A license gives authority to a licensee to perform an act or acts on the property of another pursuant to the express or implied permission of the owner. The licensor generally can revoke a license at any time without excuse or without consideration to the licensee. Also, the license is…
California real property owners with larger parcels can occasionally have recreational users on the land. Invited or otherwise, hikers, bikers, hunters and fisherman may wander on personally property whether the owner is aware of it or not. Generally, they are not required to keep the property safe nor warn of…
All owners of real estate in California risk liability for injuries to others on the premises. The owner has possession (or control) of the property, and if it can be established they had knowledge of a dangerous condition, they are at risk. Real estate attorneys advise their clients that to…
Real estate contracts contain covenants and warranties that the parties sometimes want to enforce after the sale has been concluded. Whether or not they are still enforceable is determined by whether the covenants were “merged in the deed.” The idea is that, once the Seller grants and Buyer accepts the…
In California, most lenders on real estate take back a deed of trust in which they are named the “beneficiary.” If the borrower defaults, the beneficiary may then instruct the trustee to proceed to foreclose. Occasionally there is more than one beneficiary, resulting in multiple cobeneficiaries. They may all have…
In order for a deed to be effective in California, it must be “delivered” and “accepted.” These terms do not have their normal meanings in this context. Delivery does not mean the physical act of transmitting the deed to the grantee. Delivery refers to the intention of the grantor that…
Co-owners of property often enter agreements that include a right of first refusal. If one of the parties wants to sell their interest, and receives a bona fide offer, they must offer to sell to the co-owner on the same terms. Partition is a legal action which forces the sale…
When co-owners of property cannot agree on what to do with it, a solution is a legal action for partition. In a partition the judge will order the property ‘partitioned’; that is, either divided in-kind between them or sold and the money divided between the owners. Under California law Partition…
When California lenders and buyers seek title insurance, they want to be sure that the title to the property that they are receiving, or the security for their loan, is what they expect it to be. In the case of the lender, they want to be sure that they are…
Last week I discussed a cotenancy provision in a California commercial lease, where the court found that the rent abatement aspect – if the specified cotenant was not operating, the tenant’s rent is reduced or eliminated – was found to be an unenforceable penalty. That court also looked at whether…