Real Property Litigation
Real property is often the single largest asset a person or business owns, and disputes over it carry real financial weight. When ownership, boundaries, access, condition, or a sale is in question, the outcome can decide whether you keep, sell, develop, or recover full value from your property. JZ Law Group, P.C. represents owners, buyers, sellers, co-owners, investors, and landlords throughout Los Angeles County in real property litigation, from the first demand letter through trial and appeal.
We handle these matters with a clear understanding of how they play out in the Los Angeles Superior Court and how the underlying real estate, title, and contract issues actually work.
Core areas of our real property practice
These are the disputes we handle most, often in combination, to settle the rights to a property permanently.
Quiet Title
A quiet title action establishes who actually owns an interest in real property and clears competing or adverse claims against it. We bring and defend quiet title actions under California's quiet title statutes to resolve disputes over ownership, conflicting deeds, fractional and co-ownership interests, adverse possession, prescriptive rights, and clouds left on title by old liens, expired interests, or recorded documents that no longer reflect reality. The goal is a judgment that confirms your interest and binds the world, so your ownership is no longer in question.
Easements and Boundary Disputes
Disputes between neighbors and adjoining owners over where a property line sits, who may cross whose land, and what was built where are among the most contested real property cases. We litigate express, implied, and prescriptive easements, easements by necessity, access and right-of-way disputes, encroachments, and fence, wall, and survey disagreements. Whether you need to establish or protect a right of access, remove an encroachment, or extinguish a claimed easement burdening your property, we pursue the remedy that fits, frequently in combination with a quiet title claim to settle the rights permanently.
Habitability
Habitability disputes arise when the condition of a rental property is at issue, whether raised as a tenant claim, a defense in an eviction, or an affirmative lawsuit. California imposes implied warranty of habitability and statutory repair duties on residential landlords, and the condition of a unit can drive claims for damages, rent withholding, repair and deduct, and habitability defenses to unlawful detainer. We represent both sides of these disputes. For tenants, we pursue claims against landlords who fail to repair and maintain habitable conditions, including damages, rent reimbursement, and related retaliation and wrongful eviction claims. For landlords and owners, we defend against habitability claims, litigate the actual condition and repair history, and address related rent withholding and retaliation allegations.
Partition Actions
When co-owners of real property cannot agree on what to do with it, a partition action allows a court to divide the property or order its sale and divide the proceeds. These disputes commonly involve inherited property, jointly held investments, family members, or former partners whose relationship has broken down. We prosecute and defend partition actions, including partition by sale and physical division, and we handle the accounting that goes with them, such as offsets and credits for payments, improvements, rents, and carrying costs. We also work within the buyout and appraisal procedures California's Partition of Real Property Act provides, which can let a co-owner buy out the others before any forced sale.
Purchase and Sale Disputes
When a real estate transaction falls apart or a party fails to perform, the dispute can tie up the property and the money for months. We litigate breaches of purchase and sale agreements, claims for specific performance to force a sale to close, deposit and liquidated damages disputes, contingency and escrow fights, rescission, and claims arising from a seller's or agent's failure to disclose known defects, nuisances, or conditions affecting the property. We represent buyers and sellers in both standard and as-is transactions and pursue or defend the disclosure, fraud, and negligence claims these deals can generate.
Title Defects
A defect in title can stop a sale, block financing, and put ownership itself in doubt. We resolve clouds on title arising from defective, forged, or improperly executed deeds, errors in legal descriptions, gaps and conflicts in the chain of title, undisclosed or improperly recorded liens and encumbrances, and wrongful recordings. Our work here includes actions to cancel invalid instruments, reform documents that do not reflect the parties' actual agreement, address slander of title, and clear the record through quiet title so the property can be sold, financed, or developed without a cloud hanging over it.
Why JZ Law Group
Real property litigation rewards preparation and a command of the underlying real estate, title, and contract law. We approach each matter with attention to the documents, the recorded record, and the specific statutes and remedies that decide these cases, and we build the file to support the result you need, whether that is a judgment confirming title, an order of sale, removal of an encroachment, or recovery on a broken transaction.
Time and cost matter, and we work to resolve disputes efficiently while remaining ready to try the case when a fair resolution is not on the table.
Related practice areas
Property disputes rarely travel alone. These related areas often come up in the same matter.
Is your property in dispute?
From a clouded title to a broken sale to a boundary fight, tell us what is at stake and we will tell you how we would approach it.
Schedule a consultation →Los Angeles, CA 90024
This page is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. For advice on a specific matter, consult a qualified attorney. Attorney advertising.
