Your business suffered.
You deserve full compensation.

Eminent domain is the government's power to take private property for public use — road widening, utility corridors, transportation projects, and similar public works. Florida law requires that business owners be justly compensated when a taking causes demonstrable economic harm to their business.

Business damage claims under Florida Statute § 73.071 are available when a partial taking of property causes business losses that cannot be reasonably avoided through relocation or mitigation. This includes lost profits during construction periods, sustained losses due to reduced visibility or access, loss of parking, and disruption to operations that existed before the taking.

What most business owners don't realize is that the government's initial offer is almost always insufficient. Government appraisers work for the agency doing the taking. Their job is to minimize what gets paid out. Your job — with the right advisors — is to document what you actually lost and fight for the full amount you are entitled to under Florida law.

Calculating business damages in an eminent domain proceeding requires more than estimating lost sales. It requires a rigorous, methodology-driven analysis that can withstand adversarial scrutiny — because the government will challenge every number.

Our forensic accountants begin with a thorough review of your historical financial records: tax returns, profit-and-loss statements, bank records, and industry benchmarks. We establish a baseline picture of your business performance before the taking — what normal looked like. From there, we isolate the impact of the taking itself, separating government-caused losses from other business factors.

The analysis typically includes: lost profits during the construction period when access or operations were disrupted, sustained lost profits resulting from permanent changes to visibility, parking, or traffic patterns, and any loss in business value attributable to the taking. We produce a formal damages report that clearly explains our methodology, assumptions, and conclusions — built to hold up in mediation, arbitration, or trial.

Eminent domain proceedings follow a specific legal process in Florida, and the timeline matters. Once you receive notice of a taking, you have limited time to respond, request hearings, and submit your own expert analysis. Engaging qualified advisors early gives you the best chance of a favorable outcome.

We work alongside your eminent domain attorney throughout the process. Our role is to provide the financial backbone of your claim: analyzing your records, quantifying your losses, and preparing a written expert report. When depositions or trial testimony is required, our principals serve as expert witnesses — explaining complex financial analysis in terms that judges and juries can understand.

Most eminent domain business damage claims resolve through negotiation or mediation before trial. A well-documented, credible damages analysis is often the difference between a lowball settlement and one that actually reflects your losses. The government's attorneys know when they are facing a credible expert — and they negotiate accordingly.

Government agencies use appraisers and financial experts who are paid to minimize the compensation they recommend. This is not a conspiracy — it is simply the nature of the process. Their experts use conservative assumptions, apply aggressive discounting to future lost profits, and often ignore non-obvious business impacts like the loss of regular customers who changed their route during a years-long construction project.

Business owners who accept initial government offers without independent analysis consistently receive less than they are entitled to. The gap between a government's first offer and a fair settlement supported by independent expert analysis can be substantial — in many cases, significantly more than the cost of the analysis itself.

Our job is to provide the rigorous, independent financial analysis that levels the playing field. We document what you actually lost, not what the government's expert was willing to concede. That documentation is what creates leverage in negotiations and credibility in court.