Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 11, 1994 TAG: 9410110136
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: VIRGINIA EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Circuit Judge Clifford Weckstein's decision allows the state to return to a developer land it claimed in 1989, before learning that the property harbored a dormant landfill.
The case involves Virginia's escheat process, under which the state takes over unclaimed land, usually after the owner dies without any heirs or abandons a piece of unwanted property. The escheated land - which usually has been identified by unpaid property taxes - is later sold at public auction, with proceeds going to the state's Literary Fund.
In the Roanoke case, a parcel of land owned by Eastland Developers, located on Mary Linda Avenue near the Roanoke Center for Industry and Technology, was escheated to the state in 1989.
It was only after the escheators, the Roanoke law firm of James and Ross Hart, had claimed the property that they discovered it was the site of a toxic waste dump. The property's owner, who has since died, used the land as a private landfill for construction debris until the mid-1980s, Ross Hart said.
But when the state tried to return the land to Eastland instead of putting it up for auction, a lawyer for the owner's estate argued that the escheator could not change his mind.
Weckstein disagreed. In an 11-page opinion, the judge wrote that an escheator can return property prior to a sale if he finds that the escheat of the parcel was "improper, for any reason."
Although no one seems to want a toxic dump, the dispute centered more on financial concerns. If the escheators had kept the property, Hart said, the state would ultimately be responsible for all of the cleanup cost. But if the land went back to the original owner, the federal government would finance up to 90 percent of the cost.
by CNB