Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: quickclaim deed

No. When you sign a quitclaim (not "quickclaim") deed and give it to the transferee, an effective transfer of the property has occurred and you no longer own he property. It makes no difference whether the deed is immediately recorded, or recorded months or even years later. The only way that you could later deed the property to someone else is where the first party signs a deed transferring the property back to you.

If you give someone a quitclaim deed to your property then later give someone else a deed to the same property, you will in all likelyhood be sued by both parties.

Re: quickclaim deed

Yes. A quitclaim deed does not in itself assure or warrant that you now own any interest in the property, so executing a second quitclaim to the same property is not in itself invalid or fraudulent. Nevertheless, unless you disclose the full details of the prior quitclaim, you could be commiting a serious fraud for failure to disclose.

Someone who receives a deed to property and then fails to record it is taking the risk (in California) that someone else with a deed of similar force and effect will record it first and have superior rights. However, the recording laws that give superior rights to the first to record (despite the date of the deed) are subject to principles of law that failure to disclose relevant facts about prior sales or transfers is a fraud and that transactions induced by fraud can be set aside.

So, bottom line is that if your motives are pure as the driven snow and you have told the second grantee everything about your deal with the first grantee, it is probably OK; if not, it is probably flawed and will come back to haunt you.

See a real estate lawyer for details based on full facts of this situation.