Why Do You Need a Quiet Title Action?
Quiet Title Actions
Imagine that you buy a house and pay off the mortgage, and then you get a letter claiming that you do not legally own the house before the party that you bought it from did not have the right to sell it. Now imagine that you inherited a house from your uncle, and you intended to move into it, but then you got a letter from a lawyer saying that the house is not really yours because it did not legally belong to your uncle, so you cannot legally inherit it from him. These nightmarish scenarios are not common, but disputes over the true ownership of real estate properties are.
Quiet title actions are a way of resolving disputes over real estate ownership, both the shocking disputes that make you feel like your whole life has been a lie and the more mundane types of disputes. To find out more about quiet title actions and whether you should file one, contact a California real estate law attorney.
“Quiet” is a Verb in Quiet Title Actions
“Quiet title action” is, admittedly, a non-intuitive name for a legal matter, much like dram shop liability. It makes you wonder whether there is such a thing as a noisy title action and hope that you never have to encounter one if there is. In fact, “quiet” in the context of “quiet title” is a verb; it means something like “resolve.” A quiet title action is when the court issues a court order declaring you the legal owner of a real estate property.
Why Do You Need a Quiet Title Action?
Quiet title actions are only necessary when there is room for disagreement about who the true legal owner of a piece of real estate is. They are rarely necessary with newly built houses; the developer built the house, the first homeowner bought it, and then you bought it from the first homeowner, and there is a detailed paper trail in the county’s records to prove this.
Quiet title actions often arise in relation to unoccupied and undeveloped land. In many cases, the owner plans to sell the land or build on it but cannot find documentation to show how the previous owner came into possession of the land. An incomplete paper trail about the ownership history of the land is called clouds on the title. A quiet title action enables the court to rule that you own the land legally and can sell it or build on it as you choose. It can help resolve boundary disputes if you and your neighbor disagree about where your land ends and your neighbor’s land begins. It can even help you evict squatters who claim that the land legally belongs to no one and that they have as much right to use it as anyone else.
Contact SNR Law Group About Quiet Title Actions
A real estate law attorney can help you file a quiet title action and remove ambiguities about your ownership of a real estate property. Contact SNR Law Group in Tustin, California, to discuss your case.
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