Pittsburg Partition Lawyers

The history of the City of Pittsburg can be traced back to 1839 when Jose Antone Mesa and Miguel Jose Garcia received a land grant from the Mexican government. What once was a struggling settlement has today become a community of parks, recreational facilities, shopping centers, affordable housing and planned business and commercial development. With the city’s plan to keep growing and develop the land, residents of Pittsburg who own real estate may face disputes with co-owners. Generally, the best Pittsburg 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

Where the complaint sets forth that the plaintiff, as the person’s spouse, bought an undivided interest with money from the community and took the record title in the person’s name, it is proper to join the married person as a defendant in an action for partition. (see Varni v. Devoto (1909) 10 Cal.App. 304.)

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)

In a partition action against a married individual, the person’s spouse is a necessary party if the plaintiff claims a homestead right or other interest in the property. (see De Uprey v. De Uprey (1865) 27 Cal. 329.) In De Uprey v. De Uprey, the court held that the wife was not only a proper party, but a necessary one when the wife not only claimed a homestead right to the property, but also that the entire legal estate was in her name. (De Uprey, 27 Cal. 329, 332.) Since all persons having or claiming any interest in the property are not only proper but necessary parties to a partition action, it is not only proper for the court to allow the motion to amend, but it would be an error not to do so. (De Uprey, 27 Cal. At 332.)

Where it appears that the married person’s interest was acquired through an order of distribution before the marriage, that no part of the property was conveyed to the spouse, and that the spouse’s only interest may have been obtained by the spouse’s declaration of homestead that was not recorded until after the commencement of the partition suit, the spouse will not be a necessary party. (see Priddel v. Shankie (1945) 69 Cal.App.2d 319.) In Priddel v. Shankie, the court determined that the wife was not a necessary party since the husband’s undivided interest was acquired through a decree of distribution when he was a single man, and no agreements or deeds were made to convey any part of it to the wife. (Priddel v. Shankie, 69 Cal.App.2d. 219, 326.)

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