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I assumed this was going to be another case of eminent domain abuse until I found out that the bank's argument seems to be "Writing down our loans to market val
by bcoates 13y ago
I assumed this was going to be another case of eminent domain abuse until I found out that the bank's argument seems to be "Writing down our loans to market value would disrupt our entire industry". I don't think "this would interfere with my accounting fraud" is a legally sound reason to block an eminent domain taking.
- dnautics 13y agoif there is accounting fraud, the bank should be prosecuted and penalized for that, and the city should not use a back-door mechanism to punish wrongdoing. This is not what eminent domain is supposed to be used for, and so fundamentally it's eminent domain abuse.
- bcoates 13y agoEminent domain isn't a punishment. The lender's interest is solely financial so they should be theoretically indifferent so long as they are compensated at market value. The reason they care (and the reason the situation doesn't resolve itself without outside intervention) is that they're dependent on reporting improbably high property and loan values in order to not appear insolvent. The city doesn't care about this and is uninterested in punishing it, but they are interested in getting a large chunk of their tax base out of legal limbo and they have the legal right to do so. This article makes a good rundown about how this is an unremarkable taking and likely to succeed in court: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-16/eminent-domain-isn-t-government-run-amok.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-16/eminent-domain-isn-...