Stop! Your land is under arrest. You have the right to accept payment—but don’t! (What to do when your land is being condemned, or “taken,” by eminent domain)

Today there was a knock on your door, or maybe there was a letter waiting for you in your mailbox—but the harsh reality is the same: you have been informed that part your property is being “taken” to build a pipeline, a road, a power line, or some other infrastructure project for “public use.” Sure, the “condemnor” has offered to pay you for taking your land, but do you have to accept their offer? No, you don’t. Should you? Again, no. What should you do? You should consult an eminent-domain attorney who represents landowners like you facing condemnation. And to understand why that’s the right call, you need to understand the condemnation process, so read on.

 Who Can Condemn Private Property?

The government has the power of eminent domain, which is the power to take private property for a public use. The process by which the government takes private property—including by suing the property owner in court to take his or her property—is called condemnation. The government regularly takes land to build roads, schools, bridges, ports, convention centers, stadiums, and so on.

But governments aren’t the only entities with condemnation power. Federal and state governments have also given this incredible power to other entities, including private companies, to build infrastructure projects such as pipelines and electric lines. (A future blog post will discuss when and how private companies can take property for “public use.”)

How Does the Condemnation Process Usually Start?

Most condemnations begin with a letter or knock at the door. The taker or, more often, a land-acquisition agent shows up or sends you a letter asking for permission to survey and inspect your property for a particular infrastructure project. Sometimes, in this first contact, the taker will offer to buy an easement or some or all of your land for a specific project.

Should I Take the Offer, and Do I Need to Respond by the Deadlines in the Letter?

Takers (also called condemnors) regularly make lowball offers. And when we say “regularly,” we mean 100% of the time. 

Why do condemnors make lowball offers? Because they work. 

In Texas, for example, landowners facing a pipeline taking accept the pipeline companies’ first offers, or something very close to it, over 90% of the time. 

In contrast, landowners who get a good eminent-domain lawyer often walk away with three times, five times, even twenty times or more than a landowner who accepts the first offers from a condemnor.

In addition to lowball offers, condemnors often use high-pressure sales tactics to get landowners to agree to bad deals. Condemnors and their land agents may tell you that you’ll “never get a better offer.” (In our experience, that is never true—ever.) And they’ll give you short deadlines for working out a deal. Don’t buy any of this. None of those deadlines are real until you’ve actually been sued in court. Also important, lowball compensation is often not the only bad thing in the offer; sometimes the proposed deal, if accepted, would give the condemnor power to use your property in ways that the condemnor never could have obtained in court.

Don’t be fooled. Don’t take the offer. Don’t fall for the deadlines in the condemnor’s initial letters. 

If you were arrested, what would you do? You’d call an attorney directly or ask a family member to do so. A condemnation is the arrest of your land—and potentially the termination of your property rights. If you care about your property rights and want to protect yourself and your assets, call an attorney who understands the process and knows how to give you the best chance to protect your property. In some cases, your lawyer may help you prevent the taking from happening at all; in others, he or she will help ensure you get top compensation and other protections for your property.

You might wonder whether you should call an attorney even if the condemnor is just asking to inspect and survey your land. The answer is a big, fat “yes.” Before letting anyone on your land, you’ll want a survey-access agreement in place. This will lay out when the survey and inspections will happen, who is allowed on your land, what kind of work will be done, what activities are prohibited on your land, and what kind of insurance will be in place to protect you if someone gets hurt during the process.

Cobb & Johns are Special Forces for Complex Property and Government Disputes.