The US government is exactly known for acquiring land by asking nicely.

In fact, we wouldn’t even be a country if our ancestors hadn’t violently taken land from the native people who lived here first.

But apparently this practice of demanding land continues even today, with the government taking its citizen’s land whenever they need it for their own projects.

Just ask this user, who was denied permission on his home renovation until he agreed to “give” the county almost 4,000 square feet of his land for a road expansion.

But he got his revenge when he made them pay for all the propety maintenance he would have had to pay himself!

Check it out!

County ‘forced’ me to give them 15 feet of my property along the street.

I’ve lived at this place for 20 years and decided it was time to build a new home.

Had the plans drawn up and trotted down to the planning department to get the building permit. When they were approved I returned to pay the plan check fees.

Then I was informed that the county planned to widen the road in front of the house as part of a plan to extend the road to a main artery to the north.

They wanted me to “give” them 15 feet along the 250′ frontage of my property before they would issue the permit.

And as dirty of a trick as it was, OP said he didn’t have any choice!

They knew they had me over a barrel, so I agreed. But wait, there’s more – I had to pay the fees to make the transfer to the county.

I left with my approved plans and 15′ X 250′ less property and clearly ticked off. A year passed, the house got built and we moved in.

But I was still mad, so I came up with the ‘get even’ plan. The area is relatively flat, and drainage is needed to drain excess water on the rare occasions that we get above average rainfall.

There’s a 125 foot open drainage ditch along the road that feeds into 125 feet of buried drainage pipe, basically the whole 250 foot frontage.

While that drain needed some serious maintenance, OP realized that that maintenance was no longer his problem!

I contacted the county and told them that ‘their’ drainage ditch was clogged with debris and needed to be cleaned out before the rainy season.

They agreed to send a crew. Then I told them that ‘their’ drainage pipe was also clogged and needed to be cleaned out. Again, they said they’d take care of it.

To their credit, the county road crew showed up with backhoe, dump truck and the crew. The ditch was pretty straightforward and soon was cleaned up.

But the maintenance on the drainage pipe was not as cut and dry, no pun intended!

But the foreman took one look at the pipe and said it was too far gone and would have to be replaced. Gee, owning property can be so frustrating!

So they dug it all up, including 2 driveways, installed 125′ of 18″ corrugated drain pipe, and replaced 2 driveways.

I thanked them for being good ‘neighbors’, taking good care of ‘their’ property. The whole project lasted a week, so the cost was not insignificant.

And after all of that hassle, a year later OP’s county decided they didn’t even want the property in the first place!

Another year goes by and I get a letter from the county.

They’ve changed their mind and won’t be extending the road after all and want to give me my property back. Of course, I would have to pay all of the fees -again.

Oh well, I did get a new drain line and newly paved driveways out of the deal.

Hey, if the government is gonna force you into giving them your land, then they’re the ones who are gonna have to pay for its upkeep. Not your problem anymore!

Until they force you into taking it back in a year, that is.

Reddit loved to see OP get his revenge, with many saying that even if he would have refused, the delays in construction would have cost more than the fees!

And for all those shocked that the government would demand OP’s land, this user said it was more common than people think.

Finally, this user said that even the underhanded tactic of withholding permit approval was commonplace where he lived!

Maybe they should have decided they didn’t want OP’s property before they paid for all of it’s repairs!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.