Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: easement by prescription

I would strongly recommend that you seek the services of competent legal counsel before you embark on this endeavor. Generally an attorney would specially draft a complaint containing all of the essential elements of your claim. If the complaint does not contain all of the essential elements, it is subject to demurrer or motion to strike.

Re: easement by prescription

What you propose to do is so complicated that 99% of lawyers would find it difficult to do.

Re: easement by prescription

I agree with my colleagues.

Would you fix a flooded water pipe without calling a plumber? Would you perform surgery on a family member to save a doctor bill? This is complicated. Hire an attorney who specializes in this area!

Re: easement by prescription

An easement by prescription is created, as you probably know, by use over a period of five years, and the use has to be "hostile" which doesn't mean marching across it with spear in hand, it merely means without permission or consent. The use, and the resulting easement, must be of a type that is consistent with the notion of an easement, such as access, rather some exclusive occupancy sort of claim like erecting a building on the land. Courts seldom allow exclusive easements to arise by prescription. That requires actual adverse possession.

Once you have met the requirements for a prescriptive easement, the next step to "perfecting" it, or getting it legally recognized, is to file and serve a quiet-title action. There is no Judicial Council form complaint for quiet title suits; I have seen more or less typical or model quiet title complaints in treatises on real property law, such as CEB's "Real Property Remedies and Damages" which in the hands of a lawyer would save some time and avoid mistakes, but there is no royal road to an easy quiet title filing by an amateur. The complaint must be verified, must sue unknown parties in addition to Doe defendants, must describe the claims of all claimants to the land including that of the fee owner as well as yourself, and on and on.

I have successfully filed a number of easement and quiet title suits, and if you reach the point where you'd like to have this done professionally, contact me. I can economically handle quiet title or easement suits in any California county.