Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

You need to provide more information. Who filed the deed, why do you want to eliminate it, what do you want the title to be, etc.

It's simple, record another quitclaim deed reversing the grantor and grantee. Of course this may have all kinds of consequences, but the basic act of reversal is that simple.

I'll go with Mr. McCormick's answer. You cannot un-do a deed, just as you can't un-ring the bell. Civil Code section 1058 provides "Redelivering a grant of real property to the grantor, or canceling it, does not operate to retransfer the title." Courts have held this to mean that, once a deed is delivered, the parties cannot un-do the transfer by ripping up or burning the deed, even if they both intend to un-do it. The only way to return ownership to the original transferor is by a new, mirror-image deed. The result is TWO transactions, not ZERO, and there will necessarily be capital gain or loss considerations, reappraisal for Prop. 13 property tax levels, transfer taxes and so on; also, if there is financing in place, maybe a due-on-sale clause has been triggered. Further, if one or both deeds are unrecorded, they are nevertheless valid as between the parties thereto and others with actual or constructive knowledge of them. Finally, I suppose it is possible in a case of mutual mistake to ask a court to declare the first deed absolutely void from the outset, but there is no guarantee the court will do so and the parties cannot nullify the deed themselves without a court order.