid Estate Recovery in my blog, but this is a different situation.

The government can take your home if it’s rationally related to a government interest, it’s called “eminent domain.”

Lets say your local government is approached by a global company that wants to set up their headquarters in your town. Your town would be thrilled – a global company would bring so many jobs to the area and boost the economy. So the government starts working with them to find the best location in town where the company could build a gigantic headquarters.

They rule out the coastline because that’s a popular area for tourists, the downtown area is quaint and filled with mom and shop pops that they don’t want to disrupt, the rest of the town is residential – so finding the perfect spot proves challenging.

Finally, they find an economically distressed area that’s on the outskirts of town in need of a makeover. So they propose to redvelop the area.

There’s one problem though – the area they chose has this one house owned by an old lady who has lvied there her whole life and refuses to move.

The house throws a wrench into their grand plans to bring wealth and prosperity to a small town. What should they do? give up?

What I described were the exact facts in the case of Kelo v. New London, where a woman was forced to sell her home to the government in order to make way for a large pharmaceutical company.

The court held that the government can take your property if their reasoning is “rationally related to a government interest.”

The justification was this – a large pharmaceutical will bring jobs and stimulate the economy. Such redevelopment would drastically benefit the community as a whole and therefore serve the government interest of boosting the economy and enhancing lives of tax payers as a whole. I’m paraphrasing the reasoning, but you can read the full case here.

The standard – “rationally related to a government interest” is very low. Literally anything that is conceivably related to an interest that serves the government is fair cause to take your property. However, the government must also pay you fair market value for the prpoerty.

Common reasons for eminent domain are – redevelopment, building highways or government structures, etc.

Eminent domain clearly makes sense in certain situations. If the government wasn’t allowed to buy your property to make way for highways, then we wouldn’t have I-91. We would have a long and weaving highway that dodged existing residential areas and would have added triple the amount of travel time to get anywhere in the state. Because of eminent domain, the government was able to build a long straight shot highway that cuts through the center of our states to improve interstate travel.

But when it comes to ousting long-term residents to cater to gigantic heartless corporations, everyone understandably raises their eyebrows.

Though it’s not a commonly enacted legal phenomenon, it still takes place more than you’d think.

Massachusetts Eminent Domain

In Massachusetts, several property owners are facing eminent domain right now.

St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton was taken over by Governor Healey as part of a restructuring after their bankruptcy.

In Cape Cod, some residents may lose their dream homes to make way for a new bridge.

Though it’s not likely to affect your home, eminent domain is real… And if you’re lucky enough to welcome a large corporation into your town, or see the development of a new bridge or government project, you may also be unlucky enough to have your home taken in light of those goals…and there’s not much you can do about it.

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