Virginia General Assembly Continues Legislative Reform of Eminent Domain Procedures in 2025

The 2025 Virginia General Assembly enacted a couple of eminent domain focused pieces of legislation this year, with the majority of the meaningful reform being contained in SB1158.  State Senator Mark Obenshain, SB1158’s patron, has been a stalwart for bi-partisan, common sense property rights reform for over a decade and again convinced the General Assembly and Governor Youngkin to make more fair and uniform the process by which private property is taken for all public uses.

Sen. Obenshain’s bill focused primarily on procedural changes to shorten the condemnation process, provide property owners more clarity from the outset about is being taken from them and why and to unify different parts of the Code of Virginia that applied to the same procedures.

Virginia’s eminent domain code is spread out in many different Code Titles corresponding to different types of condemning agencies.  This structural outline has given rise to many oddities and nuances in the process, payment and notice that property owners are required to received depending on the agency that is taking their property.  Over the last decade or so the General Assembly has done much to ensure that property owners receive similar treatment and experience the same process regardless of who is taking their property, but much work remains to ensure this goal is achieved.  Until Virginia fixes the structural flaws in its Code that gives rise to the disparate treatment of property owners in condemnation proceedings the opportunity for mischief by particular condemnors and unequal treatment of property owners will continue.

One of the most significant reforms of 2025 was the shortening from 180 to 100 days the period between the recording of a Certificate of Take and when the condemning agency must file the lawsuit, the Petition for Condemnation.  In Virginia quick-take is accomplished by simply recording a Certificate of Take in the land records and depositing the amount the condemnor estimated as just compensation.  For reasons still not fully clear, the Code previously allowed a 6-month “do nothing” period during which the condemning agency did not have to do anything with the landowner and could, in theory and in practice, complete the public use project for which it had condemned the property even while the owner’s right to just compensation had not been fulfilled.  This legislation cuts that wait time nearly in half so that owners can get to court sooner.  Importantly, the new legislation gives the parties the ability to mutually defer the filing of the lawsuit if they agree it is appropriate for a particular situation.  This option is new to the Code and has been welcomed by counsel on both sides of these cases as a helpful tool to allow negotiation or other matters to be worked out without either party having to spend resources getting into Court.

Another reform related to the quick-take process requires the condemnor to include with its Certificate of Take the actual public use project plans for which the property is being taken and a description of the rights and purposes for which any easements are being taken.  Surprisingly, Virginia law has previously allowed the quick-taking of property to occur without informing the property owner of what rights are being taken from them and how they will be used for the project necessitating the condemnation.  The 2025 legislation ends condemnors’ ability to take property and leave an owner in the dark as to how it will be used and what rights specifically have been acquired.

Other improvements include:

• clarification of certain procedures for when a property owner must advance the condemnation suit if the condemnor does not do so by day 100
• the calculation of interest at various stages to be “compounded daily”
• providing symmetry to the notice requirements prior to the exercise of the quick-take power
• simplifying the statutory requirements for condemnors to provide relevant title work to landowners.

It is encouraging to see the Virginia General Assembly work in a bi-partisan fashion to better protect the rights of landowners losing their property to public use projects and ensure that no matter the condemnor landowners’ rights are safeguarded by the same procedures.

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