Palo Alto Partition Lawyers

The City of Palo Alto was incorporated on April 23, 1894. The town was originally created when Leland Stanford and his wife decided to create Stanford University in their son’s memory. Today, the City of Palo Alto is part of the Silicon Valley and is one of the most expensive cities in the United States. Residents of Palo Alto who own real estate may face disputes with co-owners. Generally, the best Palo Alto Partition Lawyers usually find partition action to be the best remedy for disputing co-owners in four broad categories:

• Split real estate dispute;
• Brother-Sister real estate dispute;
• Investor-Investor real estate dispute; and
• Significant other real estate dispute

A Palo Alto Partition Attorney will be familiar with deceased persons and grantees as parties in partition actions. If a person is deceased and is required to be joined as a defendant, the plaintiff must join the deceased person’s personal representative if the plaintiff knows of the personal representative. (CCP § 872.630(a).)

Critically, Code of Civil Procedure section 872.510 states, “The plaintiff shall joint as defendants in the action all persons having or claiming interests of record or actually known to the plaintiff or reasonably apparent from an inspection of the property, in the estate as to which partition is sought.” (emphasis added)

If the person is required to be joined as a defendant is deceased or believed by the plaintiff to be deceased, and the plaintiff has no knowledge of a personal representative, the plaintiff must state these facts in an affidavit or declaration filed with the complaint. (CCP § 872.530(b)(1).) If the plaintiff states in the affidavit that the person is deceased, the plaintiff may join as defendants, “the testate and intestate successors of (naming such deceased person), deceased, and all persons claiming by, through, or under said decedent,” naming them in that manner. (CCP § 872.530(b)(2).) If the plaintiff states that the person is believed to be deceased, the plaintiff may join the person as a defendant, and also join “the testate and intestate successors of (naming such person) believed to be deceased, and all persons claiming by, through, or under such person,” naming them in that manner. (CCP § 872.530(b)(3).)

If any part of a tenancy in common was conveyed by less than the total number of co-owners, the grantee of any part of the tenancy in common should be named as a party to the partition action. (see Gates v. Salmon (1868) 35 Cal. 576.) If a tenant in common conveys several parcels of the common tenancy to other persons, an action in partition cannot be maintained by another tenant in common to set off to the other in the remaining part of the tract equal to the other’s share. (see Sutter v. City and County of San Francisco (1868) 36 Cal. 112.) If a person buys the parcels in severalty from all of the tenants in common and whose properties are not incorporated in the property to be partitioned, the person does not need to be named a party. (see Richardson v. Loupe (1889) 80 Cal. 490.)

At Underwood Law Firm, our Palo Alto Partition Attorneys are well-versed in the legal remedy of partition, and are ready to discuss your legal issues.