I regularly preach that a condemning authority must make sure the legal description in the resolution must match the legal description appraised by the appraiser, and must match the legal description in the petition in eminent domain. Pretty straight-forward.

A decision from this summer points out that the legal description must be clear, also.

In the Altman v Brevard County decision, the County used an easement description having two possible boundaries for one side of the easement. The Fifth District Court of Appeal found that the conflicting easement boundaries in the legal description rendered the County’s petition in eminent “fatally defective” and reversed the trial court’s order of taking.Continue Reading Legal Descriptions for a Condemnation: They Gotta Match — But They Need to be Clear, Too!