Compensation for encroachment on agricultural properties

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this thesis has been to investigateprinciples and methods for determining fair compensation forencroachment on agricultural property by roads and railways.The symbiosis of law and property valuation runs like a scarletthread through the study. The compensation rules of theExpropriation Act formthe legal basis for determining theamount of compensation payable.Encroachment moneyfor damage to property is payable atan amount equalling the reduction of the market value of theproperty, other economic damage to the property owner beingcompensated for under the heading ofother compensation. The thesis has shown that both thesekinds of compensation shall be determined by alegalvaluation procedure. In the case of encroachmentmoney this means among other things that there may bejustification for using a certain margin of safety in relationto an amount estimated by conventional valuation methods. Inthe event of profit-yielding properties being affected, it isappropriate for the "other compensation" item to be computed asthe difference between the effect on the yield value and theencroachment money. In addition to analysing the current stateof the law on compensation, the two main sections of the thesisaddress thebasic principleswhereby the reduction of the yieldvalue and market value should be determined. Considering thatmany landowners are often affected simultaneously in thevaluing ituation concerned, a proposed standardisation ofdifferent value parameters constitutes an important result ofthis study.Keywords:expropriation, valuation, encroachment onagricultural properties, land acquisition for roads andrailways, legal principles of valuation, fair compensation,basic valuation methodology.