Can the Government Take Your Property? Eminent Domain, Forfeiture, and Freezes

Police and prosecutors can seize cash, cars, homes, and other property they believe is connected to a crime and keep it through civil forfeiture, even if the owner is never charged. Federal agencies share forfeited money with local police who help, which critics say creates an incentive to seize. A 2000 federal law added protections for innocent owners, and the Supreme Court held in 2019 that the Excessive Fines Clause applies to states. More than 30 states have changed their forfeiture laws, and a few now require a criminal conviction. Bills in Congress would end federal equitable sharing or require convictions.

Governments use eminent domain to build highways, schools, dams, military bases, and public buildings, and states let some utilities and pipeline companies use it too. Owners are offered fair market value and can go to court if they disagree, and a 1970 law requires federal projects to pay relocation costs. The Interstate Highway System and urban renewal displaced hundreds of thousands of families. In Kelo v. City of New London in 2005 the Supreme Court allowed a city to take homes for a private development plan, prompting more than 40 states to restrict such takings. The federal government has also used eminent domain to acquire land along the southern border for barriers.

The IRS can file liens on property and seize wages, bank accounts, and homes to collect unpaid taxes after notice and a chance to appeal. Under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the President can freeze the assets of foreign governments, companies, and people, and the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control enforces the blocks. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russian central bank assets were frozen, and a 2024 law allowed the President to seize them for Ukraine's benefit. In 1933 a presidential order required Americans to turn in most gold coins and certificates to the government at a fixed price, the broadest property order in modern U.S. history.

Property owners can negotiate, hire their own appraisers, challenge whether a taking serves a public use, and contest seizures in court, and some states pay owners' legal fees when they win. Supporters of these powers say governments need them to build infrastructure, fight crime, collect taxes, and respond to foreign threats. Critics, from libertarian groups to civil rights organizations, say compensation is often too low, forfeiture lets agencies profit, and the burdens fall hardest on people with the least money and political power. Courts and state legislatures continue to redraw the lines.

The Fifth Amendment ends with the words: nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. It does not create the power to take property, which governments already had, but it sets two limits: the taking must be for public use, and the owner must be paid. The Supreme Court applied the rule to the states in 1897. The amendment also guarantees due process, so the government cannot take property without fair procedures, and the Fourth Amendment bars unreasonable seizures.

Since a 1922 decision, the Supreme Court has held that regulations restricting property can be so severe that they count as takings requiring compensation. Recent rulings have favored owners: in 2019 the Court let owners sue local governments directly in federal court, in 2021 it held that a rule giving union organizers access to farms was a taking, in 2023 it unanimously ruled that a county that sold a home for a small tax debt could not keep the rest of the proceeds, and in 2024 it said legislatures are subject to the same limits on permit fees as other officials. Claims against the federal government for compensation usually go to the Court of Federal Claims.