Four powers, one owner
No one owns land free of government. Every parcel in Georgia is held subject to four public powers, remembered as PETE: Police power, Eminent domain, Taxation, Escheat. The exam almost always tests them by making you pick which one a fact pattern describes, so learn what each one costs the owner.
Police power: regulate, pay nothing
Police power is the authority to regulate land for public health, safety, morals and general welfare, and no compensation is owed. Zoning, height limits and building codes are police power. A height ordinance that wipes out a planned upper floor is real government action, but it is regulation, not a taking.
When regulation becomes a taking
A regulation becomes a compensable regulatory taking only when it goes "too far" under Pennsylvania Coal v. Mahon, or deprives the owner of all economically viable use under Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council. A downzoning that cuts value 30% and leaves the land in continued use is not a taking. The trap: candidates believe any government-caused loss of value must be paid for. It must not. And a general downzoning is not spot zoning, which means reclassifying a small parcel for one owner's private benefit contrary to the comprehensive plan.
Eminent domain and taxation
Eminent domain is the power to take private property for public use, and both the Fifth Amendment and Georgia's Constitution require just and adequate compensation. Widening a road across your front yard must be paid for. Taxation is a revenue power, not a taking.
Escheat — a Georgia twist
Escheat is the reversion of property to the state when an owner dies with no effective will and no heirs appear. Georgia rule: the property is distributed to the county board of education for the educational fund, not to the county commission generally. A lender holds only a security interest, never ownership, and a tax sale is a collection process, not escheat. The classic trap: any living heir, however remote under intestacy rules, defeats escheat.