Lately the wife and I have been tossing the idea of selling some 5+ acres we bought 20 years ago. Firgured I could take some of the money and put it towards adding another garage to the house and buying a chevelle. Sounded good, but like all things someone else throws a monkey wrench into things.

Today I get a letter for the Georgia Departement of Transportation, they want to let me know they will be taking earth samples etc from my land. I say to myself "HUH?" Now my property backs up to a golf course, and we bought it as an investment. It is no where close to the 2 highways they mention. So I head off online to the GDOT web site and find a map of proposed new "connector". Sure enough there is a drawing with the new road. How close does it come to my land? Well, the dang road goes right through it, and I mean it eats up 95% of my 5+ acres. The golf course is also gone in this drawing, the road goes right down the middle of it. I am sure I am going to get screwed anyway this turns out.

So I can't sell it, I am at the mercy of the GDOT when they decided what they will do. Blasted right out of the water on my garage and new chevelle.
Sigh.

I dont know about Georgia, but usually you should have the property independently appraised yourself (about $300 beans) and the last I heard was that the GovMint is pretty good about wasting taxpayers money, so I would assume you may make out quite well. They are supposed to pay you fair market value.
I know someone who bought a parcel near the everglades, pretty much swampy land already for about $100K. The GovMint came in and wanted the land for water retention and if memory serves me correct the guy got well over a mil. :)
Too bad that was not me. :(

I know here in California the DOT can have "plans" for a long time. My grandfather sat on 3 acres in a neighboring town that he farmed (almonds) along with his 30 acres his home was on. He never sold it because there was a bipass planned. Well he passed away 5 years ago, my grandmother sold it for 200,000, a house was built on it and the DOT still has the plan to put a bipass through there. BTW the plan was drawn in the late 60's.

Should the state decide to make an offer it generally isn't the best idea to play hardball with them, they can and will just come and take it and not give you a dime for it, eminant domain, and it screws people all the time.

And by the way, generally your idea and the states idea of fair market value are worlds apart.

Good luck, thats a crappy deal to be involved in.

Jeff

I know the gov't works in mysterious ways, but damn, just take your land and not pay you for it? Damn, that is just bad joo-joo right there.

Good luck

who says you can't sell it?
sell it to one of those "get rich quick" land developers for a lot of $$$, and hope they don't find out about the proposal..

He'd have to notify the potential buyer, or risk a huge lawsuit later down the road. Rememer he's been mailed a letter, certified or not.

If it's not on top of a mountain, put a small pond on a portion of the land, find some rare species of some water creature, announce the finding to the EPA, and no road will be built. This may even save the golf course. You will need to do this before the soil testing.

Wow man, does not seem right.

Ill be the first to admit that I really dont understand this sort of stuff completely. Im thinking that this could possibly become a blessing in disguise. If your selling the land, that means they have to buy it to do this road project of thiers right? So your still selling it like you want correct?I guess im wondering if they will pay the fair market value for the property, then you wont have to negociate with a private party.

i'd rather negotiate with a private party..
if they make too low of an offer, you can tell them to screw off. if the government makes a low ball offer, you can't just tell them no.. you gotta negotiate and eventually settle for probably less than what you could have gotten on the free market.
unless, of course, the state has budgeted a lot more money for the project than is really needed, and they won't risk going over budget because of it.