Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: abandoned home

There are risks associated with this method. Have you tried other research sources such as using a title company to research all prior owners? Feel free to contact me and we can discuss the best way to approach the issue.

Re: abandoned home

No. While that MIGHT work, and indeed the adverse possession concept was created for the purpose of getting abandoned property back onto the tax rolls, it is far too risky for the average investor or even a speculator.

First, adverse possession takes five years. During the five years, you are a trespasser. The real owner (or someone who has become the true owner by acquiring title through a tax sale, for example) may come out of the woodwork and have you kicked out.

I believe it is a good principle that someone owns every parcel of land. Once in a while, an exception crops up and makes legal history. The term "abandoned" does not really mean, usually at least, that there is no owner -- it usually means only that the owner has ceased to occupy and maintain it, usually including ceasing to pay taxes.

By the way, the usual fate of "abandoned" property is for title to revert to the taxing authority as a result of accumulated tax liens.

I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say the assessor can't find the address in their system. This could be a clerical error, or it could be that the parcel has never been assigned an address. That's fairly common in rural areas; probably rare in cities but not necessarily unique. The parcel of land the house sits on would be shown on parcel mapping of the area, even if not as a separate parcel, unless there is a mapping error -- this has happened in the past -- an actual crack between two parcel maps, but extremely rare in this GPS-mapped world.

At the very least, you should have a title search done to determine the identity of past owners or possible claimants, then see if you can get each of them to quitclaim to you. You also need to be absolutely clear on the tax lien and public ownership issues that probably exist.

Re: abandoned home

You might be able to hold it for 5 years as required, but you will have to pay past due and all current taxes to have a chance.