An eminently unfair practice
“Say you buy a car. Drive it around for five years, get plenty of use out of it. Then you decide you paid way too much. You really should have paid half what you did. Or even less. So you go back to the dealership and say the car is worth less now, and you want a refund.
Think you’d get it?
Precisely. Yet this is just the kind of stunt the Virginia Department of Transportation is pulling on James and Janet Ramsey.
The Virginian-Pilot told the tale a few days ago. In 2009, VDOT took a chunk of the Ramseys’ property to build an on/off ramp for I-264. Through a process called quick take, VDOT obtained title to part of their yard. The transportation agency brought in an appraiser, who estimated the value of the Ramseys’ land and damages at just under a quarter-million dollars. VDOT put the money in an escrow account and moved forward with the project.”
Hinkle, Bart. Tri Cities 23 February 2014.