When the New Jersey Schools Construction Corporation (NJSCC) set out to acquire the owners’ land, it deposited $326,000. When faced with the owner’s appraisal of $2,250,000, it was born again and offered $1,480,000. The case settled for $1,825,000, or almost six times the amount of the original offer.
And guess what? After NJSCC acquired the subject property and razed the owners’ newly erected building, it realized that it was out of money, so it abandoned its effort to construct the new school. See N.J. Schools Construction Corp. v. Lopez, 990 A.2d 667 (N.J.App.Div. 2010), and don’t miss footnote 8.
Your tax money at work.