Betterments
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia · John Bouvier; revised by Francis Rawle · 1914
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia
Improvements made to an estate. It signifies such improvements as render it better than mere repairs.
Maddocks v. Jellison, 11 Me. 482; Davis' Lessee v. Powell, 13 Ohio, 308; M'Kinly v. Holliday, 10 Yerg. (Tenn.) 477; Thompson v. Gilman, 17 Vt. 109.
The term is also applied to denote the additional value which an estate acquires in consequence of some public improvement, as laying out or widening a street, etc. The measure of the value of betterments is not their actual cost, but the enhanced value they impart to the land, without reference to the fact that they were not desired by the true owner or could not profitably be used by him; Carolina Cent. R. Co. v. McCaskill, 98 N. C. 526, 4 S. E. 468.