Florida Eminent Domain Law Blog

Originally enacted in 1995, the Bert J. Harris, Jr., Private Property Rights Protection Act (codified as Chapter 70, Florida Statutes 2007) provides landowners a statutory remedy for government regulation of real property that may act to “inordinately burden, restrict, or limit private property rights without amounting to a taking under the State Constitution …”   A bill proposing to clarify and strengthen the Harris Act has been drafted and is being circulated for consideration during the 2008 Legislative Session in Tallahassee.  In addition to a number of technical corrections, key revisions to the statute include:

• a reduction of the notice period an owner must give the government from 180 to 120 days before filing a Harris Act claim in circuit court;

• an increase of the statute of limitations from one (1) to two (2) years after application of the regulation;

• a clarification of what constitutes the application of a regulation to property;

• a clarification on the extent of the State’s waiver of sovereign immunity for claims brought under the Act, conforming the statute to recent judicial interpretation;

• inclusion of governmentally-imposed development moratoria extending over one (1) year as actionable under the Harris Act.