INVERSE CONDEMNATION

Governments may sometimes take actions that limit the use of your property. Typically, when the government plans on taking your property for a public purpose they institute a condemnation action using their powers of eminent domain. A more insidious inverse condemnation example is when the government action does not produce an obvious taking, such as acquisition of your land to build a road, but nonetheless significantly impacts the landowner’s property value. In these instances, a Kentucky landowner may bring an inverse condemnation lawsuit to hold the government accountable for the limitations they have created on your property.

Inverse condemnation may be a direct, physical taking of or interference with real or personal property by a public entity. For example, inverse condemnation actions have been successfully brought in the following situations:

• Where government construction caused flooding on property
• Where government construction caused sewage to escape on property
• Where government construction cause interference with land stability
• Significant interference with access to property