Stokely Outdoor’s Sam Stokely is a busy man. He and two other employees run a billboard plant with 808 faces in Oklahoma. He’s also been involved in several billboard condemnations due to the widening of an interstate between Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Stokely gives the following tips on protecting your interests in a billboard condemnation.
What’s going on?
A lot of the major interstates in my area specifically between Tulsa and Oklahoma City they’re widening from 2 lanes to three lanes and in the process they’re also acquiring more land to make the slopes on the hills a lot less grade so they can maintain them better than the steep ones that they had in the past. So that means they’re probably needing to condemn billboards or make you move. I went through that four times in the last year.
Can you move the board rather than take it down?
They allow us to move it back if there’s room. In most instances there’s room to just to move it back. If the billboard moves parallel with the road in in any way you have to re-permit but if you’re moving straight back on the property you don’t have to re permit it.
How does the move work?
You need to make sure you talk to the landowner to make sure they’re OK with moving it back. Then you want to get a survey to make sure you put the billboard in the right place and are not overhanging the new easements. Then the next step is to follow up with the state or any local or federal authorities to make sure they’re OK.
Do they compensate you for moving costs?
The state will usually hire an appraisal firm that will approach you with a first initial offer and it’s your job to look at that offer and try to come up with other reasons why it would cost more than what they’re offering because usually the first offer is kind of low. So you submit more information and costs to them and usually they’ll come back with a better offer on the second time but if you reject that offer they’ll come back one more time with the 3rd and final offer and if you reject that offer then it goes to the lawyers.
What kind of costs did you have to estimate?
The electrician. The crane. I had a lot of build receipts still on hand. So you submit all that and kind of show them the justification of a higher number.
It pays to settle
If you litigate you end up with less because the you have to pay a lawyer now and that cuts into what you’re getting. It also adds delays in getting paid. The first offer is kind of low, the second offer you know you kind of justify all that and the third offer you better take it because it doesn’t get any better. I’ve watched a lot of land owners refuse it and two years ,three years later they still haven’t settled and the the only person that money was the lawyer.
Did you just cut the sign off at grade or did you have to remove the sign footings?
We just cut it off at grade and filled the hole with sand and then capped it off.
How long did negotiating take?
Three to six months.
Treat your landlord as an ally.
The landowner and the sign owner should not settle without each other’s agreement. Both should be in agreement before either one accepts the offer. You have more leverage together than you do separately. In the last condemnation I told the landowner I wouldn’t settle unless he was happy and he agreed to the same for me
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