Charlottesville’s Real Estate Blog since 2005.

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Very bad news for personal property rights, good news for those wishing to exercise eminent domain wherever they please. Expect more commentary/feedback on this ruling in the next few days.

As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.
From the Washington Post. More at the SCOTUSblog (archived: 2010) and the NYTimes. NYTimes has a link to background on the case. Thanks to Curbed (no longer available) for the links.

Update: Rick Sincere’s blog (saw this thank to the Cville blog aggregator) has a far more detailed summary of today’s ruling.

This is frightening – As talk show host Neal Boortz put it this morning: “You only own your home so long as your local government chooses to allow you to own your home.”

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I have been been representing buyers and sellers in Charlottesville, Albemarle, and Central Virginia since 2001. Get local insight born of experience.

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