Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
how is a involuntary license agreement created over real property
2 Answers from Attorneys
If the question can be restated as "Can someone obtain a license in real property without the active consent of the property owner," the answer is yes.
To quote from "The Law of Easements and Licenses in Land" by Jon Bruce and James Ely, "Licenses may also be implied from the conduct of a landowner [citations to Alaska, New York and Georgia cases] or from local custom [citation to McKee v. Gratz, a 1922 U.S. Supreme Court case, 260 U.S. 127, 136]. For example, a person who maintains a business licenses the general public to enter his premises for business purposes. Moreover, when a landowner maintains a roadway, use by an individual in common with the general public may be treated as permissive under an implied license [citing a Virginia case]. However, it is impossible to obtain a license by prescription because a license is predicated upon permissive use [citing the Restatement of the Law of Property, pgh. 515, comment c]."
Without specifics, I cannot say whether a license was or was not created by a particular course of conduct or by the exchange of particular words, but "unknowing" or "unintended" creation of licenses is perhaps more likely than truly involuntary creation.