West Virginia · statute · W. Va. Code ch. 54 · 49 active provisions
The United States of America, the State of West Virginia, and every corporate body politic heretofore or hereafter created by the Constitution or statutes of the state, and every corporation heretofore or hereafter organized under the laws of, or authorized to transact business in, the state, for any purpose of interna…
(a) The public uses for which private property may be taken or damaged are as follows: (1) For the construction, maintenance and operation of railroad and traction lines (including extension, lateral and branch lines, spurs, switches and sidetracks), canals, public landings, wharves, bridges, public roads, streets, all…
Prior to initiation of any condemnation proceeding pursuant to slum and blight, the applicant must make a reasonable attempt to notify all parties subject to a petition for condemnation provided in section two of this article, and attempt to enter into negotiations for purchase of the property with the owners. The appl…
Any incorporated company or body politic, invested with the power of eminent domain under this chapter, by its officers, servants and agents may enter upon lands for the purpose of examining the same, surveying and laying out the lands, ways and easements which it desires to appropriate, provided no injury be done to t…
If the applicant be the State of West Virginia, or any agency or political subdivision thereof, and if the applicant shall have given the person residing thereon, if any, at least three days' notice of its intent, the applicant, by its authorized contractors, officers, agents, and employees, may enter and bring necessa…
No railroad company, or other company of internal improvement, in locating and constructing its lines shall invade the dwelling house of any person, or any space within sixty feet thereof, without the consent of the owner, unless necessary so to do in passing through a narrow gorge, defile or narrow pass, or to avoid u…
No line for the transportation of natural or artificial gas under pressure or for the transportation of petroleum oil or for the transportation of coal and its derivatives and mixtures and combinations thereof with any substance, and no tank for storing oil or natural gas, shall be laid or constructed within one hundre…
(1) The West Virginia Housing Development Fund, in exercising the power of eminent domain as provided for in section six, article eighteen, chapter thirty-one of this code, shall allege and prove, and the trier of fact shall find, in addition to other requirements of the law, the following: (a) That resort is had to co…
The land acquired by condemnation by any railroad company for its main depots, termini, buildings, machine shops, railroad yards and railroad facilities, and the land or interest therein so acquired by any company incorporated for a work of internal improvement along its line generally, or for any other public use auth…
If any company shall acquire land under the provisions of this chapter, and, in the construction and operation of its work of internal improvement, obstruct or impede the owner of residue of the tract of land from crossing the land so acquired, when such crossing is essential for the proper use of the remaining land of…
Any corporation, or body politic, authorized to acquire private property for public use under the provisions of this chapter, may acquire an estate in fee simple, or any lesser estate therein. As to any land in which a railroad company shall acquire an estate less than a fee, for the construction of any part of its rai…
If any entity having the power of eminent domain under other provisions of this article including any railroad company, canal company, company organized for the purpose of transporting oil or natural or manufactured gas, or both, by means of pipeline, company organized for the purpose of transporting coal and its deriv…
Any railroad company may, in the manner provided by this chapter, enter upon and take from any land adjacent to or in the vicinity of its road, wood, earth, gravel, shale, stone or other material necessary to be used in constructing, maintaining, repairing, operating, enlarging or altering its road, and in like manner…
The power of eminent domain conferred on any incorporated company or body politic by sections one and two of this article shall not be deemed or construed to be limited or restricted in any manner by the enumeration by any other provision of this code of any specific purpose for which such power may be exercised.
The owner or operator of a coal fired steam electric power plant, the output of which plant is for public use, shall have the right to construct, maintain and operate roads and rail facilities for transporting fuel coal to such power plant as a part of said plant and the same shall be considered to be for public use.
In any case in which property may lawfully be taken for a public use, application may be made by petition to the circuit court or the judge thereof in vacation, of the county in which the estate is situated, to appoint commissioners to ascertain a just compensation to the owners of the estate proposed to be taken. If a…
The pleadings shall be in writing and shall be verified. The petition shall describe with reasonable certainty the property proposed to be taken, and may embrace one or more parcels of land where the ownership is the same. If an estate less than a fee is proposed to be taken, the petition shall describe with reasonable…
In addition to the requirements set forth in section two of this article, a public utility, person or corporation required under section eleven-a, article two, chapter twenty-four of this code to obtain a certificate of public convenience and necessity for the construction and location of a high voltage transmission li…
Of such application ten days' notice shall be served on the owners, claimants and persons holding liens, whose interests the applicant seeks to condemn, and the notice may be given either before the petition is presented or afterwards. But where the owners of the real estate proposed to be taken or the persons holding…
(a) The court shall protect the rights of any person who is under a legal disability because he or she is a protected person, as defined in section two (a), article one, chapter forty-four-a of this code, or incarcerated, and whose ownership interest, lien or other claim to property requires them to be a party in a con…
At the time of the filing of an eminent domain petition, the applicant may file a notice of the pendency of such proceeding as provided in section two, article eleven, chapter fifty-five of this code, containing the information therein required so far as the provisions therein are applicable. From the time of such fili…
When it shall appear to the court, or the judge thereof in vacation, that proper notice has been given and that the case is one in which the applicant has lawful right to take property for the purposes stated in the petition, upon making just compensation, five disinterested freeholders shall be appointed commissioners…
The appointment shall be made as follows: Thirteen disinterested freeholders shall be nominated by the court, or the judge thereof in vacation, of whom the applicant may strike off four from the list, and the defendant or defendants may also strike off four, and after eight names are stricken from the list the remainin…
Before entering upon the discharge of his duties, each commissioner shall take an oath, before some person authorized by law to administer it, that he will honestly, faithfully, and impartially ascertain to the best of his skill and judgment what will be a just compensation to the persons entitled thereto for the prope…
Before entering upon the discharge of his duties, each commissioner shall be informed generally, in writing or otherwise, by the court, or the judge thereof in vacation, as to the duties and responsibilities of a condemnation commissioner and as to the law applicable to the deliberations of condemnation commissioners.