Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Rescission Deed

Please do not alter a document that has been executed. The County Recorder normally will not accept a document that appears to have been altered after execution.

A rescission deed is not performed unilaterally. When both parties to a purchase and sale transaction agree to rescind the agreement, a rescission deed will rescind the deed that has been recorded, as if the transaction has not taken place. If the other party refuses, a court order is required for a rescission deed.

Although a rescission deed will cause the property to revert back to its original base year value for property taxes, no refund of property taxes already paid will occur.

It is not clear from the facts that you have provided why you want a rescission deed, if you are the party wanting to rescind. If you delivered the quitclaim deed, why is it in your possession to record? If you have not had the deed recorded, or an escrow is still pending, there is no need to have a rescission deed.

I would advise you to speak to a lawyer.

Very truly yours,

Re: Rescission Deed

The term "rescission deed" is not used in any California appellate case or in the standard California treatises on real property law. You will find some references to rescission deeds on Google, but in those instances they are using jargon to describe the effect of a deed (i.e., to rescind a prior deed) and not referring to a specific form or recognized instrument format.

Therefore, you are not going to find a blank form you can use by hunting for something called a "rescission deed." You probably need a lawyer-drafted instrument; the lawyer would probably entitle it either "grant deed" or "quitclaim deed" but it would contain more language than is usually pre-printed on fill-in-the-blanks forms bearing those names. It would have the effect of reversing the deed you are trying to rescind.

Who were you "submitting" the quitclaim deed to, and who told you that you needed a "rescission deed?"

Further, why are you trying to rescind a deed - are you the grantor? Or does the situation involve a trustee's deed after a foreclosure?

The most common instance of rescinding a deed seems to be after an invalid trustee's sale. In that case, the laws specifically provide for the recording of a "Notice of Rescission." See Civil Code section 1058.5(b).

You might also be interested in Civil Code section 1058, which reads, "Redelivering a grant of real property to the grantor, or canceling it, does not operate to retransfer the title."

The reversal of a transfer of title by deed can, as you see, be a rather complex matter, and to avoid possibly getting the chain of title totally confused, you should get a lawyer with a good background in real-property transactions to write a deed that will clearly and fully accomplish what needs to be done.