ABSTRACT
The legal rules in the Netherlands for expropriation for urban development are in many ways similar to those in Germany. Expropriation is regulated in the Law on expropriation, which still has the form and content of the law of 1851, although modified many times since then. Title 4 of the law regulates expropriation 'in the interest of land use development, housing, public order and upholding the law on drugs'. The pragmatic way in which expropriation is viewed and applied is apparent in practice. It is seen that the law allows expropriation in order to allow land to be used for commercial purposes, whereby the expropriating body itself does not realise those uses, but sells the land to developers who will. In one sense, expropriation is always about scarcity. Expropriation has been widely used by municipalities in order to assemble the separate landownerships necessary for integrated development.
