Cy Pres wrote:

You have no right to a profit, reasonable or otherwise, any more
than you have a right for people to fold to your bluffs in poker.

Cy Pres, you're taking it out of context. The Land Trust has a
right to what it bought. They do not have an absolute right to make
a profit, and none have claimed that they do, but an offer to buy
the land from them at an effective loss and at less than the going
rate for land in that area, is not good faith.

I'm with Dick Adams and Andre Dubus here, it seems like the
county messed up.

The original offer represents a loss. How is that "more than
reasonable"?

What is the typical price for land per square foot in
that neighborhood?

David Chesler <chesler@post.harvard.edu> wrote:

,,,,

I'm with Dick Adams and Andre Dubus here, it seems like the
county messed up.

There is definitely that possibility, though there has
been nothing presented that indicates that is actually
what happened.

In article <erjqa4donpkmi9k1imt3cnv6me4ibftq77@4ax.com>,
Seth <sethb@panix.com> wrote:
What is the typical price for land per square foot in
that neighborhood?

Correction, the appropriate question is what is the typical price for
_similar_ (i.e. "unbuildable", *unimproved*, _without_ utilities, and
otherwise =unusable=) property in that neighborhood?"

2) cut their losses, and sell to the only _available_ buyer, *at*the*buyers*
offered price.

The offer was $500 for the whole parcel. Right or wrong in anyones
opinion, its our land and, as printed in the St. Pete Times, for now
we want 1.5 million for it.

In article <2rvq94l9062cjj8o1gvjdjvq4mogndt...@4ax.com>,

grendal <im_gu...@hotmail.com> wrote:
The bottom line, you walk in to court, saying that the property is
worth 1.5 million (not what you paid for it) and you want these people
off your land.

Why would he tell the court what he thinks the property is worth? I
don't recall any exception to trespass law that says trespass is OK if
the land is not worth a lot. It should be sufficient in court for him
to want them off his land, and for him to show proof that it *is* his
land.

--
--Tim Smith

On Aug 6, 6:14 am, LandTrust...@yahoo.com wrote:

The offer was $500 for the whole parcel. Right or wrong in anyones
opinion, its our land and, as printed in the St. Pete Times, for now
we want 1.5 million for it.

IOW, they want to extort about $71,500 from each of the 21 adjoining
homeowners for their minuscule portion of it.

In article <8lo7b491b9vn0ugvd39uocu6n7e8cliqvr@4ax.com>,
John Mianowski <spamfree@skytex.net> wrote:
On Aug 6, 6:14 am, LandTrust...@yahoo.com wrote:

The offer was $500 for the whole parcel. Right or wrong in anyones
opinion, its our land and, as printed in the St. Pete Times, for now
we want 1.5 million for it.

IOW, they want to extort about $71,500 from each of the 21 adjoining
homeowners for their minuscule portion of it.

Where do you get "extort"? It isn't extortion to demand a high price
for property you own.

In article <8lo7b491b9vn0ugvd39uocu6n7e8cli...@4ax.com>,
John Mianowski <spamf...@skytex.net> wrote:

On Aug 6, 6:14 am, LandTrust...@yahoo.com wrote:

The offer was $500 for the whole parcel. Right or wrong in anyones
opinion, its our land and, as printed in the St. Pete Times, for now
we want 1.5 million for it.

IOW, they want to extort about $71,500 from each of the 21 adjoining
homeowners for their minuscule portion of it.

Where do you get "extort"? It isn't extortion to demand a high price
for property you own.

Seth

IOW, they want to extort about $71,500 from each of the 21 adjoining
homeowners for their minuscule portion of it.

Where do you get "extort"? It isn't extortion to demand a high price
for property you own.

The extortion would, possibly, come into play where the trust is saying "pay
us this amount or we'll do X" (where X is some act that the homeowner would
find objectional.) Since the trust is not doing X simply because they want
to do X but is doing it in order to force the homeowner to pay something,
that seems to qualify as extortion even when X is legal.

It's much like if I said "pay me $5,000 or I'll tell your neighbors about
the affair with the school marm." Telling them about the affair is legal.
Threatening to tell them about the affair simply to get money from you is
extortion. Setting up a homeless shelter on the property is legal (assuming
it's with-in zoning, etc.) Setting up a homeless shelter in order to get
people to pay an inflated price for some worthless land sure sounds like
extortion.

On Aug 27, 6:23 am, se...@panix.com (Seth) wrote:
In article <8lo7b491b9vn0ugvd39uocu6n7e8cli...@4ax.com>,
John Mianowski <spamf...@skytex.net> wrote:

On Aug 6, 6:14 am, LandTrust...@yahoo.com wrote:

The offer was $500 for the whole parcel. Right or wrong in anyones
opinion, its our land and, as printed in the St. Pete Times, for now
we want 1.5 million for it.

IOW, they want to extort about $71,500 from each of the 21 adjoining
homeowners for their minuscule portion of it.

Where do you get "extort"? It isn't extortion to demand a high price
for property you own.

It is extortion.

This issue is pretty much a moot point.

The landowners trust can do nothing but attempt to make life difficult
for the neighbors.
They can't build on the land.

They can't really do anything that would
require a permit to change the land.
They can't subdivide the land.

All they can do is pay money to maintain the land and pay property tax
on the land.

All assuming that the county's tax sale was legal in the first place.
If not, then they can only get back the amount that they paid for the
land.

This "landowners association" has no upside potential with this land
other than to sell it to the residents who thought that the land was
part of their property.

The reason you can call it extortion is that the landowners
association has only one option for the land.

Selling it back to the landowners at an inflated price.

They are also using intimidation
tactics as a way to get their deal done. "Threatening to try and build
a homeless shelter or use it for parking construction vehicles...."

Sorry but the best thing to happen would be for the county to rescind
the sale.

In article <8m1db450ur0vsjeue6c7rtjgigj4ttjcp4@4ax.com>,
prabbit2@shamrocksgf.com wrote:
IOW, they want to extort about $71,500 from each of the 21 adjoining
homeowners for their minuscule portion of it.

Where do you get "extort"? It isn't extortion to demand a high price
for property you own.

The extortion would, possibly, come into play where the trust is saying "pay
us this amount or we'll do X" (where X is some act that the homeowner would
find objectional.) Since the trust is not doing X simply because they want
to do X but is doing it in order to force the homeowner to pay something,
that seems to qualify as extortion even when X is legal.

By your argument, Comcast is extorting me. They will take away most of
the TV channels I receive if I don't pay them. This is something that I
would find objectionable. It seems to meet all your criteria for
extortion, assuming Comcast's removal of my TV would be to try to get me
to pay, rather than because they simply do not want me to watch TV.

I have a book (that's probably worth maybe $3,000 at most according to
an appraiser, probably a lot less). =A0I won't sell it for less than
$30,000. =A0Is that extortion?

And I haven't seen any reason to believe that the county's sale was
invalid.

Best for whom? =A0Does the county have the right to rescind the sale?

By your argument, Comcast is extorting me. They will take away most of
the TV channels I receive if I don't pay them. This is something that I
would find objectionable. It seems to meet all your criteria for
extortion, assuming Comcast's removal of my TV would be to try to get me
to pay, rather than because they simply do not want me to watch TV.

No, it wouldn't meet the criteria. They would be threatening to NOT do
something for you if you didn't pay "Don't pay us and we won't provide you
programming.") There is a difference.

On Aug 29, 5:21=A0am, se...@panix.com (Seth) wrote:

I have a book (that's probably worth maybe $3,000 at most according to
an appraiser, probably a lot less). =A0I won't sell it for less than
$30,000. =A0Is that extortion?

Strawman. The asking of the inflated price is not the extortive act.
Taking actions that have no apparent purpose but COERCE the purchaser
to comply against his/her free will is extortion.

And I haven't seen any reason to believe that the county's sale was
invalid.

All ready mentioned previously in this thread...
http://www.818landtrust.org/legalletter1.htm

Best for whom? =A0Does the county have the right to rescind the sale?
Potentially. It is probably for a court to decide.

In article <60aib4lg071asdnmmadi85dsu5burkp...@4ax.com>,



Everything is for a court to decide, if it gets that far.

Seth

I'll give you an example from my personal experience. My neighbor
discovered that my driveway passes over a tiny sliver of his land
(like a 2 ft X 10 ft piece) right where it meets the street. He
threatens to put a fence across my driveway, unless we come up with
some (to our minds) unreasonable sum of money. Three lawyers (ours,
our title insurance company's and his) tell him that he could get into
serious legal trouble if he did so, civil AND criminal if he did so. I
didn't inquire into the specifics, but very soon after he talked with
his lawyer, we negotiated an easement for about 5% of the original
demand. He owned the land, he had the deed, he had the surveys (ours
and his) to show that he owned the land, but somehow the lawyers
reached a concensus that if the cops came over, they would come over
to stop him or even arrest him, apparently, if he tried to put up a
fence. I suspect that if he had asked for the a more reasonable
amount, he might have found the judge more sympathetic.