Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

You start by figuring out if you actually have grounds to quiet title. If you do, then the next step is to hire an expert missing heirs tracer, one who has qualified in court before. You will need their report showing that you have exhausted all appropriate avenues for finding the defendants before the court will let you proceed with the case without serving them. For the deceased defendants, you will have to get certified death certificates, make sure there was no probate, or if there was make sure to get proof the property was not in the estate, and if there was no probate you'll need your "tracker" to make sure there aren't any intestate heirs who need to be found and served. The reason you do all this, or at least most of it, before you file suit, is that the court is going to want to move the case along once it's filed. So you don't want to have to do all this under the gun of a dismissal for lack of prosection.

As the previous answer explains, quieting title in your situation is a two-part process - finding the defendants and proving that your title is superior.

You may have superior title to all other potential claimants for a variety of reasons, including adverse possession, someone else's fraud, an unrecorded deed, failure of a condition subsequent in someone's title, and so forth ........ but you'll need to prove it based on your own evidence and testimony, not just a missing defendant's failure to present contradictory evidence of title. So, an early step is to have done all the research and obtained all the documents to establish your claim.

In addition, you can only quiet title against persons and entities that you have sued, and that means exhaustively identifying possible claimants - anyone who is a possible "last link" in the chain of title, including mortgagees, heirs (whether named in a will or trust or who may have inherited by intestate succession), anyone who paid taxes, corporate successors, and on and on. If such potential claimants can be determined by name, but cannot be located for service of process, the court should be requested to allow service by publication after all reasonable attempts to effect personal service have failed.

The actual wording of a quiet-title complaint is fairly straightforward, but does call for a few special allegations including the nature of title to be quieted in plaintiff (a fee, a remainder, an easement, etc.) and the date as of which quiet title is requested. There are model complaints in legal forms books that can be used as guides to drafting, but these are decidedly not "fill in the blanks" type forms like an application for a dog license.

I have experience bringing quiet title actions against deceased defendants, and successfully obtaining title. I have the research, pleadings and other papers already prepared from prior matters and would be happy to help you, if you want to contact me and if you are serious about representation.

Best,

Daniel Bakondi, Esq.

[email protected]

415-450-0424

The Law Office of Daniel Bakondi, APLC

870 Market Street, Suite 1161

San Francisco CA 94102

http://www.danielbakondi.com

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I already explained to you that you cannot quiet title to property that you do not own, unless you claim ownership by adverse possession. If the owners are deceased, it has to pass through probate to transfer title to the heirs.