Bellflower Boundary Dispute Lawyers and Bellflower Title Attorneys

Find the right Title & Boundary Dispute attorney in Bellflower, CA

Title & Boundary Dispute Law in California

Finding out that property lines are improperly drawn and learning that you have been partially occupying your neighbor's land, or vice versa, can create some fairly serious legal issues.

Ideally, the neighbors could just ignore the situation, and go on as they had before, effectively agreeing to change the property lines to reflect their past use. This doesn't always happen, however. Additionally, such a course of action is not free of issues, and could eventually result in ownership of the land legally changing to reflect the past use, even if one of the neighbors opposes this.

Consequently, neighbors more frequently end up in some type of legal dispute over whether and to what extent the property lines should be enforced. Obviously, when the property lines are changed, one neighbor wins, and the other loses. It should come as no surprise, then, that legal fights are often the result.

Title disputes in Bellflower, California, on the other hand, involve questions of ownership over an entire parcel of land. This confusion can sometimes arise from improperly recorded deeds, resulting in inadvertent (and, occasionally, deliberate) sales of the same parcel of land to multiple people. Obviously, each buyer wants to be the one who takes title, especially if it seems unlikely that they'll be able to get their money back. This can lead to some very heated disputes.

Possible Outcomes of Boundary and Title Disputes in Bellflower, California

One way to resolve boundary disputes is to simply re-draw the property lines to reflect what the neighbors thought they were all along. When this happens, nobody's situation changes, and it's usually considered a neutral result (causing no significant loss or gain to either party). This is often done if both of the neighbors knew about the actual property lines for many years, and didn't do anything about it. A court might also take this course of action if enforcing the property lines would impose a substantial hardship on one of the parties, not outweighed by the overall benefits of doing so.

On the other hand, a court could decide to take the opposite approach, and order the neighbors to abide by the legal property lines. When deciding which course of action to take, courts consider many factors, but most of them boil down to common-sense principles of fairness. For example, if the owner of the land who was encroaching onto his neighbor's land knew of the encroachment, and hid this fact from the other neighbor (hoping to continue to use more land than he paid for), that will weigh heavily in favor of enforcing the legal property lines. On the other hand, if neither neighbor knew about the error, and it turns out that the actual property line goes through somebody's living room, a court probably won't enforce them.

When a title dispute comes up in Bellflower, California, the court has to apply some pretty perplexing legal and equitable principles. These rules are sometimes fairly obscure, mainly because they can trace their origins back hundreds of years, to the common-law courts of England. However, a close examination of them reveals their basic goal: deciding ownership disputes based on longstanding conceptions of basic fairness.

Suffice to say, you'll want the help of an expert on this subject. In general, however, you should know that courts almost always rule in favor of the buyer who first recorded the deed, AND (not "or") didn't have knowledge of any prior conveyances. This protects the buyer who was most diligent in vindicating his own rights, and acted in good faith (obviously, a buyer who knew about a prior sale of the same land isn't acting honestly).

What Can A Bellflower, California Attorney Do?

Real property disputes often involve very old legal principles that can even confound lawyers who aren't experts in real estate law. For that reason, you should almost always hire an expert Bellflower, California real estate attorney, who will help you navigate these murky legal waters.

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Life in Bellflower

Bellflower, California is a city in Los Angeles County, California. Its population is currently about 76,600 people.The city got its name from the bellefleur (French for "pretty flower") apple, which grows in many orchards in the area.

Bellflower, California was originally settled as a community of dairy farmers of Dutch, Japanese, Portuguese descent. After WWII, booming property values ended up turning Bellflower, and many other nearby towns, into a residential area.

These days, the economy of Bellflower, California is driven in large part by the retail and healthcare industries. Kaiser Permanente is one of the largest employers in Bellflower, employing doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. In addition, a large healthcare institution like that is going to employ many administrative professionals, such as lawyers and accountants.

If you need legal advice in Bellflower, California, you will almost certainly be able to find a Bellflower, California attorney who can help you with whatever legal issue you might be facing.

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