Actual Taking Law and Legal Definition
Actual taking refers to physical appropriation of the possession and use of private property by an entity having eminent domain authority. An assertion by officer that s/he levies on property within view and power to assert immediate dominion is deemed actual taking of it under process.
An actual taking of the property does not imply an actual touching of the property. It implies a course of proceeding as is calculated to reduce it to the dominion of the law. An assertion by the officer that s/he levies or takes the property by virtue of a writ in his/her possession, can take it into his/her custody, is an actual taking possession of the property, or if he exercises that dominion over the property which owners ordinarily do. [Gaines v. Becker, 7 Ill. App. 315 (Ill. App. Ct. 1880)].
