California Real Estate Legal Questions

Liens against real property can be established either by voluntary action (the owner of the property agrees in writing to do so), by operation of law ( such as in filing a mechanic's lien) or if you have obtained an enforceable judgment, by recording an abstract of that judgment in the county where the judgment debtor owns real property. In you situation, the only avenue that you have availalbe is through seeking a judgment and recording an abstract of that judgment in the county where the proeprty is owned. Please feel free to contact us if you have any  further questions     Hatkoff & Minassian, ALC         email: nminassian@hatkofflaw.com    ... Read Answer

You are not required to sign any contract. However, the seller may require it in order to proceed with the deal. The affiliated business arrangement is merely a disclosure. If you are uncomforatble with the arrangement, then yyou should ask to change service provides. For instance, if the seller's broker is affiliated with the escrow company, you can request to use a different escrow service provider.... Read Answer

Hi Leslye, Their daughter in law certainly does not specifically own half of the bedrooms, but I would need more information to be able to give a clear answer on whether she has the right to access the property. Does the daughter in law actually hold a portion of legal title to the house? Is there any sort of agreement between the owners of the house regarding who gets to live there? Thanks,Jon... Read Answer

Hi Harold, As I understand it, you are seeking to move your fence back to the property line, which actually sits in the middle of the allyway between you and your neighbors.  Have your neighbors taken any action? How long has your fence been in its current position? Will your neighbors still have access if you move the fence?Thanks,Jon... Read Answer

The first thing I would need to know to provide you with a helpful response is how title to the property is held.  Was the property held in your mom's name or was it held in the name of your sister? If it was held in the name of your sister, how long was it held in her name and is it possible that she forged a deed or had your mom transfer title to the home to her at a time that your mom was not mentally competent to do so.  Happy to provide some guidance, but I need some more information to be able to effectively do so. Thanks,Jon... Read Answer

Hi Angelita, It sounds like you may very well have a non-disclosure claim against the sellers of your property. In order to prevail in a non-disclosure claim though you have to prove that the seller was aware of the problem that was not disclosed. If work was recently done or patched over you may have a good chance of proving that.  Assumming that this transaction was contracted using standard Californai Association of Realtors forms you would first have to make a demand for mediation prior to filing suit, which would give you an opprotunity to resolve this matter outside of litigation and also provide you with an opportunity to recover attorney's fees should you file suit and prevail. I have handled many of these types of claims, both for plaintiffs and defendants if you would like to discuss. Thanks,Jon... Read Answer

The subcontractors don't have to file the work stops or is completed. After a subcontractor records a lien, it has to file a lawsuit on the lien withing 90 days or it loses the lien. It still can sue for the amount owed, without the lien, and if it ever gets a judgment, it can record the judgment and it will become a lien on any property you own in the county where the lien is recorded.  The lien has no effect on your property until you need to sell or refinance the property. If they sue you, you'll sue the general contractor and everyone's claims against everyone else should get resolved in that lawsuit. The lien is not a problem for you, until you need to sell or refinance. You can post a bond in lieu of paying off the lien. If you need any of these subcontractors to do more work for you in order to complete the work, you may need to pay that subcontractor for itys work that you already paid for to the general contractor. The subcontractor is not required to do any more work for you, especially if it has not been paid.  These situations seem to always involve a lot more facts and a lot of complications. For example, defects in the work of the contractor or the subs. If the general contractor was failing, he was probably not properly supervising his workers and his subs. You're going to need an experienced construction attorney to advise you and to help you collect anything you have overpaid to the general contractor. Dana Sack... Read Answer

If the house is his separate property, then he can sell it, gift it or lien it, to anyone he wants. However, almost any independent buyer or lender will require title insurance. If he is married, the title insurance will not issue insurance without a deed from his spouse disclaiming any interest in the property. If the house is owned in the names of both of you, then he an only sell or lien his share, not yours. You need to talk about this with your divorce lawyer about how to protect your interest in the house. You also need to make sure you know how the bankruptcy will affect any divorce settlement agreement and your interest in any property you receive in the divorce. If your divorce lawyer is not sure about the impact of the divorce, then you and he should talk to a divorce attorney. Will your ex-husband's creditors be able to collect his debts from property you receive in the divorce? You need to know. Dana Sack  ... Read Answer

By now, the plumbing should be fixed and the tenant should pay what she or he owes you. Have a registered process server deliver a legal 3-day-notice-to-pay-rent-or-quit. If you or a friend serve the notice and the tenant denies it, then it's your word against the tenant, and since the plaintiff has the burden-of-proof, ties go to the defendant. If you use a registered process server, there are a statute and cases that make it very difficult to disprove the testimony of the process server. The cost is less than $100.00 and is added to the judgment when you win. I urge you to hire an attorney with eviction experience. The law goes to great lengths to protect tenants against being wrongfully evicted from their homes. Judges are trained to look for the slightest mistake in filling out the forms and handling the procedure. Defense attorneys make up mistakes, and since the landlord bears the burden-of-proof, sometimes even a lawyer who makes no mistakes still loses one of these cases. An untrained person without experience doing evictions would be at a severe disadvantage. If you appreciate this free advice, please remember to refer me to any friends or acquaintances who need a lawyer. Referrals are still our best source of new business. Do you have a revocable living trust to protect your heirs against probate? Probate takes forever, is expensive, and is annoying. Do your family a favor. Set up a trust, and put all your property, especially any real property, into the trust. Since it is revocable, you can change it, add to it, take property out of it, or even cancel it completely, at any time. We set up such trusts, provide a pour-over will as a back-up for any property that does not make it into the trust, provide you with blank durable powers of attorney for health care and financial decisions, in case you become incapable of making such decisions while still alive, and convey one piece of real property to the trust, usually the family home, for $1500.00. If you would like to hire me to do this, let me know, and I'll send you a list of the information I need.   Dana Sack... Read Answer

Yes. If you hired us, the first step would be to get a written estimate from a licensed contractor, with descriptions of all of the defective work, the work required to fix it, and an estimate of the cost. We would then include that in a letter demanding that he agree to pay that amount. If the cost were less than $10,000.00, you could sue him in small claims court without an attorney. It sounds like more. If you have a written contract, and the contract includes a provision for reimbursement of legal fees, then the demand letter would include the threat that you will not compromise and will take the case to trial in order to obtain a judgment which includes reimbursement for all your legal fees.  ... Read Answer

The issue of whether or not the leases are enforceable by the tenants, could go either way. Technically, each cotenant has the right to enter and occupy all of the property at any time. So when one cotenant tries to lease the property, the other cotenant has the right to interfere with that lease by showing up and sitting down at the kitchen table or lying down in the bed at any time. However, don't try to do that. There is the legal doctrine of apparent authority. The tenants may reasonably believe that the cotenant who entered into the lease had the authority to do so. The tenants have no way to know that the divorce was pending. In choosing between the innocent tenants and parties to a contentious divorce, the decision is likely to go to the tenants. The real issue is what can your attorney and the court do to make this up to you? You need to discuss available alternatives with youf divorce attorney. Did he get market rent? If not, then maybe he owes you your share of the difference. Maybe the court can order that all the tenants be told that their leases will not be renewed and offering to let them cancel the lease if the tenant is willing, and a restraining order preventing the husband from extending or renewing any of the leases and against entering into any new leases. Good luck. Dana  ... Read Answer

The court procedure is called partition. It is expensive and takes a very long time. The sellers usually do not get as high a price as they would if they sold the property without the complications of the court procedures. The last one I defended, both sides spent $35,000 each in legal fees before they agreed to a settlement which they could have reached at the beginning before they paid anything to the lawyers. I almost always have been able to persuade people to either sell or at least sell one side's share to the other, rather than go to court. You really don't want to sue your elderly mother. That never ends well. If you appreciate this free advice, please remember to refer me to any friends or acquaintances who need a lawyer. Referrals are still our best source of new business. Do you have a revocable living trust to protect your heirs against probate? Probate takes forever, is expensive, and is annoying. Do your family a favor. Set up a trust, and put all your property, especially any real property, into the trust. Since it is revocable, you can change it, add to it, take property out of it, or even cancel it completely, at any time. We set up such trusts, provide a pour-over will as a back-up for any property that does not make it into the trust, provide you with blank durable powers of attorney for health care and financial decisions, in case you become incapable of making such decisions while still alive, and convey one piece of real property to the trust, usually the family home, for $1500.00. If you would like to hire me to do this, let me know, and I'll send you a list of the information I need.   Dana Sack... Read Answer

If your siblings are not receiving any benefits from either parcel, I'm not confident you will be able to persuade them to share in paying the taxes. If you rented the parcels and shared the rents with them, maybe. If they were using some part of the property for weekends, maybe. If you don't want to pay the taxes as long as they own shares, and they don't want to pay the taxes, then maybe either you should buy them out or all of you should sell the properties. I'm not a fan of selling California real estate. Everyone wants to move here, so prices keep going up. If you decide to pursue either of these choices, I could help you negotiate an agreement with your siblings, so that you can raise the money to buy them out and know that they will sell to you, or so that you can hire a broker and sign a contract to sell the propety andknow that they will sell. If you appreciate this free advice, please remember to refer me to any friends or acquaintances who need a lawyer. Referrals are still our best source of new business. Do you have a revocable living trust to protect your heirs against probate? Probate takes forever, is expensive, and is annoying. Do your family a favor. Set up a trust, and put all your property, especially any real property, into the trust. Since it is revocable, you can change it, add to it, take property out of it, or even cancel it completely, at any time. We set up such trusts, provide a pour-over will as a back-up for any property that does not make it into the trust, provide you with blank durable powers of attorney for health care and financial decisions, in case you become incapable of making such decisions while still alive, and convey one piece of real property to the trust, usually the family home, for $1500.00. If you would like to hire me to do this, let me know, and I'll send you a list of the information I need.   Dana Sack... Read Answer

You can sue for up to $10,000.00 in small claims court. Your damages are the difference between what they agreed to and what you had to pay for comparable lodging.  Mistake is a defense. If the deal was too good to be true, the judge might find that you should have known it was a mistake. On the other hand, there are lots of ads and stories about promotions which offer deep discounts. Such a trial could go either way. If you appreciate this free advice, please remember to refer me to any friends or acquaintances who need a lawyer. Referrals are still our best source of new business. Do you have a revocable living trust to protect your heirs against probate? Probate takes forever, is expensive, and is annoying. Do your family a favor. Set up a trust, and put all your property, especially any real property, into the trust. Since it is revocable, you can change it, add to it, take property out of it, or even cancel it completely, at any time. We set up such trusts, provide a pour-over will as a back-up for any property that does not make it into the trust, provide you with blank durable powers of attorney for health care and financial decisions, in case you become incapable of making such decisions while still alive, and convey one piece of real property to the trust, usually the family home, for $1500.00. If you would like to hire me to do this, let me know, and I'll send you a list of the information I need. Dana Sack    ... Read Answer

1. Do not hold back any of your HOA fees. The penalties are expensive, and the HOA Board will win that battle. 2. The courts give HOA Board's very broad discretion in determining how to spend HOA fees for maintenance and when. A court is very unlikely to order such spending. 3. You and your supporters are entitled to demand Internal Dispute Resolution, where one or more Board members are required to meet with you to discuss the issue and try to negotiate a solution or compromise. If that fails, then you can demand mediation or arbitration. The mediation will cost more than repairing the gates, even if the motors need to be replaced completely. Lawyers and mediators are expensive. 4. At IDR and mediation, you should emphasize that if anyone is robbed, beaten or killed, the HOA will be held liable for all of the damages suffered, and the individual board members might be held liable, too. The damages could exceed the insurance the HOA carries. Medical care, rehab, therapy and lost earnings due to a permanent disability caused by a beating, add up, and a jury will not be kind to an HOA which admitted it had a safety issue by having gates, and then failed to maintain them. If you appreciate this free advice, please remember to refer me to any friends or acquaintances who need a lawyer. Referrals are still our best source of new business. Do you have a revocable living trust to protect your heirs against probate? Probate takes forever, is expensive, and is annoying. Do your family a favor. Set up a trust, and put all your property, especially any real property, into the trust. Since it is revocable, you can change it, add to it, take property out of it, or even cancel it completely, at any time. We set up such trusts, provide a pour-over will as a back-up for any property that does not make it into the trust, provide you with blank durable powers of attorney for health care and financial decisions, in case you become incapable of making such decisions while still alive, and convey one piece of real property to the trust, usually the family home, for $1500.00. If you would like to hire me to do this, let me know, and I'll send you a list of the information I need. Dana Sack    ... Read Answer

Try Glenn Youngling in San Rafael 415-454-1090. They specialize in updating CC&Rs and advising HOA Boards on problems and questions arising under the CC&Rs and the Davis-Stirling Act. If you appreciate this free advice, please remember to refer me to any friends or acquaintances who need a lawyer. Referrals are still our best source of new business. Do you have a revocable living trust to protect your heirs against probate? Probate takes forever, is expensive, and is annoying. Do your family a favor. Set up a trust, and put all your property, especially any real property, into the trust. Since it is revocable, you can change it, add to it, take property out of it, or even cancel it completely, at any time. We set up such trusts, provide a pour-over will as a back-up for any property that does not make it into the trust, provide you with blank durable powers of attorney for health care and financial decisions, in case you become incapable of making such decisions while still alive, and convey one piece of real property to the trust, usually the family home, for $1500.00. If you would like to hire me to do this, let me know, and I'll send you a list of the information I need.   Dana Sack... Read Answer

Before resorting to lawyers and lawsuits, I suggest you contact a neighborhood and family mediation service, like SEEDS Community Relations Center in Berkeley, to try to work this out using a trained professional mediator who specializes in non-legal resolutions. They will contact her and try to convince her that mediation is the right way to negotiate this dispute. If that doesn't work, then you could hire our firm to try to talk her out of it, and if that doesn't work, then we could sue her for you. I don't think it will come to that. If you appreciate this free advice, please remember to refer me to any friends or acquaintances who need a lawyer. Referrals are still our best source of new business. Do you have a revocable living trust to protect your heirs against probate? Probate takes forever, is expensive, and is annoying. Do your family a favor. Set up a trust, and put all your property, especially any real property, into the trust. Since it is revocable, you can change it, add to it, take property out of it, or even cancel it completely, at any time. We set up such trusts, provide a pour-over will as a back-up for any property that does not make it into the trust, provide you with blank durable powers of attorney for health care and financial decisions, in case you become incapable of making such decisions while still alive, and convey one piece of real property to the trust, usually the family home, for $1500.00. If you would like to hire me to do this, let me know, and I'll send you a list of the information I need.   Dana Sack... Read Answer

Did your father-in-law live in Nevada or California? If he lived in Nevada, then you need to consult a Nevada probate attorney. If the estate was small, a formal probate proceeding might not be required. If probate is required, the court will appoint someone to sign and deliver a deed to your husband. For a small estate, there might be some other procedure for transfering title into your husband's name. If you appreciate this free advice, please remember to refer me to any friends or acquaintances who need a lawyer. Referrals are still our best source of new business. Do you have a revocable living trust to protect your heirs against probate? Probate takes forever, is expensive, and is annoying. Do your family a favor. Set up a trust, and put all your property, especially any real property, into the trust. Since it is revocable, you can change it, add to it, take property out of it, or even cancel it completely, at any time. We set up such trusts, provide a pour-over will as a back-up for any property that does not make it into the trust, provide you with blank durable powers of attorney for health care and financial decisions, in case you become incapable of making such decisions while still alive, and convey one piece of real property to the trust, usually the family home, for $1500.00. If you would like to hire me to do this, let me know, and I'll send you a list of the information I need.   Dana Sack... Read Answer

Do not block the holes they are using to get in and out. You don't want them dying up there. A bat contractor will install valves, so that the bats can get out, but cannot get back in. We had a bat case once before. The bat urine would crystalize in the beams supporting the roof, and then melt and smell when the sun beat on it during the day. The roof and beams had to be removed by crane. Insurance for the seller and the seller's broker paid for it. The Seller's agent had washed the deck to remove the bat guano every time the buyers came out to look at the property.  Your legal damages for this are the difference between what you paid for the house and what a reasonable buyer would have paid if the bat problem had been disclosed. That might be less than what it will cost to clean up your house and repair any damage. If you actually go all the way to trial, that makes the case expensive, because you will need experts on how to clean up and repair the house, how much that will cost, and on how much the house would have sold for if the bats had not been hidden from you. We would not take on this case on a contingent fee basis. That is where the lawyer doesn't get paid until the end and then gets a percentage of what is collected, usually about 1/3. We would want $350.00 per hour and would expect to be paid each month for work performed during the prior month. We can talk about estimating how much it would take to get to the point where you could negotiate a settlement to pay enough for you to get the clean up and the most critical repairs done. Happy Turkey Day. Dana Sack  ... Read Answer

That's one possible strategic choice. Since the other side has already engaged a lawyer, an eviction lawsuit is going to precipitate a lawsuit over who owns the property. The lawsuit will be very expensive. Is he a tenant or a co-owner. Each side will dig deep to find every penny each spent on the property. He'll want credit for work he did to improve the property. The process will take at least a year. Legal fees going over each item will probably eat up most of the equity. In the end, it is very likely the two sides will settle. Why not save all that effort, time and money, and try to negotiate a deal now? If the other side is represented by counsel, you will need a lawyer to both advise you when the other side is wrong about the law, and to advocate on your behalf for the best possible compromise. If you appreciate this free advice, please remember to refer me to any friends or acquaintances who need a lawyer. Referrals are still our best source of new business. Do you have a revocable living trust to protect your heirs against probate? Probate takes forever, is expensive, and is annoying. Do your family a favor. Set up a trust, and put all your property, especially any real property, into the trust. Since it is revocable, you can change it, add to it, take property out of it, or even cancel it completely, at any time. We set up such trusts, provide a pour-over will as a back-up for any property that does not make it into the trust, provide you with blank durable powers of attorney for health care and financial decisions, in case you become incapable of making such decisions while still alive, and convey one piece of real property to the trust, usually the family home, for $1500.00. If you would like to hire me to do this, let me know, and I'll send you a list of the information I need. Dana Sack    ... Read Answer