Eminent domain

Eminent domain (the United States or the Philippines), also known as a compulsory purchase or acquisition (the Republic of Ireland, United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia) is the power of the national government, province or state to take private properties for public use. It does not include the power to take and transfer the ownership of private properties from one owner to another without a valid public purpose.

The most common uses of property taken under eminent domain were for roads, government buildings and public utilities. In the mid-20th century, a new application for eminent domain was pioneered, under which the government could take the property and transfer it under a private third party. This was initially only done to properties that were deemed "blighted" or called a "development impediment", on the principles that such properties had negative impacts against the owners of surrounding properties.