Around this time two years ago, I attended a family wedding that stands out in my memory for a few reasons. First, it was a “deep pandemic” wedding – rescheduled twice, outdoor-only, with a drastically scaled-down guest list and favors of hand sanitizer reading “in...
Your Property, Our Focus
Texas Eminent Domain Law Blog
Market changes can be devastating for those facing condemnation
When the state wants to lay claim to your real property for a large project, like high-speed railways or road expansions, you face condemnation. Residential property, unimproved land and even commercial properties are all at risk of claims brought under eminent domain...
Infrastructure in Houston’s East End
I remember thinking “this is an unusual place” as I drove down a sparsely-populated-for-rush-hour stretch of Leeland past the Oak Farms plant to visit my then-boyfriend at his Eastwood bungalow over ten years ago. The sproutings of town home farms transitioned to...
TXDOT is Coming for a Road Near You, Now What? The Offer Phase
This is the second in a series of posts outlining the condemnation process in Texas when TXDOT expands or improves a roadway. The first post explained TXDOT’s steps from project initiation to making an offer to a landowner to acquire the property needed for the...
Valuing Property in Development
Over the last 20 years, I have presented many times at the Eminent Domain SuperConference in Austin, Texas at the invitation of my colleagues at Barron & Adler (now Barron, Adler, Clough & Oddo). This year I addressed “sticky wickets,” those difficult compensation...
Suing the Government
Suing the government is hard. In fact, unlike suing anyone or anything else, suing the government is usually prevented outright by a handy little feature from the English common law called sovereign immunity. As Alexander Hamilton explained it, “[i]t is inherent in...
Condemnation’s Role in Houston’s (Continued) Westward Expansion
The first time I got pulled over was on the Grand Parkway in Katy. My crime? Running a stop sign. Yes, there used to be stop signs on the Grand Parkway. Much has changed on the Katy prairie in the 25 years since my first traffic stop. Acres and acres of rural farmland...
How fast will high-speed rail spread?
There are currently projects to build high-speed rail lines in Texas. These are going to create all sorts of new opportunities for travel, and they will hopefully reduce the dependency on cars and trucks. While trains and steam engines were instrumental in the...
TXDOT is Coming for a Road Near You, Now What? From Project Initiation to Offer
TXDOT maintains 79,000 miles of roads, more than any other state in the country. According to the 2020 United States Census, Texas added the most people of any state in the country from 2010-2020 with an increase to its population of 3,999,94. With data like that, it...
Is “just compensation” really enough?
Eminent domain laws allow the government to procure land that they need for certain projects. For instance, if a freeway is being expanded, they may have to take land that is owned by nearby small businesses, and they do have the legal right to do this when the...