The following summaries are of recent published decisions of the California appellate courts, the Ninth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. The summaries are presented without regard to whether Severson & Werson represented a party in the case.
The Ellis Act preempts a San Francisco Planning Code provision forbidding enlargement, renovation, or reconstruction of nonconforming residential units if the unit had experienced a "no-fault" eviction within the last ten years. Read More
Since a private nuisance claim involves only a question of harm to the plaintiff, not others, the trial court erred by admitting evidence of incidents of a nuisance on the property before plaintiff acquired it. Read More
The Coastal Act bans changes in the intensity of use without a permit and so prevented an HOA from adopting a ban on short-term rentals of property within the Coastal Zone. Read More
When an owner is in possession of a piece of personal property (such as, here, a car), the statute of limitations on the owner's quiet title claim does not begin to run, even if the owner knows that someone else has a conflicting claim to ownership or an interest in the property. Read More
Homeowners associations may sue a public entity in inverse condemnation for damage caused to common areas. Read More
A party that takes an assignment of a promissory note secured by a deed of trust may sue the title company under Civil Code section 2941 for wrongfully recording a release of the deed of trust even if the recordation occurred before the assignment. Read More
In deciding whether to award attorney fees in a partition action, fees may be for the common benefit of all owners even if the proceeding is contested, with some joint owners not wishing to partition the property. Read More
Nevada statute giving super-priority lien to homeowners’ associations for non-payment of dues is pre-empted by federal Housing and Economic Recovery Act, so HOA liens cannot trump Freddie Mac’s secured interest. Read More
A homeowners’ association may recover costs, but not attorney fees, from a homeowner who brings a frivolous suit to inspect the association’s records. Read More
A void default judgment, obtained without proper service on the defendant, cannot be the foundation of a valid claim of title to property, so the secured lender against whom the default judgment was entered prevails over a bona fide purchaser from the plaintiff. Read More
A court may not order sale by appraisal in a partition action without all joint owners’ consent. Read More
A party waives any challenge to permit conditions by building the permitted structure, thus accepting the permit’s benefits and incurring its burdens. Read More
Post-1972 public use of non-coastal land for any purpose cannot ripen into a prescriptive easement or implied dedication of the property. Read More
Trial court properly found defendants liable under the unfair competition law in view of their fraudulent scheme to acquire semi-abandoned properties through a combination of adverse possession and the recordation of wild deeds. Read More
The trial court properly exercised its discretion to decree an easement by necessity benefitting a landlocked parcel over a route that caused the least disruption to the adjoining owners' use of their properties. Read More
Substantial evidence supported court's determination that plaintiff had not obtained sole ownership of the road easement between his property and defendant's; fence and gate did not constitute adverse possession because they had been erected by defendant’s predecessor to prevent plaintiff's mobile home park's tenants from crossing onto defendant's property. Read More
A declaratory relief claim based on equitable subrogation in a priority dispute between two home equity lines of credit is not governed by a three-year limitations period and so was wrongly dismissed. Read More
Neither the statute of frauds nor the parol evidence rule precluded a real estate broker’s suit for her commission, as she could rely on extrinsic evidence to show that the one owner who signed her listing agreement did so as agent for the other owners. Read More
A broker’s agreement to negotiate the purchase or sale of real property falls within the statute of frauds and must be in writing. Read More
In an eminent domain proceeding, once the defendant owner proves it has goodwill to lose, it may use any reasonable method to prove the amount of goodwill lost due to condemnation of its real property. Read More
