Compensation
The harm done to the land you keep, and the component offers most often understate.
Severance damages compensate the reduction in value of the property left behind after part of it has been acquired. They exist because a taking does not only remove land, it changes what the rest of the parcel is.
Section 73.071 of the Florida Statutes puts severance damages, along with value and business damages, to the jury where the parties cannot agree. On most partial takings this is the element that decides whether an offer was reasonable.
The short answer
Severance damages are established by valuing the property before the taking and the remainder afterwards. If that comparison is missing from the appraisal, the claim has not been assessed.
Relocated entrances, medians and turning movements.
Read moreThe residue and what it will still support.
Read moreThe pattern that produces severance.
Read moreCorridors that divide a holding.
Read moreSevered blocks and interrupted water management.
Read moreLost parking and circulation.
Read moreThe parcel as it stood, at highest and best use.
Separately, as its own component.
With the project built and the take made.
The reduction in the remainder is the severance damage.
Where a practical fix exists, the cost to cure may be relevant. Where the fix does not work, the damage stands.
Section 73.071 puts the question to a jury where the parties disagree.
The single most frequent omission. If the plans move a driveway, the appraisal must account for it.
On a commercial site, losing rows or turning room reduces value well beyond the ground occupied.
Traffic, noise and light reaching a home that previously had a verge between it and the road.
Awkward triangles and strips left beside a corridor are often unusable, and that is a loss.
Drainage interrupted by an embankment or corridor affects far more than the strip.
Test any assumed fix against what is actually possible on the ground.
No. They must be established by evidence of the reduction in value of the remainder, which is why the before and after analysis matters so much.
Section 73.071 puts value, severance damages and business damages to a jury where the parties cannot agree.
No. Severance damages compensate the reduction in the value of the land you keep. Business damages under section 73.071(3)(b) compensate harm to a business operating on the property. Both can arise on the same taking.
Ask for the before and after valuation of the remainder and check what it assumed about access, shape and use.
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