A flood of foreclosures in neighborhoods, cities and towns can cause everyone’s real estate equity to plunge. Some towns would like to step-in to protect their communities, but they can’t get the mortgage notes written down to affordable levels for contractual reasons. The solution: use eminent domain to claim the properties for the municipality, then renegotiate them on behalf of struggling homeowners.
Ellen speaks with Cornell professor Robert Hockett, the pre-eminent legal mind behind the emerging eminent domain stratagem, whose idea has been catching on in towns across America, including some of the biggest.