BB&T ends financing for eminent domain

BB&T Corporation, a financial services company based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, announced in late January that it will no longer lend to commercial developers that plan to build condominiums, shopping malls, and other private projects on land that government entities have acquired from private citizens through eminent domain. Since the US Supreme Court decided last June in Kelo v. City of New London that governments may seize properties to make way for private development projects, 38 states have passed or have considered enacting laws that would ban property takings for that purpose. “While we’re certainly optimistic about the pending legislation, this is something we could not wait any longer to address,” said Ken Chalk, chief credit officer for BB&T, which operates more than 1,400 banking and financial service centers in 11 predominantly Southern states and the