523.040. Appointment of commissioners--duties--notice of property viewing. - Missouri Statutes

Appointment of commissioners--duties--notice of property viewing.

523.040. 1. The court, or judge thereof in vacation, on beingsatisfied that due notice of the pendency of the petition has been given,shall appoint three disinterested commissioners, who shall be residents ofthe county in which the real estate or a part thereof is situated, toassess the damages which the owners may severally sustain by reason of suchappropriation, who, within forty-five days after appointment by the court,which forty-five days may be extended by the court to a date certain withgood cause shown, after applying the definition of fair market valuecontained in subdivision (1) of section 523.001, and after having viewedthe property, shall return to the clerk of such court, under oath, theirreport in duplicate of such assessment of damages, setting forth the amountof damages allowed to the person or persons named as owning or claiming thetract of land condemned, and should more than one tract be condemned in thepetition, then the damages allowed to the owner, owners, claimant orclaimants of each tract, respectively, shall be stated separately, togetherwith a specific description of the tracts for which such damages areassessed; and the clerk shall file one copy of said report in his officeand record the same in the order book of the court, and he shall deliverthe other copy, duly certified by him, to the recorder of deeds of thecounty where the land lies (or to the recorder of deeds of the city of St.Louis, if the land lies in said city) who shall record the same in hisoffice, and index each tract separately as provided in section 59.440,RSMo, and the fee for so recording shall be taxed by the clerk as costs inthe proceedings; and thereupon such company shall pay to the clerk theamount thus assessed for the party in whose favor such damages have beenassessed; and on making such payment it shall be lawful for such company tohold the interest in the property so appropriated for the uses prescribedin this section; and upon failure to pay the assessment, the court may,upon motion and notice by the party entitled to such damages, enforce thepayment of the same by execution, unless the said company shall, within tendays from the return of such assessment, elect to abandon the proposedappropriation of any parcel of land, by an instrument in writing to thateffect, to be filed with the clerk of the court, and entered on the minutesof the court, and as to so much as is thus abandoned, the assessment ofdamages shall be void.

2. Prior to the issuance of any report under subsection 1 of thissection, a commissioner shall notify all parties named in the condemnationpetition no less than ten days prior to the commissioners' viewing of theproperty of the named parties' opportunity to accompany the commissionerson the commissioners' viewing of the property and of the named parties'opportunity to present information to the commissioners.

3. The commissioners shall view the property, hear arguments, andreview other relevant information that may be offered by the parties.

(RSMo 1939 § 1506, A.L. 1945 p. 645, A.L. 1990 H.B. 1070, A.L. 2006 H.B. 1944)

Prior revisions: 1929 § 1342; 1919 § 1793; 1909 § 2362

(1973) St. Louis county charter provisions as to appointment of condemnation appraisers held to supersede provisions of general condemnation statutes. State ex rel. St. Louis County v. Campbell (A.), 498 S.W.2d 833.