Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: To Whom Should the House Belong

There is a legal principle called 'adverse possession,' sometimes referred to by laymen as 'squatters' rights' under which property ownership can pass from the person on title to the person in possession after five years. The requirements are fairly stiff, including one that the possession be 'adverse' or 'hostile.' If you were living in the house WITH your brother's permission, or his assent can be inferred, your possession wouldn't qualify as adverse.

Short of adverse possession, your remedy seems to be an action to recover the amounts you paid on your brother's behalf.There are two possible problems: passage of time and the statute of limitations may be cutting off your rights to the older payments. Therefore, you should act promptly. The other is that if you have been living in (or collecting rents from) the house, the rental value of the house received by you could be claimed as an offset.

There are some missing facts here that prevent a complete analysis, but most likely you have a claim for money but not for any ownership in the house itself, although you could end up owning the house through foreclosure enforcing a money judgment.

You have a long legal road in front of you and much depends upon how much of a legal struggle your brother puts up in defense. This suggests maybe you should consider alternative dispute resolution such as mediation or arbitration. In families, unless the family relationship is already bad, lawsuits are pretty destructive.

Re: To Whom Should the House Belong

If you were making the mortgage payments as a loan to your brother, and he has failed to pay you back, you may want to initiate an action for the monies owed and obtain title through enforcement of the judgment against him.