Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Your situation is not one in which you just "file papers" for a lawsuit and a restraining order. Land titles and real property access are complex areas of the law that even few lawyers really understand if they have not dealt with them for years. I can give you a list of the documents you would need to file to initiate court proceedings, but only two are forms. Everything else must be custom drafted by someone who knows what to put in them. And that is just to start the case.

$20,000 seems like an EXTREMELY unreasonable retainer up front, but that is a mid-range budget for a case like this. If you want to preserve access to the property (and fulfil your obligations to your tenants to provide access) you're going to have to find an attorney to take the case, perhaps with some kind of financing arrangements.

I have 30 years of real estate litigation experience, including the better part of a decade litigating nothing but land title issues as an in-house litigator for Fidelity National Title and Chicago Title. Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss your options.