Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Legally changed name not used on title - title still valid?

Civil Code section 1096 requires a property owner who changes his or her name while "on title" to the property to use the old name when selling. The purpose is to keep the chain of title intact and traceable. This is the only statute I've found so far on this issue.

Family Code section 351(b) requires the marriage license to show the parties' "real and full names." I don't know the effect of failure of one party to use his "real" name; I doubt that it invalidates a marriage.

Returning to the deed issue, I think a challenge to the validity of the deed would be more likely to succeed on the basis of proof of "coercion, manipulation, threats, etc." which you listed, rather than whether he used his birth name or current legal name. A deed to X divests you of title just as effectively as a deed to Y would.

Your facts are intriguing to me, and I plan to do further research on both issues and get back to you.

Re: Legally changed name not used on title - title still valid?

OK, here's a further reply after doing a little research -- certainly not as much as a lawyer would need to do if preparing for trial on these issues, but more than my previous reply reflected:

First, on the issue of the validity of a deed giving X a 50% interest in a house, when X's current legal name is really Y. I think that because X and Y are the same person, that person has received a valid interest by the deed, and that interest is held by X/Y as X and can be (for example) sold by X/Y as X. To put it another way, there is no fraud, sufficient to defeat the deed, merely by the substitution of the name X for the name Y. To render the deed void, it would be necessary to show some harmful consequence of the mis-use of X for Y. Use of a false name is often a part of a fraudulent scheme or transaction, but name falsification in and of itseld does not appear to have caused a fraudulent result.

As I said before, the other factors -- coercion, threats, manipulation, intimidation and deception -- may be grounds to avoid the deed, and the "name issue" may be additional evidence of all of the other wrongdoing. So, it's not totally inconsequential by any means!

Now, on the marriage issue. Use of a false name in a marriage license application is probably perjury (People v. Brown, 1954, 125 Cal.App.2d 83; but it doesn't invalidate the marriage, if otherwise duly solemnized (People v. Stokes, 1886, 71 Cal. 263).

Family Code 2210(d) provides for annulment when the consent of either party was obtained by fraud. However, saying "my name is X" when his name is actually Y, is insufficiently fraudulent when everything else you're told is true. (Williams v. Williams, 1960, 178 Cal.App.2d 522; Douglass v. Douglass (1957) 148 Cal.App.2d 867).

Fraud supporting annulment includes saying you're Spanish when you're really Filipino (a case that might be decided differently today), and saying you're an upstanding citizen when you really have a long prison record. Fraud that was insufficient to support annulment includes saying you're a widow when you're really a divorcee, and saying you're rich when you're really not.

So, in sum, I think you have an uphill legal battle to extricate yourself from your dealings with X/Y, but it's not impossible or even unlikely that you could prevail -- but you must prevail on grounds more substantial than the name issue alone.