You have to get to the 6th paragraph from the bottom before the real conflict is revealed.
"[the homeowners] do fault their real-estate agent and [the seller], who signed a purchase-and-sale agreement, a copy of which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, stating that [the seller] did not know of any future public use of the land."
Should be pretty cut-and-dry, especially given the seller's statements earlier in the article.
"Louis Gallo, who sold the Hendels the vacant, 0.64-acre parcel of land for $165,000 in December 2023, said there is no way the couple didn’t know the bridge relocation was a possibility. 'They’ve been talking about this bridge for 40 years, at least,' said Louis, who lives across the street in a house that will also be taken by eminent domain."
So, Gallo's claiming everyone knew the bridge was coming. The buyers have a signed document stating that Gallo didn't know that. Gallo's claiming he never signed such a document.
They'll get something from the state for the house, and probably either a settlement or damages from Gallo, assuming the document isn't an elaborate hoax.
Ha, reminds me a little of the situation in Beverly Shores Indiana. In the 1960s, Congress established the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, and the park service went about acquiring property within the boundaries. They ended up buying the land from many people with the explicit stipulation that at some point in the future the house would have to be removed and the park service would take over. But until that time, the owner of the house would be able to continue to use it and have exclusive access to the federally-owned land it sat on. Deeds were signed and money changed hands.
Fast forward decades, many delays and many unscrupulous sellers and real estate agents, and you’ve got people that don’t realize that the house they own sits on land they don’t, and the federal government wants it vacant because the Congress has finally turned the national lakeshore into a national park.
You would have to be notified of any deed restrictions, especially one where they don't own the land the house sits on. The situation you described seems hard to believe
Ah, according to Wikipedia they were sale/leaseback agreements [1]
But I lived in that area. People absolutely were scammed because FedGov didn’t bother to evict heirs or tear down the houses for decades. And then they did. Indiana is a very lax state for real estate transactions. Attorneys are not required and real estate agents drive the process. A shady agent and a buyer that doesn’t know any better can very easily get scammed.
This quote glosses over a LOT, but I couldn’t find anything better online:
> there was a movement to purchase all the homes in Beverly Shores and incorporate the entire town into the National Lakeshore. This initiative did not succeed, but many local properties were acquired, especially those in the wetlands that constitute the southern portion. The acquisition process is ongoing. The owners of lots fronting on the beach were granted lifetime leasebacks with the proviso that the property would revert to the National Lakeshore; many of these houses have since been demolished.
Link? I tried to search for anything related to this and came up empty. This is literally what a title search and title insurance is for. I have a hard time believing you can get a mortgage without due diligence on the title even with a completely corrupt realtor.
In a real estate transaction, more or less nobody that you are paying to be on your side has incentives that are aligned with yours.
This buyer on Cape Cod: why did nobody that he paid to be on his side tell him that they’ve been contemplating a bridge through the property for 40 years?
Fair market value is the level that the marginal seller is willing to part with their goods. People who aren’t selling obviously value their goods at a higher value than that, or they would already be selling them.
The government calculated figure will be the lowest value that similar homeowners would accept at that point in time.
Not if your stuff was within the borders of a government that exercised eminent domain powers upon it. ‘Theft’ is defined by law, and the law incorporates many competing priorities regarding property rights, and sometimes also incorporates due process for compulsory seizure and reimbursement. ‘Taken against your will’? Absolutely. ‘Taken without due process’? No, in this article’s case there were decades of due process. ‘Stolen’? No, legal execution of of eminent domain is not theft: it is an act of power committed upon individuals by a government, ideally to prioritize that region’s needs over the few individual liberties it costs. Notably, though, this hinges on reimbursement; seizure without repayment is much more plausibly labeled theft. No repayment will ever be viewed as adequate by those who seek vengeance for their lost dreams, but in the absence of any repayment, it would not qualify as eminent domain at all.
Always understand the property seizure laws for any region when purchasing property, and especially determine whether seizure processes are already in progress, lest the story end up highlighting a catastrophic failure to perform (or, more likely, respect the outcomes of) due diligence. Someone did do an excellent job with this grift, but that’s not theft, that’s fraud.
(Sadly, this lesson has a tech parallel: review of the dependencies of a project or of a curl | bash script. Most don’t, and the occasional grim reminders do nothing whatsoever to influence an individual’s risk-taking behaviors when the alternative is further delays and effort of reaching one’s goals.)
I wasn't calling eminent domain theft, I was drawing an analogy to rebut more_corn's statement. Eminent domain is definitely seizure, and that the owner of the property being seized is compensated doesn't change that, just as if I compensate you for stealing all your stuff, that doesn't change the fact that I stole from you.
You have to get to the 6th paragraph from the bottom before the real conflict is revealed.
"[the homeowners] do fault their real-estate agent and [the seller], who signed a purchase-and-sale agreement, a copy of which was viewed by The Wall Street Journal, stating that [the seller] did not know of any future public use of the land."
Should be pretty cut-and-dry, especially given the seller's statements earlier in the article.
"Louis Gallo, who sold the Hendels the vacant, 0.64-acre parcel of land for $165,000 in December 2023, said there is no way the couple didn’t know the bridge relocation was a possibility. 'They’ve been talking about this bridge for 40 years, at least,' said Louis, who lives across the street in a house that will also be taken by eminent domain."
So, Gallo's claiming everyone knew the bridge was coming. The buyers have a signed document stating that Gallo didn't know that. Gallo's claiming he never signed such a document.
They'll get something from the state for the house, and probably either a settlement or damages from Gallo, assuming the document isn't an elaborate hoax.
Gift link: https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/cape-cod-sagamore-bridge-emi...
Ha, reminds me a little of the situation in Beverly Shores Indiana. In the 1960s, Congress established the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, and the park service went about acquiring property within the boundaries. They ended up buying the land from many people with the explicit stipulation that at some point in the future the house would have to be removed and the park service would take over. But until that time, the owner of the house would be able to continue to use it and have exclusive access to the federally-owned land it sat on. Deeds were signed and money changed hands.
Fast forward decades, many delays and many unscrupulous sellers and real estate agents, and you’ve got people that don’t realize that the house they own sits on land they don’t, and the federal government wants it vacant because the Congress has finally turned the national lakeshore into a national park.
You would have to be notified of any deed restrictions, especially one where they don't own the land the house sits on. The situation you described seems hard to believe
Ah, according to Wikipedia they were sale/leaseback agreements [1]
But I lived in that area. People absolutely were scammed because FedGov didn’t bother to evict heirs or tear down the houses for decades. And then they did. Indiana is a very lax state for real estate transactions. Attorneys are not required and real estate agents drive the process. A shady agent and a buyer that doesn’t know any better can very easily get scammed.
This quote glosses over a LOT, but I couldn’t find anything better online:
> there was a movement to purchase all the homes in Beverly Shores and incorporate the entire town into the National Lakeshore. This initiative did not succeed, but many local properties were acquired, especially those in the wetlands that constitute the southern portion. The acquisition process is ongoing. The owners of lots fronting on the beach were granted lifetime leasebacks with the proviso that the property would revert to the National Lakeshore; many of these houses have since been demolished.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Shores,_Indiana
Link? I tried to search for anything related to this and came up empty. This is literally what a title search and title insurance is for. I have a hard time believing you can get a mortgage without due diligence on the title even with a completely corrupt realtor.
In a real estate transaction, more or less nobody that you are paying to be on your side has incentives that are aligned with yours.
This buyer on Cape Cod: why did nobody that he paid to be on his side tell him that they’ve been contemplating a bridge through the property for 40 years?
Forcefully bought at fair market value is different from seized.
Fair market value is the level that the marginal seller is willing to part with their goods. People who aren’t selling obviously value their goods at a higher value than that, or they would already be selling them.
The government calculated figure will be the lowest value that similar homeowners would accept at that point in time.
Not really. If steal all your stuff and leave you a pile of money equal to the "fair market value" of it, I've still stolen all your stuff.
Not if your stuff was within the borders of a government that exercised eminent domain powers upon it. ‘Theft’ is defined by law, and the law incorporates many competing priorities regarding property rights, and sometimes also incorporates due process for compulsory seizure and reimbursement. ‘Taken against your will’? Absolutely. ‘Taken without due process’? No, in this article’s case there were decades of due process. ‘Stolen’? No, legal execution of of eminent domain is not theft: it is an act of power committed upon individuals by a government, ideally to prioritize that region’s needs over the few individual liberties it costs. Notably, though, this hinges on reimbursement; seizure without repayment is much more plausibly labeled theft. No repayment will ever be viewed as adequate by those who seek vengeance for their lost dreams, but in the absence of any repayment, it would not qualify as eminent domain at all.
Always understand the property seizure laws for any region when purchasing property, and especially determine whether seizure processes are already in progress, lest the story end up highlighting a catastrophic failure to perform (or, more likely, respect the outcomes of) due diligence. Someone did do an excellent job with this grift, but that’s not theft, that’s fraud.
(Sadly, this lesson has a tech parallel: review of the dependencies of a project or of a curl | bash script. Most don’t, and the occasional grim reminders do nothing whatsoever to influence an individual’s risk-taking behaviors when the alternative is further delays and effort of reaching one’s goals.)
I wasn't calling eminent domain theft, I was drawing an analogy to rebut more_corn's statement. Eminent domain is definitely seizure, and that the owner of the property being seized is compensated doesn't change that, just as if I compensate you for stealing all your stuff, that doesn't change the fact that I stole from you.