Short answer. Yes. Rule 67, Section 3 lets you present evidence on just compensation and share in the award at trial, whether or not you ever appeared or filed an answer. Failing to answer only costs you the chance to raise objections or defenses to the taking itself.
What the law says
However, at the trial of the issue of just compensation, whether or not a defendant has previously appeared or answered, he may present evidence as to the amount of the compensation to be paid for his property, and he may share in the distribution of the award.
Rule 67, Section 3 — Defenses and objections. Read the full provision →
Not answering waives objections, not compensation
Rule 67 draws a clear line between contesting the taking itself and being paid for it. If you had objections to the expropriation, you were required to raise them in an answer. A defendant waives all defenses and objections not so alleged. But that waiver is narrow: it forfeits your chance to fight the taking or the propriety of the case, not your right to be paid for the property once it is taken.
You can still take part in the compensation phase
The rule says so directly. However, at the trial of the issue of just compensation, whether or not a defendant has previously appeared or answered, he may present evidence as to the amount of the compensation to be paid for his property, and he may share in the distribution of the award. So even having skipped the answer stage entirely, you can appear when the case reaches the valuation phase and put in evidence of what your land is worth.
What an answer would have let you do instead
If you had filed an answer, it would have had to specifically designate or identify the property in which he claims to have an interest, state the nature and extent of the interest claimed, and adduce all his objections and defenses to the taking of his property. That is the vehicle for arguing the government had no right to take the property, or that the case was procedurally defective. Without an answer, those arguments are gone, but the compensation question is not.
The practical takeaway
Missing the deadline to answer in an expropriation case is not the same disaster it would be in an ordinary civil suit where a default judgment can resolve the whole case against you. Here, the taking proceeds and the case moves to determining just compensation regardless, and the rule keeps that phase open to you. What you lose is the opportunity to have contested the taking on the merits, which is why appearing as soon as you become aware of the case, even late, still matters.