--- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, "Skip Bernstein" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> If we've done nothing else, we've opened an entirely new thread.
I hadn't even realized that this happened. This puts things into
greater contrast than ever. Whenever I present comparable sales in a
litigation report, I use certain search parameters (size, location,
sale date, etc.) and in all fairness assume the other side has what
I have in terms of data. I included whatever sales there are within
those parameters whether it helps or hurts my client's perspective.
I bring this up because if you are going to lay out an area for
condemnation (assume for the moment it is for a beneficial public
purpose) you do the same thing; set impersonal and non-
discriminatory parameters. If what you are saying is that certain
homes were exempted from condemnation for no apparent reason other
than who owned them, then there is truly something rotten in the
state of Denmark.
While not the same thing, something like this (discriminatory) is
going on in Brooklyn with the condemnations for the new Nets arena.
Forest City is paying premiums to certain owners (generally better-
educated white condo and coop owners) to buy them while lowballing
others (generally less well-off financially minorities) and
threatening them with condemnation. In all fairness, I make most of
my living in eminent domain, although I always work for the property
owners. While I can see the need for it at times, being intinately
familar with it, I would not want to be subject to it. It is a
terrible experience. That being said, at minimum the Constitution
requires that the property owner should be in "as good a position
after the taking as before the taking" and the courts have been
struggling with this exact task for over 200 years. The US Supreme
Court may speak further on this in the Kelo case, which reading the
arguments, it appears the court is trying to come to grips with this
question, especially in the context of a "forced sale" which is what
a condemnation amounts to. What I am especially troubled by is that
I discovered that unlike NY, NJ does not provide by statute, for
interest on the difference between the advance payment and the final
condemnation award.
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