Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: doctrine of laches

To follow up on Attorney Shers excellent discussion of the distinction between the two, the reason you might see them come up under the same topic is that (I seem to recall from law school - this has very little practical application today) adverse possession is historically rooted in the doctrine of laches. Laches was the equitable doctrine which provided that if you sit on your rights too long, you lose the right to assert them. Adverse possession is the "law" or "legal" doctrine that codified the loss of rights by a property owner who fails to assert his or her rights. In other words, by virtue of the owner of a property being adversely possessed sitting on his rights for so long and not exercising his right to remove the adverse possessor from the property, eventually the property owner looses the right to assert ownership of said property (equitably this is similar to laches, but it is now codified as adverse possession). Its an archane concept as the law governing adverse possession is clearly defined in California. There are a lot of resources out there on the internet and in law libraries that can better explain this than I, but for practical purposes, they are no longer related and have separate and distinct meaning when litigating in today's world.

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Re: doctrine of laches

No. Laches is the equitable notion [historical separation between courts of equity and of law] that some thing has occurred so that it would be unfair to allow one party to raise a certain issue. So if you waiting too long to bring suit even though it was not yet barred by a statute of limitations, you might be barred by laches. It is often brought up in federal cases.

Adverse possession is holding a piece of property in a clearly hostile fashion for a certain number of years so as to give notice to the owner that you are claiming the property as your.