We covered several of the changes the Virginia General Assembly made in its most recent session in SB1158 in our post last week. This week we're covering the rest of them. (The changes to 25.1-204 dealing with title reports that were made in HB1690 and SB1158 were covered in our post week before last here.) [...]
The Virginia General Assembly passed a number of different changes to Virginia’s eminent domain code this year, most of which are contained in SB1158. (The changes to 25.1-204 dealing with title reports were covered in our post last week here.) SB1158 makes a change to Va. Code 8.01-187. That code section already provides a statutory [...]
What has to be included in your title report in if you want to proceed to condemnation of a property in Virginia? This important but somewhat arcane technial point has been the subject of quite a bit of legislative change and litigation in Virginia in the last couple years. This year's General Assembly session has [...]
A recent Virginia circuit court opinion in City of Waynesboro v. Hopeman Land Company serves as a cautionary tale for condemning authorities, emphasizing the importance of precision, planning, and adherence to statutory requirements. At the heart of this case was a common municipal objective: stormwater management. The City of Waynesboro identified a parcel of land [...]
The 2025 Virginia Eminent Domain Conference , this year sub-titled "Furthering the Discussion About What is Working and What Isn't" will again be at the lovely Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Virginia. May 8-9, 2025 Dave Arnold and I will be presenting on two different interesting topics again this year. Dave will be presenting along with [...]
The Court of Appeals of Virginia issued a relatively recent decision in Town of Iron Gate v. Simpson, 82 Va. App. 38 (2024), which is essentially a primer on what not to do as a condemning authority facing an inverse condemnation case. Background of the Case The opinion indicates that Simpson owned property in the [...]
In Barr v. Garten Dev., LLC, the Virginia Court of Appeals considers an appeal involving two adjoining properties and a dispute over whether a subsequent deed extinguished an original right of way grant between the properties. The adjoining properties are owned by the Barrs and Garten Development (Garten). Garten is the dominant estate, and it [...]
Article I Section 11 of the Virginia Constitution provides in part that no property shall be taken or damaged except for public use and also provides that it is not for public use if the primary use is for private gain, private benefit, private enterprise, increasing jobs, increasing tax revenue or economic development. The condemnor [...]
Can you prevent your neighbor from putting a locked gate across your access easement? The answer may well be ‘yes’ under a relatively recent Virginia Court of Appeals case about gates across easements, although as usual, it depends on the nature of the easement and of the gate. A prescriptive easement is a type of [...]
On June 20, 2023, the Court of Appeals of Virginia (the “CAV”) issued, in an unpublished decision, Page v. Portsmouth Redevelopment & Hous. Auth., No. 0175-22-1, 2023 Va. App. LEXIS 407 (2023). In the underlying circuit court case, H. Cliff Page (“Page”) challenged the Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s ("PRHA") role in demolishing a building [...]