Compensation
The commonest pattern, and the measure that makes North Carolina unusually favourable to owners.
Most North Carolina condemnations do not take a whole property. They take a strip of frontage, a corner, or a corridor across the middle, and leave the owner with the rest. That remainder is where the money usually is.
North Carolina handles this with a measure that gives the owner a choice of calculations rather than a single figure, and understanding it is the single most useful thing an owner in this position can do.
The greater of two figures. Section 40A-64 sets compensation for a partial taking as the greater of the amount by which the fair market value of the entire tract immediately before the taking exceeds the fair market value of the remainder immediately after the taking, or the fair market value of the property taken.
The short answer
Two calculations must be run and you are entitled to whichever is larger. An appraisal that only values the strip has answered the easier half of the question.
The land you keep, valued afterwards.
In preparationDriveways, crossovers and turning movements.
Read moreWhat a corridor still permits you to do.
In preparationSeverance, drainage and equipment movement.
Read moreParking counts and circulation.
Read moreThe base measure.
Read moreThe whole property as it stood, at its highest and best use.
Area, interest and location within the parcel.
The first of the two statutory figures.
The land you keep, with the take made and the project built.
The second statutory figure.
Section 40A-64 entitles you to the greater.
Section 136-112 applies instead, working on the difference between the value of the entire tract before the taking and its value afterwards.
A parcel left long and narrow, or cut into awkward pieces, may not support what the whole once did.
The remainder may be harder to enter, exit or move around.
Losing a strip can push a building envelope below what regulations allow.
Land now adjoining a road, line or facility is not the land it was.
A corridor that divides a holding can strand the far side entirely.
Appraisals sometimes assume a fix. Test whether the fix is practical and whether its cost was counted.
The greater of two figures: the reduction in the fair market value of the entire tract measured before and after the taking, or the fair market value of the property taken.
Department of Transportation cases run under Chapter 136, where section 136-112 sets the measure of damages, working on the value of the entire tract before the taking against its value afterwards.
Small takes in poor positions frequently produce the largest proportionate damage to the remainder. Size of the strip is a weak guide to the size of the claim.
Ask how the remainder was valued and what it assumed about access, shape and use. That is where the disagreement will be.
Explore North Carolina resources matched to your property, the project affecting it, and the stage you have reached.
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