Tag Archives: lawsuits

Pipelines, property values, and insurance

What happens to your property values or homeowners insurance a pipeline company takes your land to gouge a path for its fracked methane or oil? It affects the property values not just of your land, but of your neighbors’, and yours and their property insurance. It also opens the pipeline company and associated businesses to civil lawsuits. And FERC’s assertion that federal law supersedes state and local laws for eminent domain does nothing to stop such lawsuits; many such lawsuits are winning lately. Not even the federal government is immune from pipeline lawsuits.

Stop the Pipeline has a good article, mostly about land near fracking wells: LOSS OF PROPERTY VALUES, DIFFICULTY GETTING MORTGAGES AND HOME INSURANCE,

“Another illustration is the gentleman who has had 63 acres for sale now for several years. He purchased the property as an investment, and now has three pipelines and an above ground valve. He can not give this property away. As he reaches retirement age his retirement has been stolen from him. This is no different than Enron or any other scandal, only it has been made legal thievery. There are two other pieces of property that have been for sale for several years, one of which is a large parcel of about 70 acres and the other is about 10 acres.”

The insurance industry has been studying this issue for years, and wants to steer clear of it. Continue reading Pipelines, property values, and insurance