Eminent Domain

Throughout the courses I’ve taken within Real Estate PM, the term eminent domain always was brought up in discussion. By definition, eminent domain is the right of a government or its agent to expropriate private property for public use, with payment of compensation. Today I’ve been asked to assist one of the appraisers at Insight who is working on an eminent domain project. His job is the appraise each piece of property that the government is taking to expand a road. He will do this by inspecting the property before the expansion and value each individual property. After the expansion is complete he will return to the properties and value the land once again. The difference in value from after the expansion will be how much the property owner’s will be compensated for. My job on the project has been to site’s property cards that prepared information such as the owner’s name, what municipality the property is in, the intended use of the land, etc, and I also took aerial screenshots of the parcel from the county’s GIS to compile into a binder so when the appraiser inspects the different sites he will have all the information he needs while away from his desk. I’ve also created inspection letters and sent them to the property owner’s so they are aware of when the appraiser will be inspecting their property, and they are given the opportunity to set up a specific time when the appraiser can inspect their property and answer any questions they may have.