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Supreme Court Rules Private Property Can be Seized

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the supreme-court-totally-rules dept.

slew writes "CNN is reporting that the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in a case where a local community seized private houses for commercial development (not public works) under the guise of eminent domain. Needless to say, the little guy loses to the commercial developer this case... "

2 of 1,829 comments (clear)

  1. Re:All hail the rich by rwven · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    and the funny part is that the people who dealt this wonderful winning blow were the very democrats who griped about it all along. get your fact straight nubcakes....

  2. The system could be made much more simple.... by iwadasn · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    I'm not the first one to suggest this, but here's how it should work.

    1) When you go to pay your property taxes, you declare the value of your home. You can declare whatever you want, a penny or a fortune, it's your call.

    2) When you declare the value, your house goes onto a website, think of it as the ultimate government ebay. Anyone who wants to can bid, including you. At the end of the auction, the highest bidder (which might be you) gets your home for the specified price, and pays property taxes on the price paid. Obviously the thing should have quite a few warnings so people don't accidentally get outbid, and if you win the auction then you just pay the taxes and you're done, but that's the basic idea.

    This would solve most of the problem. People would have an incentive to declare the value of thier property truthfully, and the government would get the taxes it actually deserves. If some private entity wants to buy you out, then the price of your home goes up sharply in the next auction, and you have to pay the increased property taxes on that new value to hold them off. Economic development could continue (where it's profitable enough to entice the homeowners), and everyone is happy.

    The problem with the current situation is that people can have home values assessed for next to nothing, and yet not be willing to sell for a king's ransom. This happens in NYC all the time, people complain every year if their homes get assessed at even half the market rate, many of them are declared to be worth only a few percent of the market rate, and yet nobody sells. It must be infuriating to a developer, people have super valueable houses, and yet it costs them nothing in taxes (because of low assessments), so there's no way to ever get them to move out when the value skyrockets. They're all holding out for the highest possible bid, and screwing the city out of a lot of property taxes. Clearly something is rotten there, and if the municipal government strikes back, well, neither side is a saint.