The traditional answer is that individual landowners could refuse to sell their property, or consent to selling it only at unreasonably high prices, making it difficult or impossible for the condemning authority to build certain infrastructure or other public projects that would benefit the public at large. Condemnation is often used to give the condemning authority a huge tactical advantage over normal buyers of property when negotiating a sale price. An owner dealing with a condemning authority can no longer say “I don’t want to sell,” or “I won’t sell at your low price.” If he could say those things, the sale price might be higher because of negotiation. Instead, in condemnation, once the condemning authority makes its final written offer before filing suit, the landowner is faced with only painful choices—either accept an offer that is too low, or hire an attorney to help fight for a more reasonable price. Condemnors know their final offers put landowners to a difficult choice. And these condemnors want to pay the cheapest price for what they are taking. Condemning authorities know that many landowners who are not experienced in condemnation simply give up and take that low-ball offer. We have seen as many as 70% to 90% of inexperienced landowners on projects accept low offers without even talking to experienced condemnation attorneys, only to later learn that their neighbors achieved much better results by hiring experienced attorneys. Read more about why the government condemns land