Property tax

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The short answer: taxes.

[Update #1: a report from last night’s community meeting, “Railing Against Honolulu’s $6 Billion Rail Project” (“Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell and his top transit official took their licks from a decidedly anti-rail crowd during a boisterous town hall meeting at Washington Middle School on Wednesday.”

Update #2: “A Hawaii Senate committee passes a bill to extend the GET rail surcharge another give years, but makes clear the money should only be used to build the rail line” (4/8/2015, via Civil Beat).]

There’s been a lot of breathless reporting over the past couple of weeks about the skyrocketing cost of the 20-mile, 21-station Honolulu rail project. Cost estimates to build the line from Ewa to Ala Moana Center started off in the range of $3.5 billion, but anyone who was paying attention knew this wasn’t anywhere in the ballpark.

Continue Reading How Are They (I Mean *We*) Going To Pay For Honolulu’s Rail?

Weird headline from KITV. No, owners whose property is taken for the rail aren’t “profiting” if they are able to get more for their land than what the condemning agency offered; “just compensation and damages” are required by the constitution, and if they are able to obtain more, in many cases that still leaves them undercompensated and simply means the condemnor’s offer was inadequate.

But besides the headline, KITV does a good report on last night’s community forum on property owners’ rights in eminent domain which we sponsored. 

Related articles
Tommorrow’s Public Rail Project Forum: Eminent Domain, Just Compensation, And Protecting Property Rights
hawaiioceanlaw.com: Knowing Your Rights: Honolulu Rail Project and Right of Way Acquisitions
inversecondemnation.com: Property Owners Invited: Honolulu Rail Project Public Informational Meeting, Thursday, March 5, 2015, Farrington High School
NJ Court: There’s No Substitute For The Eminent Domain Process, Even On The Shore, Even In An

Continue Reading Video: Report On Community Meeting On Property Rights And The Honolulu Rail

Here’s one for the regulatory takings mavens, because it has just about every conceivable issue: ripeness, res judicata (yes, arugment was that the complaint was filed both too early and too late), Rooker–Feldman, the Tax Injunction Act, and an analysis of whether the property owner’s complaint stated a claim for relief under the Takings Clause. 

At issue in Coleman v, District of Columbia, No. 13-1456 (D. D.C. Sep. 30, 2014) was the District’s statutory provision which allowed it to place a lien on properties whose owners do not pay their full property tax bill, and then sell the property at auction if the lien is not satisfied. So far so good – this scheme isn’t that much different from similar provisions in virtually every state. The problem with DC’s system is that “the law permits the taking of not only the amount of delinquent taxes, plus any…

Continue Reading Federal Court: DC’s Tax Sale Statute May Be A Taking

Check this out, an opinion from the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court in a tax assessment case, Jacobowitz v. Bd of Assessors, Town of Cornwall, No. D39807 (July 30, 2014. The court held that the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on warrantless searches and seizures means that a property owner did not have to let the Town’s appraiser into her home to “conduct an interior appraisal inspection” related to her property tax assessment. Slip op. at 1.

It’s a quick read, so we won’t spell it all out in detail, just focus on a couple of the best points. The court held that it is the government’s burden to show entitlement to entry of a home, and not the property owner’s burden to show why it should not. And the property owner’s challenge to the tax assessment did not waive her rights:

Contrary to the Town respondents’ contention…

Continue Reading NY App Div: Town Needs A Warrant For Inspection Related To Property Valuation

By statute, California property owners have four years to . Proposition 13 is the ____.

In Olive Land Industrial Park, LLC v. County of San Diego, No. D063337 (July 18, 2014), the Court of Appeal held that 

A nonmandatory interpretation of the time limitation also promotes the
constitutionally-mandated just compensation principles governing eminent domain
proceedings, which—by virtue of governmental action and through no choice of the
property owner—create the need for the property owner to purchase replacement
property. Absent application of Article XIIIA, the property owner remains
uncompensated in the event the property taxes on the replacement property are higher
than on the property taken by the government. Construing the time limitation in section
68 as nonmandatory advances the intent of the voters to incorporate increased property
taxes within the just compensation formula in eminent domain transactions.

Slip op. at 17.

Accordingly, we interpret section 68 to implicitly allow…

Continue Reading Cal App: It’s Not An Owner’s Fault It Needs Replacement Property After Condemnation – Request For Prop 13 Base-Year Value May Be Made After Four Year Time Deadline

Here’s one that we meant to post earlier, but slipped through the cracks.

In Oklahoma eminent domain actions, the issue of valuation is first presented to a board of three commissioners (“disinterested landowners”) from the county in which the condemned property is located. The commissioners report to the court, and if one party doesn’t care for the recommended compensation, the party may demand a jury trial. 

In Independent School District v Taylor, No.110,709 (Nov. 27, 2013), the Oklahoma Court of Appeals held that a jury in such a case is entitled to hear evidence regarding value, even if the commissioners did not consider it. In that case, the commissioners recommended a value, but after a trial, the jury came back in with a higher award after the owner introduced evidence about the value of a billboard lease which had not been presented to the commissioners. The trial court granted the…

Continue Reading Nichols On Eminent Domain: Oklahoma Appeals Court Upholds Jury Rights In Condemnation

Yesterday, according to the coconut wireless, was the official last day on the Hawaii Supreme Court for Associate Justice Simeon Acoba. State court justices and judges face mandatory retirement at age 70, and Justice Acoba’s birthday is coming up in March.

While time marched on, so did the process for selecting his successor on the court. Governor Abercrombie has nominated a circuit court (trial) judge, and the Senate Judiciary has scheduled a hearing on the confirmation for next week. Le roi est mort, vive le roi.

While his body of work is large, we didn’t want to let this moment pass without singling out three opinions authored by Justice Acoba: the first a 3-2 majority opinion in favor of property owners, the other a 2-justice dissent in a case involving a municipality’s power to sue itself, and a final stand-alone dissent. The first two, as you may already…

Continue Reading Aloha, Justice Acoba

Here’s one of those owner-puts-up-a-fence-that-is-actually-on-his-neighbor’s-property situations, this time with a very Hollywood twist.

The owner, you see, was Larry Hagman, of Dallas and I Dream of Jeannie fame. Seems the fence between his Ojai, California property and that of his neighbors, a religous group, was .44 acres into their land, and Hagman claimed it by adverse possession. In Hagman’s quiet title action, the trial court granted him summary judgment.

In Hagman v. Meher Mount Corp., No. B239014 (Apr. 3, 2013), the Court of Appeal affirmed. The court held that Meher Mount’s property is not immune from adverse possession by virtue of it being owned by a “public benefit corporation,” because that is not the same as a “public entity.” The latter are “vested with some degree of sovereignty.” Slip op. at 4. Even though public benefit corporations like Meher Mount require government approval, “[t]hey are not…

Continue Reading J.R. (Or Major Nelson) Adversely Possesses Neighbor’s Land

The Courrt has denied certiorari in Corboy v. Louie, No. 11-336, the case asking the Court to review the Hawaii Supreme Court’s dismissal of a challenge to the property tax exemptions conferred on lessees of Hawaiian Homesteads. The petitioners claim this is an unconstitutional race-based classification, but the Hawaii Supreme Court dismissed for lack of standing (the petitioners had not applied for Hawaiian Homestead leases because they are ineligible to receive them).

Here’s the order, in the event you want to see it for yourself.

This case had been kicking around on the docket since December 2011, and it was only on the Term’s last day that the Court finally said no. Continue Reading Supreme Court Declines To Review Challenge To Native Hawaiian Property Tax Exemptions

Lost in all the excitement over today’s ruling in the the Obamacare case that turned out not to be today, is this little tidbit for those from Hawaii. The Court yet again did not make a decision whether to grant cert in Corboy v. Louie, No. 11-336, which had been scheduled for last Thursday’s conference. This is the case asking the Court to review the Hawaii Supreme Court’s dismissal of a challenge to the property tax exemptions conferred on lessees of Hawaiian Homesteads. The petitioners claim this is an unconstitutional race-based classification, but the Hawaii Supreme Court dismissed for lack of standing (the petitioners had not applied for Hawaiian Homestead leases because they are ineligible to receive them).

This case was originally scheduled for the Court’s December 9, 2011 conference, but that was put off when the Court asked the Obama Administration to file an amicus brief, which…

Continue Reading SCOTUS Delays Consideration Of Challenge To Hawaiian Homes Property Tax Exemption (Yet Again)