Athanasios Gromitsaris, Expropriations, Takings - ius-publicum

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fers new potential for profit-making and innovation in order to ensure the improvement of
economic structures and employment situation within the country. The Federal Constitu-
tional Court requires that these aspects of public welfare be explicitly differentiated and
mentioned as part and parcel of such structural policies as well as objectives of the relevant
legislative expropriatory enactment. 93
4.5 Amount of the compensation
The amount of the compensation for expropriation must be determined by estab-
lishing an equitable balance between the public interest and the interests of those affected
and involved. The legislature will have to set limits on the amount of compensation payable
to the aggrieved person in accordance with the request of balancing the public and private
interests involved, whereas the executive will have to implement and fulfil the legal frame-
work by specifying the compensation amount within the limits laid down by the legislature.
In case of dispute regarding the amount of compensation recourse may be had, pursuant to
Article 14.3 sentence 4 of the Basic Law, to the ordinary courts which will also have to ob-
serve the requirement of a fair balancing between the public and private interests involved.
Under the weighing of interests principle no payment of a token compensation would be
allowed, and no full compensation at a fair market value would be necessary. 94 Between
these two extremes, the courts, in determining the amount of compensation, will have to
take into account to what extent the expropriated property has been achieved or acquired
through the owner´s own work or, rather, it was due to a series of lucky coincidences and
governmental arrangements and measures. The significance of an owner´s own investment
of work or money in a property use is illustrated by § 154 I Federal Building Code. If bene-
fits accrue to the owner of a property situated within a formally designated redevelopment
area, without any exertion on her/his side, merely from the enactment of a zoning regula-
93 BVerfGE 74, 267 (287 et sequ.).
94 BGHZ 67, 190( 192).
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