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A common belief is that to claim adverse possession of real property, all one has to do is pay five years of overdue property tax, and take possession of the property. Parties trying to establish adverse possession in California must prove several elements: (1) Possession must be by actual occupation under such circumstances as to constitute reasonable notice to the owner. (2) It must be hostile to the owner’s title. (3) The holder must claim the property as his own under either color of title or claim of right. (4) Possession must be continuous and uninterrupted for five years. (5) The holder must pay all the taxes levied and assessed upon the property during the period. This last element is seldom the focus of court decisions, but in a recent decision the claimant was disappointed to learn that a change in the law requires timely payment of assessed property taxes.

Sacramento-attorney-adverse-possessionIn McLear-Gary v. Emrys Scott, McLear-Gary claimed an easement along a logging skid trail. Emrys Scott replaced an old wooden gate with a metal gate across the easement route and kept the gate locked, blocking McLear-Gary from accessing the easement.

The trial court found that McLear-Gary had established an “exclusively pedestrian” prescriptive and implied easement over the properties belonging to the defendants, the court concluded this easement was extinguished by adverse possession when Emrys Scott, acting for the benefit of the common interests of his cotenants, locked and maintained the locked gate (not always hostile notice of adverse possession!) across the easement route and otherwise met the requirements for the affirmative defense.

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In larger commercial real estate leases, the tenant occasionally needs a loan to build the premises or finance major transactions. The tenant does not own the real property, but has the lease, which is both an interest in real property and a contract. This results in two sets of rights and obligations – those from the interest in the property (“privity of estate”), and those provided in the lease (“privity of contract”). If the tenant allows another party to take possession of the premises, that party has privity of estate with the landlord, but is not responsible for the obligations of the lease. This is why the lessor requires, in the lease, that any assignment be approved and the new tenant sign an acceptance of the assignment and the obligations of the lease contract. The Lessor will also require that any lender secured by the lease agrees to assume all the obligations of the Lease if it forecloses.

But what happens when the leasehold lender forecloses, but nobody makes sure that the Lender actually assumed all the lease obligations? That was the issue in a recent decision when the lender foreclosed on a lease in a shopping center

Sacramento-privity-of-estate-attorneyIn BRE DDR BR Whittwood Ca LLC v. Farmers & Merchants Bank of Long Beach, a shopping center tenant needed a loan to finance construction. The lease allowed the Tenant to encumber its leasehold interest through a mortgage, but presumed that a mortgage lender who succeeded to Tenant’s interest assumed Tenant’s obligations. The lease stated:

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Piercing the corporate veil, (the alter ego doctrine) is a procedure which creditors use when their judgment is against a corporation or LLC which is owned by, or controlled by, a sole shareholder. Usually, the corporation has no assets to collect from, and the goal of the creditor is to go after the shareholder’s personal assets, claiming that the corporation is a sham. In effect, the corporation is the shareholder’s alter ego and the shareholder should not hide behind the corporation. Reverse veil piercing is a newer concept in which a creditor with a judgment against an individual goes after the assets of the corporation which the debtor controls. Sacramento business attorneys seldom see this scenario, as the point of forming an entity (corporation or LLC) is to avoid personal liability in the first place. But in a recent decision, a wealthy developer did some extensive estate planning, probably to shield his assets, and suffered a judgment for personal liability. The court found that reverse piercing could apply.

Sacramento-reverse-veil-piercing-attorneyIn Curci Investments, LLC. v. James P. Baldwin, Baldwin is a wealthy Orange County real estate developer. Baldwin borrowed over $5 million dollars and did not pay it back. After borrowing the money he created eight family trusts for his grandchildren. He formed JPBI LLC, which loaned over $42 million to some partnerships composed of the family trusts. Of course, these loans were not paid back.

Since he didn’t pay the original loan, Curci obtained a judgment against Baldwin personally for $7.2 million. Curci then sought, through reverse veil piercing, to add JBPI LLC to the judgment. This appeal resulted.

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I had previously discussed the case of OC Interiors, where the court determined that a void judgment in the chain of title to real property nullifies all subsequent transfers, including a transfer to a bona fide purchaser. That is a frightening prospect for buyers, and a reason to take a close look at the preliminary title report, and consult a real estate attorney if they are not comfortable with what they find. A default judgment may, in some cases, easily be found to be void. In a more recent decision, some other defendants tried to avoid this result by arguing that the void default judgment had the effect of granting quiet title relief, and thus the subsequent transaction was valid. They were disappointed to find otherwise – the action to cancel and instrument did not have the same impact as an action to quiet title.

Sacramento-real-estate-instrument-cancellation-attorneyIn Deutsche Bank National Trust Company v. Alan Pyle et al. Saluto owned property in Rancho Mirage and obtained a loan. She defaulted and began a firestorm of recording documents to screw up the chain of title to presumably prevent foreclosure and eviction. The long list of recorded documents is set out at the end of this post. (I wonder if she paid someone to muddy things up like this- I have done a quiet title in a similar situation, and the hired perpetrator faced Federal criminal charges). A trustee’s sale was held. Saluto then filed an action against the lender to cancel the trustee’s deed and deed of trust and obtained a default judgment. Eventually, the lender got the judgment set aside, the court finding that she had falsified the proofs of service, and that the judgment was void.

The issues on appeal for the court were: (1) whether defendants were entitled to bona fide purchaser or encumbrancer status, and (2) the impact of the void default judgment in the chain of title.

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A court may create an “equitable easement”, on equitable grounds, even though the user is not entitled to an easement on one of the more traditional grounds. The judge balances the rights of the various parties to achieve an equitable solution. Generally, the courts apply a three-part test to determine if such an easement should be legally granted. In most cases there is an existing use, and either one landowner sues to stop the use (they see it as a trespass), or the user sues to legally establish the easement. However, in a recent decision out of Ventura County, the court granted an equitable easement where there had been no preexisting use.

Sacramento-equitable-easement-attorneyIn Hinrichs v. Melton, Hinrichs inherited two adjoining parcels. He used to live in a house on the southern lot, but had lived in Alaska for the past 20 years. He conveyed the southern property to Asquith, which left the northern parcel landlocked – it had no legal access from anywhere. The trial court granted the plaintiff an easement by necessity over the Asquinth parcel, up to the Melton property. Beginning at the Melton property, the court granted an equitable easement under the doctrine of balancing the hardships.

The Equitable Easement

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The Statute of Frauds requires certain agreements to be in writing. The reason is that these agreements are too important to allow oral agreements, as they are susceptible to fraud. It is codified in Civil Code section 1624, and also applies to agreements for real estate commissions, about which the Supreme Court has said that a “broker’s real estate commissions agreement is invalid unless the agreement `or some note or memorandum thereof, is in writing and subscribed by the party to be charged or by the party’s agent.'” But what happens when not everyone who should sign does? Parties may need to consult with a Sacramento real estate attorney, because a dispute may result that the contract is not valid. I have never seen a matter where a real estate broker did not require ALL the parties on title to sign a listing agreement, but that was the case in a February decision regarding a listing agreement signed in 2013 – they waited four years to get a result, which is why, in my experience, everybody must sign. In this case, in a decision that combined the statute of frauds, the equal dignities rule, and the parole evidence rule, the broker lucked out…

Sacramento-Statute-of-frauds-attorneyIn Bernice Jacobs v. John Locatelli as Trustee, Jacobs was the broker looking to sell vacant land in Marin for over $2 million dollars. The broker Jacobs signed, as did Locatelli. However, there were blank signature lines for five other people, five other owners.

Right above Locatelli’s signature line is the notation “Owner: John B. Locatelli, Trustee of the John B. Locatelli Trust,” with his title listed as “Trustee.” As mentioned above, while there were signature lines for the remaining owners, they were left blank. However, at the very top of the agreement, “Owner” is defined (with emphasis added) as “John B. Locatelli, Trustee of the John B. Locatelli Trust, et al.” “Et al.” clearly means, in this context, “and others.”

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Assigning claims and causes of actions regarding real estate to someone does not necessarily give them the right to file a lawsuit for quiet title. A quiet title action seeks a declaration of the parties’ rights to the real estate. A description of the parties’ legal interests in real property is all that can be expected of a judgment in an action to quiet title. Without an interest in the property itself, a party has no standing to ask the court to quiet title in the property or to obtain damages for the cloud on title. An action to cancel a trustee’s deed or other instrument transferring title is no different. Parties in this situation should speak with a Sacramento real estate attorney to make sure that the assignment has them covered because the assignment needs something else – assignment of all the assignor’s interest in the property itself. This was a surprise to several people in a 2012 California decision.

Sacramento-real-estate-attorneyIn Chao Fu, Inc. v. Wen Ching Chen, Chao Fu Inc. (CFI) had a 25% interest in property at 852-860 Villa Street in Mountain View, CA (conveniently located between a brewpub and a beer garden.). CFI’s secretary, Kuo, borrowed money from Chen (Lender) and Chen received a promissory note. Chen got nervous and wanted security. They gave him a deed of trust against the Mountain View property. The CFI principals were out of the country for a long time, and the lender foreclosed, obtaining title to the property.

The lender, in a further attempt to collect on the note, sued Kuo. Kao obtained an assignment from CFI of its claims regarding the dispute with the lender. Important is the language of the assignment:

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It is not often that residential real estate cases make it to the Supreme Court, but in this instance Coldwell Banker tangled with a very wealthy buyer of a very expensive ($12.25 million) house. Presented was the common scenario in which the two agents in the deal both were licensed under the same large corporate broker. This house was marketed as 15,000 square feet, and the buyer discovered it was actually 3-5,000 sq. ft. smaller. The salesman who listed the property made the inaccurate representation. The Buyer claimed that, as the broker was a dual agent, so was this listing salesman (“associate licensee”) – owning the buyer the same duties that he had owed the seller. The Supreme Court addressed whether the associate licensee owed to the buyer a duty to learn and disclose all information materially affecting the value or desirability of the property, including the discrepancy between the square footage of the residence’s living area as advertised and as reflected in publicly recorded documents. This is an issue frequently presented to Sacramento real estate attorneys – whether the listing agent owes any duty to the buyer. It was undisputed that Coldwell Banker owed such a duty to the buyer. Now, the Supreme Court has ruled that the associate licensee, who functioned on Coldwell Banker’s behalf in the real property transaction, owed to the buyer an “equivalent” duty of disclosure under Civil Code section 2079.13, subdivision (b).

Sacramento dual agent attorneyIn the case of Horiike v. Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage Company, the buyer had been working with a Coldwell Banker agent in looking for a house. She connected him with this listing agent, who had listed this Malibu property for sale. According to an interview with the NY Times, this agent told the buyer that the property had 15,000 square feet of living area and was the largest property available in Malibu. “He said that there was new regulation that prohibited developers from building over 11,000 square feet, and that made the property unique and also a very good investment prospect.” This same agent had previously told a different potential buyer multiple times that they did not warrant the square footage, and that they should hire a specialist to verify it. However, he did not tell this to Mr. Horiike. After the sale closed, the buyer wanted to add a sunroom and learned about the discrepancy in size. This lawsuit followed. The NY Times article linked to above indicates that this particular salesman, with a Hollywood client list, has a record of overstating the size of homes which he has listed.

Sacramento real estate broker dual agent attorneyThe defendant argued that the disclosure statutes only imputed the duties of the salesperson to the broker, and not the other way around – thus, the dual agency concern was not imputed to the salesmen. The court disagreed. Referencing Civil Code § 2079.13, it found that by describing an associate licensee’s duty in a real property transaction as “equivalent to” the duty of the “broker for whom the associate licensee functions,” the provision specifies that when an associate licensee represents a brokerage in a real property transaction, his or her duties are the same as those of the brokerage.

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Real Estate Purchase Contracts encountered in California are often detailed and explicit as to the terms of the deal – parties, price, escrow, when closing is to occur, time for inspections, etc. While some terms are subject to varied interpretation, rarely do Sacramento real estate attorneys encounter contracts with glaring omissions. But when they do, the question arises, is the contract enforceable? In a 2008 Supreme Court decision, the court clarified that the only elements necessary for enforceability are the seller, the buyer, the price to be paid, the time and manner of payment, and the property to be transferred. Everything else can be provided by the court based on what is usual and customary.

sacramento real estate contract attorneyIn Sunil Patel v. Morris Liebermensch, Patel was a tenant in a building owned by Liebermensch. Patel held a lease option – he had the right to buy the property under specified terms. The option purchase terms were as follows:

“Through the end of the year 2003, the selling price is $290,000. The selling price increases by 3% through the end of the year 2004 and cancels with expiration of your occupancy. Should this option to buy be exercised, $1,200.00 shall be refunded to you.”

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A Quiet Title action is a lawsuit which a person files to establish their title against adverse claims. The plaintiff’s interest in the land can be the title to the property, an easement, a license, a lease, or title by adverse possession. Sacramento real estate attorneys often see quiet title used in situations where there is a dispute as to title and ownership in real estate. However, there is a general rule is that the holder of equitable title cannot maintain a quiet title action against the holder of legal title. This begs the question – what is the difference between legal title and equitable title?

Sacramento legal title attorneyLegal Title

A shorthand way to consider it is that legal title means that you are on the deed. The term ‘legal title’ has been defined as ‘one cognizable or enforceable in a court of law, or one which is complete and perfect so far as regards the apparent right of ownership and possession, but which carries no beneficial interest in the property, another person being equitably entitled thereto; in either case, the antithesis of “equitable title.” ’ ” (Solomon v. Walton, 109 Cal.App.2d 381)

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