“Anytime I ever lost land to eminent domain, I made out like a bandit.”
indeed ... almost all governmental entities exercising eminent domain would overpay a bit than go through an adversarial process, even though the government is always guaranteed to win in the end ...
Sure. There have been four times I gave up property to eminent domain in the past. I always settled for about 3 times what is was worth per acre. I turned around and bought more land and paid off bills and put the rest in the bank. And, all it ever took was a bit of negotiating with the land representative. Nothing ever went to court. And, three of those times it was for pipeline right-of-ways and I still technically owned the surface rights to the land and could do anything I wanted with it except grow trees on it. On top of that, they have to keep it mowed!