Property tax

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Here’s the latest in an issue we’ve been following for a long time.

In Jackson v. Southfield Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, No. 166320 (July 16, 2025), the Michigan Supreme Court re-confirmed its ruling in Rafaeli v. Oakland County, that the government “keeping the change” after liquidating property to satisfy a delinquent tax debt is a taking, rejecting the claim that transferring the property to a non-governmental organization does not relieve the government of its obligation to provide compensation. 

There’s a lot going on here, and we’re not wading into too much detail both because it is one of ours, but also because this one is Michigan-specific. But we will say that this case is a good example of a court viewing things pragmatically, and calling out government action that seeks to work around a constitutional ruling. 

Here’s the heart of the court’s holding:

In this case, the operative…

Continue Reading Michigan: Gov’t Can’t Avoid A Rafaeli Taking Just By Having A Proxy Do It

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The California Court of Appeal’s recent opinion in Dessins LLC v. City of Sacramento, No. C100644 (July 9, 2025) doesn’t deal with eminent domain or takings, but is about municipal fees and the way California requires these things get adopted. But we’re going to cover it, if only briefly. 

Why? Because it turns out that this decision tells us a lot about how California courts seem to look for any way to uphold exercises of government power. And when that power comes directly into conflict with the voters as it does here, one guess who wins.  

A bit of background for you non-Californians.

If you were to not have an understanding of the history of local fee collection and property taxation in California, you might be under the impression that it is pretty tough…

Continue Reading One City, Many Votes: Cal App OK’s Municipal Sleight-of-Law To Permit City To Impose Fees… On Itself (And Others)

Take a look at the New Jersey Appellate Division’s opinion in Johnson v. City of East Orange, No. A-2586-23 (June 27, 2025). 

The court vacated the dismissal of a property owner’s takings claim, holding that it was timely. We aren’t going into too much detail because this one is out of our shop. As the opinion notes:

Pacific Legal Foundation, plaintiff’s counsel in the instant matter, represented the plaintiff in Tyler, and appeared as amicus curiae in both the appellate, 257-261 20th Avenue Realty, LLC v. Roberto (Roberto I), 477 N.J. Super. 339 (App. Div. 2023), and state Supreme Court, 257-261 20th Avenue Realty, LLC v. Roberto (Roberto II), 259 N.J. 417 (2025), proceedings in what became the first published authority applying the holding in Tyler in this state.”

Slip op. at 2.  

But here are some of the highlights:

  • A takings claim does not accrue, and

…
Continue Reading NJ App: Takings Claim Accrues When Govt Keeps Property It Should Return To The Owner

A brief, but important, decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

In Sikorsky v. City of Newbergh, No. 23-1171 (May 2, 2025), the court held that the plaintiff adequately pleaded a regulatory takings claim which was based on Tyler v. Hennepin County, where the U.S. Supreme Court held that a government violates the Fifth Amendment if it seizes and liquidates property in order to satisfy the owner’s tax debt, but “keeps the change” and retains any proceeds in excess of the tax debt.

Here, Sikorsky purchased a home but failed to pay $92,786 in taxes, and the city eventually foreclosed. The city sold the home for $250,000 more than Sikorsky owed in taxes, “but refuses to give him the surplus.” Slip op. at 3. He sued, and the district court dismissed:

Two months after Tyler was decided—and seemingly without reference to it—the District Court…

Continue Reading CA2: The Harm In Home Equity Theft Takings Is Government’s Retention Of Surplus Equity

Screenshot 2025-01-23 at 15-10-58 Takings and Choice of Law After i Tyler v. Hennepin County _i by Eric R. Claeys SSRN

Check out this article, forthcoming in the George Mason Journal of Law, Economics, and Policy from lawprof Eric Claeys, “Takings and Choice of Law After Tyler v. Hennepin County.”

This is one of the pieces coming out of the recent symposium “Imaging the Future of Regulatory Takings” at George Mason Law School.

Here’s the Abstract:

This Essay contributes to a symposium on the future of regulatory takings. It focuses on choice of law in eminent domain disputes. When claimants bring eminent domain claims in federal courts, the courts must determine whether the claimants have constitutional “private property” in the entitlements allegedly taken. Should that determination be made with federal law, with the law of the state allegedly taking property, or law from some other source?

The 2023 Supreme Court decision Tyler v. Hennepin County addressed that issue. Under Tyler, it is a federal question whether an eminent domain claimant has constitutional private property. To answer the question, federal courts usually consult the law of the state where the alleged taking took place. But that presumption applies only if state law seems to secure and not to circumvent the federal right. And if that reservation is not satisfied, federal courts may consult a wider pattern of legal sources—Anglo-American history, the general law of the several United States, federal court precedents, and a broader cross-section of law from the state allegedly taking property. That approach resembles the approach taken generally for federal constitutional rights—especially in Indiana ex rel. Anderson v. Brand (1938)—but varies from the general approach in the sources it makes relevant to settle what counts as private property under the Fifth Amendment. This Essay interprets Tyler, and it offers a normative justification for Tyler’s approach to choice of law in eminent domain. 

Don’t miss this one.Continue Reading New Article (Eric Claeys): “Takings and Choice of Law After Tyler v. Hennepin County”

If you thought the issue of whether it is a Fifth Amendment taking for a state or local government to “keep the change” after satisfying a tax debt was settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in Tyler v. Hennepin County, 598 U.S. 631 (2023), you’d be right.

Then what was there left for the New Jersey Supreme Court to decide in 257-261 20th Avenue Realty, LLC v. Roberto, No. A-29-23 (Jan. 9, 2025)? Some interesting stuff, it turns out.

And before you conclude that this is just piling-on, remember — they wanted this: after Tyler, instead of reading the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision and the writing on the wall, some state and local governments, unhappy with being cut off from a source of easy money, tried to figure ways to avoid or negate the rule that if there’s money left over after you satisfy a tax debt…

Continue Reading NJ’s Forfeiture Statute Is A Taking Of Surplus Home Equity

A short one from the Ohio Court of Appeals.

In City of North Canton v. Brown, No. 2024-CA00030 (Dec. 16, 2024), the court held the trial court in a just compensation action wrongly excluded the owner’s evidence of the County’s property tax valuation.

Hang on. Doesn’t the owner usually want to exclude evidence of property tax valuation in a just compensation case? Even though an appraisal for just compensation purposes and an appraisal for property tax purposes look at “value,” we know that the goals and methods of each are different, so that’s an apples-to-oranges comparison no?

Not always. Here, the court didn’t conclude that the tax valuation was conclusive, merely “‘some’ proof of value, and is thus relevant evidence.” Slip op. at 7. Moreover, this “is not a case in which a city or governmental entity is arguing the tax assessment should be admissible because the taxpayer or…

Continue Reading Ohio Ct App: Tax Assessment May Be Admissible To Prove Just Compensation

In Turner v. Jordan, No. 22-13159 (Sep. 17, 2024), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that even though the federal courts have jurisdiction over Turner’s takings claim, the court nonetheless has the discretion to choose to wash its hands of the case in order to protect a state’s administrative procedures.

This is one of those home equity takings cases, with the twist here being that Turner claims that because Florida officials failed to account for his homestead exemption, his property sold for half of what it should have at a property tax foreclosure sale. He alleged that with the exemption, the sale would have netted him some equity to which he was entitled. The district court dismissed for comity reasons, and the Eleventh Circuit affirmed.

Of course, the opinion pays lip service to the more-often-in-the-breach-than-in-the-observance principle that “federal courts have a ‘virtually unflagging obligation ……

Continue Reading Comity Of Errors: CA11 Chooses Nondisruption Of State’s Administrative Process Over Constitutional Right To Compensation

A fairly short one from the North Carolina Court of Appeals, but well worth your time to read.

Mata v. N.C. Dep’t of Transportation, No. COA23-1140-1 (July 16, 2024) is the latest in the “Map Act” takings cases that we have long covered. There, N.C. legislature adopted a statute that identified future highway corridors and then “restricted [owners’] fundamental rights to improve, develop, and subdivide their property for an unlimited period of time.” Kirby v. N.C. Dep’t of Transp., 239 N.C. App. 345, 769 S.E.2d 218 (2015), aff’d, 368 N.C. 847, 786 S.E.2d 919 (2016). The Map Act also classified these properties as eligible for a 20% to 50% reduction of the appraised value for property tax purposes.

In Kirby, the North Carolina Supreme Court held that the restrictions the Act imposed amounted to a taking. In response, the N.C. legislature rescinded the Map Act.

The Matas own…

Continue Reading NC App: “Map Act” Takings Are Temporary, Valued Not By Rent But “by taking into account all pertinent factors”

If there’s a money quote in yesterday’s opinion by the Supreme Court of Nevada which “wholly affirm[ed] a trial court judgment awarding $48 million in just compensation for Las Vegas’s regulatory taking in City of Las Vegas v. 180 Land Co., LLC, No. 24-13605 (Apr. 18, 2024), it might just be this sentence:

Although the City rejected 180 Land’s development proposals, its representatives had previously recognized the site’s ability to be developed residentially.

Slip op. at 8.

That alone should tell you where this one is ultimately headed. But let’s break it down and see how this got there.

Residential PUD Zoning

It started off well for the property owner, who owned land it wanted to use as a golf course, part of a (much) larger 2,200 acre ranch. The city preliminarily approved a request to zone the proposed golf course for residential PUD (planned unit development – which…

Continue Reading $48 Million The Hard Zoning Way: Thanks To NIMBYs And NIMTOOs, Las Vegas Must Pony Up A Lucas Takings Judgment