Triage
Three questions, then a direction
Answer these in order. By the end you will know what you are dealing with, whether anything is urgent, and which page answers your actual question.
Work through these
The three questions
What exactly did you receive
A letter about a project, with no mention of your property, means a project exists and nothing more. A notice of interest means your property has been identified. A written offer means an appraisal has been done. A document with a court name and a case number on it means a lawsuit has been filed and a deadline is running.
Is a deadline running
Only a court document reliably starts one. Dates on offers are usually negotiable and are usually extended in practice. If you are holding something from a court and you are not sure how long you have, that is the one question worth paying a lawyer for an hour today.
What is actually in dispute
Whether they can take it, which rarely goes anywhere. How much they pay, which very often does. Or whether you understand what is happening, which the pages below fix.
Then go here
Where your question is answered properly
The number is the issue
Valuation, appraisals, before and after, severance damages. How the figure is produced and where it goes wrong.
The process is the issue
Notice through to trial, from the owner’s side, including what to do in the first thirty days.
Your state is the issue
Procedure, deadlines and the measure of compensation are state law and differ substantially.
You need the vocabulary
The terms that appear in every document, defined plainly.
A caution
What nobody on the internet can tell you
Whether your particular offer is fair. That depends on your property, the appraisal behind the offer and the market where you are, and answering it requires someone who has looked at all three.
What a general site can do is tell you how to find out: ask for the appraisal, read the reasoning, and if the reasoning is thin, get a second opinion. That sequence is the same everywhere, and it is the most useful thing on this site.
Find the site that answers your question properly
This is a starting point. The detailed answers live on the sites built for each question, and on the site for your state.