Talk:Eminent domain

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Merge with expropriation?[edit]

This article needs a global focus. It appears to me that eminent domain and expropriation are synonyms, the former term being used in the USA and the latter term used outside the USA. Some dictionaries have only the latter term. Several european languages have the term expropriation. Can anybody please clarify. Afog (talk) 17:33, 13 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Eminent Domain is used in the US but I think they should be merged. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JEMZ1995 (talk • contribs) 02:31, 23 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Don't merge: I don't think they're the same thing at all. I think that nationalizing an industry could be a form of expropriation. I don't think it could be justified as the exercise of public domain - or at least not during peacetime.OckRaz talk 07:43, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Allow me to put in some remarks. Expropiation, conmdenation or eminent domain are all synonyms. Truth is some countries use a different term for the same institution, but in the end it's EXACTLY THE SAME. Lawyers, conjure up and discuss this in depth, but we will all end up agreeing on it.

And about nationalization, it's the same, too. If they use a more flexible, adjustable concept for "public use" or purpose, or benefit, so be it. But in the end: 1) Depraviation of property; 2) Public destination; 3) Just compensation (sometimes, unfortunately, not paid). [NO USER] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.121.153.133 (talk • contribs) 06:47, 29 May 2014‎

Supporting merger
  • Support merge TO Expropriation. The phrase "eminent domain" is not self-explanatory, and after splitting the US content to Eminent domain in the United States, my first thought was to request a move to compulsory purchase. However, expropriation is probably the best internationally-understood term. – Fayenatic London 22:47, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support merge to expropriation as proposed by Fayenatic London. AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 01:06, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support merge with expropriation as proposed by Fayenatic London. yoyo (talk) 14:49, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support merge to expropriation. Eminent domain simply refers to the legal basis of expropriation. Expropriation is the transfer of ownership itself. Since we are talking about a legal title, ownership, - and not a 'fact', like possession may be - it's always part of a legal process; when that's not the case (as in expropriatory anarchism), we are dealing with a secondary, "improper" use of the term. Legal restrictions to expropriation vary depending on the jurisdiction, although public use or public interest criteria are almost universal. Daydreamers (talk) 08:28, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Opposing merger
  • Opposed to the use of "expropriation." That would be contrary to both US and British usage ("eminent domain" and "compulsory purchase" respectively). It would cause confusion here because (except in Louisiama with its French legal roots) "exproprition" is a political, not a legal term -- e.g., "the revolutionaries expropriated factories." It implies uncompensated seizure. Eminent domain, on the other hand, is universally understood in the US to designate aquisiton of property for a public use upon payment of "Just Compensation." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.179.40.161 (talk) 19:37, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose merge TO Expropriation. It seems clear from what I've been reading that the terms have distinctly different meanings. "Eminent domain" is the right of a governing body to usurp land from its citizens, for compensation, to be used for the development of public interests. "Nationalization" and "expropriation" refer to the transfer of control of various interests, such as industrial production or financial systems, from private ownership to government control. LordQwert (talk) 15:52, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Expropriation is fundamentally different from eminent domain because the latter usually includes some element of due process. --Coolcaesar (talk) 20:00, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. As others have mentioned, expropriation is a socio-political concept that that extends beyond the powers of the state (see, e.g., expropriative anarchism for one such application of this term), while eminent domain generally refers to a legal mechanism for acquiring private property. The proposed merge would conflate those two concepts. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 10:09, 14 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Valencia Land Grab[edit]

Why no mention of the infamous "Valencia Land Grab" - a notorious practice in Spain where private land is effectively stolen by the government for building roads etc, with no compensation at all?

It's not covered in depth and in a neutral perspective anywhere I can find, and Wikipedia seems to be the ideal place for such an unbiased collection of facts to be compiled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.121.130.51 (talk) 01:39, 26 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Global Bias[edit]

Looking at this article, I notice that the United States has a large amount of detail compared to the other countries. Could we expand the other countries? Or shrink the United States? Cbrittain10 (talk|contribs) 12:43, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A split is definitely overdue. — Blue-Haired Lawyer t 22:09, 8 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Focus n the generics, not the country-specific!

Hello,

The current article is too much preoccupied with enumerating the nation-by-nation differences and fails to make the universal rules stand out! That is: compensation should be in the public interest strictly as well as immediate, full and adequate.

Public interest: the article aready explains this with the Pfizer-Kelo scandal mention.

Immediate: demolishion cannot be started before the owner been paid fully and there are also strict time limits in the number of days to make full payment to the ordinance is nullifies itself.

Full: the previous fair value of the item to be demolished must be paid, as determined by an qualified, but uninterested 3rd party.

Adequate: sometimes more than fair value must be paid. For example a superhighway is being paid across the countryside and there is a little dilapidated adobe house with a small garden in the way, out in the middle of big nowhere. If the owner if paid fair market value, he will get like 100USD, because nobody would want to buy that house under ordinary circumstances. Yet, 100 USD will not allow him to buy another house elsewhere and he would end up sleeping under the bridge. In such case he must be offered a suitable house in a swap deal or given enough money to buy a little house with a garden elsewhere, even if that means parting with 10k USD or so.

Some countries also sipulate that compensation for expropriation must be made in ready money (cash) first and foremost. Offering e.g. a replacement house elsewhere can only be proposed if the citizen accepts that voluntarily. 87.97.103.46 (talk) 11:18, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Split to address worldview issue

To address the worldview issue would it be sensible to split out the North America section to a new article Eminent domain in the United States or similar, leaving a precis of the content behind?  Philg88 ♦talk 07:48, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

 Done – Fayenatic London 22:41, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

U.S. Eminent Domain applied to public land to create condos[edit]

I wanted to post this NJ case for consideration in the article. The case is similar to Kelo, except the city also issued eminent domain ordinances to seize the Board of Education building in order to build townhouses on the property. The court found in favor of the city and its plans to create condos in the area; the Board of Education was forced to find new property. In the court decision, the justice noted that "relocation to another office will inevitably involve some disruption, [but] that assertion could be made by any party whose property is taken through eminent domain."

http://law.justia.com/cases/new-jersey/appellate-division-unpublished/2006/a1216-04-opn.html

This is the only US case I know of where a public building was seized to create condos in an eminent domain court case.

Thanks to whoever can get this into the article. Thelema418 (talk) 16:17, 5 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sep 30 2012 addition to Bush Executive Order[edit]

An anonymous submitter made a substantive addition which appears off to me. It seems to be rather incoherent, but made in good faith; and the incoherence might just be legalese I'm not familiar with. Reverting it as useless or vandalism seems extreme to me, maybe someone with knowledge of the subject should review the addition to see if it could be salvaged. 80.94.55.51 (talk) 21:48, 5 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Smells like crankery. It obviously has nothing to do with an executive order. I've boldly reverted it. —Tamfang (talk) 06:32, 6 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Merge Compulsory purchase[edit]

This article lists compulsory purchase as one of the alternate titles of for the topic. But there is still a separate article under that name specifically addressing the English laws. Obviously if one is going to say the terms refer to the same thing there is no reason for two articles.

Anticipating concerns some may have, yes, one can argue that there are important differences between the U.S. law and English law. But the question is "Do those differences merit separate articles or is it better (and clearer) to discuss those as facets of the same topic in the same article?" Despite the differences, they are ultimately the same general legal principle and it is actually more educationally useful to have one article that elucidates the similarities and differences across all of the national boundaries.

Chiming in on a previous discussion that hasn't closed, the same general argument applies to merging expropriation with this one. The dictionary, for example, defines expropriation as being the same principle as eminent domain.

  • But they're articles at different levels of focus. By analogy: Wikipedia has, and should have, separate articles on arthropod, arachnid, spider and tarantula, and I'm sure you can see why we have that. A spider is a kind of arthropod but we don't merge spider into arthropod. Well, by the same analogy, compulsory purchase in England and Wales is a kind of eminent domain, but we don't merge the two, because it's right that there should be a generic article and specific ones.—S Marshall T/C 07:48, 28 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Correct me if I'm wrong but normally on Wikipeda we don't just delete a proposed merge template just because we disagree with it, but rather wait for a discussion to reach its end point. Repeatedly removing a merge template strikes me as somewhat unconstructive. — Blue-Haired Lawyer t 17:29, 28 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm so sorry, please do feel free to advance a constructive reason why this merge should go ahead.—S Marshall T/C 18:01, 28 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support merge. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." So said William Shakespeare, a gentleman renowned for his wit and wisdom. Likewise, "compulsory purchase", "compulsory acquisition", "expropriation" and "eminent domain" are just other names for the venerable principle known in Latin as "dominium eminens" or in the street as "He the man". There's just one principle here: those in charge of the mob have the right to take something from you if the whole mob will be better off that way (but it wouldn't be kind to just rob you blind, so they should give something back). So why would we need four or five articles titled "Rose", "Briar", "Tea-rose", "Floribunda" and "Carpet rose", say, when they're all varieties of the same cultivated flower? This seems to me a sufficiently "constructive reason" for merging all articles dealing with the broad outlines of the general principle. yoyo (talk) 15:25, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

1832 Supreme Court ruling[edit]

The link supporting the sentences, "In 1832 the Supreme Court ruled that eminent domain could be used to allow a mill owner to expand his dam and operations by flooding an upstream neighbor. The court opinion stated that a public use does not have to mean public occupation of the land; it can mean a public benefit.[9]'" is dead. In searching for another source with which to replace the citation, I found a number of sources, main;y ones with no interest in NPOV, repeating this statement, but none that seems useful to be cited as a secondary source. As I poked around I found that the quoted sentences are also inaccurate. They imply that this was a case before the United States Supreme Court,but in fact this was a decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. The primary document begins on p. 467 in https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=KQgQAAAAYAAJ . However, as this seems to me to be a primary source, it can't be used. I suppose it is also the result of my personal research. Absent a good secondary source, I am removing those sentences. I am pretty much a novice at editing, and if what I have done is incorrect I will certainly accept their restoration. A note of explanation would be nice, though, so I can learn from the experience. Dgndenver (talk) 05:53, 29 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sweden[edit]

The paragraph on "Expropriation" in Sweden seems to be the result of translating an idiomatic Swedish passage into an English which is decidedly not idiomatic. For example, although I can follow the general meaning fairly closely, the word order of some clauses is awkward and unusual. So the English expression needs cleaning up.

More importantly, I'm not sure this passage meets the NPOV - Neutral Point Of View - criterion for Wikipedia, as it makes several vague allegations of bribery and political corruption, not all backed by citations. I think we should remove those allegations until somebody can reinstate them with suitable evidence.

I haven't time for such a rewrite, but it does need doing. yoyo (talk) 15:08, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dr. Miceli's comment on this article[edit]

Dr. Miceli has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:


This article provides a very good survey of the law of eminent domain, including its historical origins and its manifestations and interpretation in the law of many countries. In this respect, it is very useful as a description of the concept. However, the article did not address at all controversies over the interpretation of various provisions of the actual practice of eminent domain--for example, the debate in the U.S. over the interpretation of the "public use" and "just compensation" provisions of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, which grants the power of eminent domain to the federal government. The article also does not discuss any case law regarding these issues, or any theoretical bases (whether from economics, natural law theory, or political science) for why the government should have this power, which is denied to individual citizens.


We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Miceli has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:


  • Reference : Thomas J. Miceli, 2014. "The Cost of Kelo: Are Property Taxes a Form of Public Use?," Working papers 2014-35, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 18:04, 27 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Globalize[edit]

The following text is moved from the hatnote to shorten the hatnote: Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 07:41, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject: it is missing much of Asia, particularly east Asian national jurisdictions like China, Vietnam, and Thailand; but also the fourth most populous country globally, Indonesia.

Requisition[edit]

Requisition redirects here, yet is not discussed at all. Though sharing the high-level concept, at least in ordinary use in Britain, it is not synonymous with Compulsory Purchase. It is commonly used where no transfer of ownership is involved, but power is exercised over the use of the property, whether fixed or moveable, for a period, and usually for compensation. For example, many British-owned ships were requisitioned by the Government during WW1 & 2 and operated by military or civil organs of the state, with hire being paid and provisions for return fit for continued commercial use. The ship's registered ownership remained the same but the owner lost the power to operate or sell the asset in his own interests. I think the same applied to factories and other buildings where the state "re-purposed" property (for example for munitions production, hospitals or military bases). Whether "requisition" is used in American English in the same way, I do not know (well, I was not familiar with the term "eminent domain" until an hour ago). Davidships (talk) 15:38, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

[later] There is a stub on a modern maritime iteration of requisition at STUFT. Davidships (talk) 18:13, 27 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Eminent domain in the UK[edit]

The coverage of Eminent domain in the UK focus almost entirely on compulsory purchase of land, but the legal basis expands far beyond that. It was used extensive in WW2 by the Ministry of Supply and the power also exists in ships taken up from trade. 83.100.188.53 (talk) 12:12, 25 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Requisition" listed at Redirects for discussion[edit]

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Requisition. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 April 27#Requisition until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm Talk 02:18, 27 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

is this legal in modern Germany or would this be racist?![edit]

Does anybody know of a court case or anything else showing this is LEGAL to do? Because else it's racist! --2001:16B8:57BF:8600:F8C8:7029:26F9:9127 (talk) 09:13, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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