Condemning agencies contemplating the use of eminent domain at times hire third-party acquisition agents to purchase properties ahead of an incoming infrastructure project without the provision of written good faith offers....more
When is a lease termination triggered by eminent domain versus by contract? The case of Media v. City of San Diego, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103728 addressed this question and concluded that the lease termination was only a...more
The Covid pandemic will have a lasting impact on lease negotiations from this point. Ty West, senior editor of national content at American City Business Journals, published an interesting article on the topic on May 3, in...more
As COVID-19 continues to spread and claim lives, various federal, state, and local government agencies have reacted with unprecedented measures around, among other issues, social distancing and business closures. Indeed, as...more
In the world of eminent domain, compensation for “lost goodwill” is often a tricky and contentious issue. New opinions from the Court of Appeal addressing goodwill tend to get a lot of attention....more
In an eminent domain proceeding, tenants of property subject to condemnation have constitutional rights to just compensation. However, those rights can be assigned to the landlord through a lease agreement. A recent...more
When entering into a lease agreement, parties rarely contemplate that the property may be subject to a future eminent domain proceeding. As a result, many times the condemnation provision in the lease is given little...more
A recent Utah case, adopting a “termination clause rule,” may have tenants in Utah reconsidering condemnation provisions in leases. In UDOT v. Kmart, 2018 UT 54, the Utah Supreme Court denied a condemnation award to a tenant...more