What compulsory acquisition is

Compulsory acquisition — αναγκαστική απαλλοτρίωση — is the taking of private property by the state, a municipality, a community board or a utility for a declared public purpose: a road, a school, a utility network, a public open space. You do not choose whether to sell. What you are entitled to is compensation, and the amount of it is a valuation question rather than an administrative one.

Requisition is the related power to take temporary possession or use, leaving ownership where it is. You are then paid for the loss of use, and for any damage done, not for the property.

How an acquisition usually proceeds

The shape is usually the same, whatever the authority and the scheme.

Notice. The authority gives notice that it intends to acquire, identifying the land by registration and plan. A period for objections runs from that point, whether or not you have taken advice.
The authority's offer. The acquiring body assesses compensation, generally through the public valuation service, and puts a figure to you.
Your claim. You may submit your own assessment, supported by your own valuation and by evidence of the losses you say you have suffered.
Negotiation. Most acquisitions settle here, and the settlement tends to sit closer to whichever side has documented its position properly.
Reference to court. Where the parties cannot agree, the compensation is determined judicially, on the evidence each side puts forward.

The first offer is an opening position, not a determination. And the evidence that decides the outcome is easiest to gather at the start.

What the compensation is meant to cover

A valuer approaches the claim as a set of heads, each proved separately.

The value of what is taken. The market value of the land or building acquired, assessed as if sold in the ordinary market, with no discount because you had no choice.
Severance. Where a holding is split — a strip off a frontage, a corner cut away, a field divided by an alignment — the parts left may be worth less together than the whole was.
Injurious affection. Where what is left is made worse by the scheme or by the works: lost access or frontage, an awkward shape, exposure to a road, an interrupted irrigation line.
Disturbance. Losses that flow from being displaced rather than from the value of land — removal and reinstatement, professional fees, adapting what remains, business losses where they can be evidenced. These are proved with invoices and records, not assertions.

Not every head arises on every acquisition. Where one does, it must be identified and quantified: heads that are not claimed are not paid.

The valuation date and the effect of the scheme

The valuation date fixes the market against which the property is measured. Values move, and the date decides which market applies. It is set by the procedure, not by when you instruct a valuer, so a report written to today's market for an earlier taking answers the wrong question.

The scheme itself must be disregarded. Value is assessed as though the authority's project did not exist — neither the uplift it brings nor the blight it casts. You are not paid for the uplift a new road brings to the frontage you keep, and you are not paid less because the announcement of that road froze your land for years. Separating the effect of the scheme from ordinary market movement is where two valuers most often part company. Note also that the Land Registry's mass-appraisal figure is not market value; see General Valuation and market value.

Partial takings and the before-and-after approach

Where the whole property goes, the claim is comparatively simple. Where part goes, the reliable method is to value the holding twice: as it stood before the taking, and as it is left, with the retained land in its new shape, access and planning position. The difference, after allowing for the land taken, exposes the severance and injurious affection that a rate per square metre applied to the acquired strip would miss.

The harm sits in the land you keep rather than the land you lose. A narrow strip along a frontage can cost far more than its area suggests if it removes the access point, pushes back the building line, or takes the plot below the size at which it can be developed. The analysis must be set out so the other side can test it.

Road widening lines, reservations and planning lines

Not every interference is an acquisition. A road widening line, a reservation for a future public work, or a planning line drawn across a parcel can sterilise part of it long before anyone serves a notice. The strip is still yours, but you cannot build on it, it may not count towards what you are allowed to build, and a buyer's lawyer will find it.

The questions are practical. How much of the plot is affected, and where does it sit? Does the remainder still support the development the zone would allow, at the coverage, building factor and height that apply? And how does the market price a plot in that condition, given that the discount buyers apply is often larger than the loss of area? See land and development site valuation.

Evidence, and why the record matters

A claim is worth what stands behind it. We work from:

comparable transactions in the same zone and locality, adjusted for size, frontage, access, planning position and date, rather than asking prices;
the planning position of the land taken and of the land retained — zone, permitted uses, building factor, coverage, height and any constraint recorded against the parcel;
the site as it stood before the works: photographs, cadastral and site plans, measurements of frontage and depth, access points, boundary walls, trees and crops, wells and irrigation, and any building affected.

The last item is the one owners lose. Once machinery is on site, the property you are being compensated for no longer exists in a form anyone can inspect. Photograph everything, with dates, before anything is moved.

What to do when a notice arrives

If a notice has been served, four things matter more than anything else.

Do not accept the first offer without an independent figure. You cannot judge an offer without knowing what the property is worth and which heads of claim apply.
Keep every document. Notices, plans, letters and envelopes showing the date of service.
Record the site now, before works, clearance or fencing begin.
Take advice before you sign anything. An acceptance, a receipt or a consent can close heads of claim you have not yet quantified.

We work alongside your lawyer rather than in place of one: the objection and any reference to court are theirs, the value and the heads of claim are ours. If a claim is referred to court we prepare the valuation evidence and, if required, appear as expert, our duty being to the court — see expert witness and court valuations. Where a property is also subject to enforcement by a lender, see forced sale, foreclosure and compulsory acquisition.

For owners: negotiating the figure

An acquiring authority opens with its own figure. That figure is prepared by or for the acquirer, on the acquirer's evidence, and it is an opening position rather than a settlement. An owner who answers it with an independent valuation is negotiating on the same terms; an owner who answers it with an opinion is not.

What moves a compensation figure upwards is rarely argument. It is evidence: comparable sales that the authority did not use, the planning position of the land as it stood before the scheme, the area actually taken measured against the plan, the effect of the taking on what is left, and the items of disturbance the owner can document. Our report sets each of those out with the reasoning behind it, in a form that can be handed to the authority, put in front of your lawyer, or produced in court if the claim is referred.

Come to us before you accept anything. Once an offer is signed the negotiation is over, and the cost of an independent valuation is small against the difference it can make to the award.

For communities and acquiring authorities

The same work is needed from the other side. Where a community council, a municipality or a public body takes land or part of a plot for a road, a widening, a school, a square, a pumping station or any other public use, each affected owner is entitled to compensation, and the authority needs a defensible figure for every one of them before it can settle.

We prepare those compensation reports as a set: each affected parcel identified from the cadastral plan and the acquisition drawing, the area taken and the area retained, the value of what is taken, and, where the taking splits or damages a holding, severance and injurious affection assessed on the same basis across every owner in the scheme. Consistency matters here as much as the individual figures — owners talk to each other, and a set of reports prepared on one method, at one date, on one body of evidence is what allows an authority to justify what it is offering and to settle without litigation.

We act for one side or the other in any given scheme, never both, and we run a conflict check before accepting the instruction.

Instructing us

Tell us what has been served, on which land and by which authority, and send the notice, the title deed and any plan showing the line or area to be taken. If a period is already running, say so first. We confirm scope and fee in writing before any work begins. Reports are prepared to RICS Valuation — Global Standards (the Red Book, December 2024 edition, effective 31 January 2025) by an ETEK-registered chartered valuer. Fees are at what a valuation costs, and you can reach us through the contact page.

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