Quiet Title and Partition Actions

Co-ownership disputes and title defects are among the most disruptive problems a California property owner can face — because until they are resolved, the property usually cannot be sold, refinanced, or insured. California law provides two remedies: a quiet title action to establish who owns what, and a partition action to end a co-ownership that is no longer working.

ROMO Law Group handles quiet title and partition matters throughout California. The partition statutes changed substantially in 2023, and the change materially favors the co-owner who wants to keep the property. Most content online has not caught up.

What changed in 2023

California enacted the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act through AB 633 (Stats. 2021, ch. 119), effective January 1, 2022, covering only inherited property. A year later, AB 2245 (Stats. 2022, ch. 82) renamed it the Partition of Real Property Act and deleted the heirs-property limitation entirely.

The result, codified at Code of Civil Procedure sections 874.311 through 874.323, is that California now applies the appraisal-and-buyout framework to every partition of property held in tenancy in common:

• Section 874.311(b) applies the Act to real property held in tenancy in common where there is no agreement in a record binding all the cotenants that governs partition.
• Section 874.311(c) applies it to actions filed on or after January 1, 2023.
• Section 874.313(a) requires partition under the Act unless all cotenants agree otherwise in a record, and section 874.313(b) provides that the Act controls over any inconsistent provision of the general partition statutes.

California is an outlier here. In most states this machinery exists only as a special track for inherited property. In California it is the default.

The right to partition, and its limits

A co-owner's right to partition is absolute and does not depend on the reasonableness of wanting out. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 872.210, an owner of an estate of inheritance, an estate for life, or an estate for years held concurrently may bring the action. Section 872.210(b) excludes spouses and putative spouses as to community, quasi-community, and quasi-marital property — those divisions go through family law instead.

Two things do limit it:

• A written waiver. The right may be waived by express or implied contract, but California courts construe waivers narrowly because partition is a favored remedy. LEG Investments v. Boxler (2010) 183 Cal.App.4th 484 cautions against readily finding an implied waiver. A temporary waiver must be clear, specific, and for a defined period.
• Standing. In Amundson v. Catello (2025), the Court of Appeal reversed an order for partition by sale where siblings filed before probate had determined whether the property was part of the decedent's estate. Where ownership itself is unsettled, the partition case is premature — establish title first.

The buyout right: how a co-owner keeps the property

This is the provision that changes outcomes, and it is the reason a co-owner facing a partition suit should not assume the property is gone.

Step one — the court determines value

Under Code of Civil Procedure section 874.316, the court shall determine fair market value by ordering an appraisal, unless all cotenants agree on value or a method, or the cost of an appraisal would outweigh its evidentiary value. The appraiser must be California-licensed and disinterested, and must value the property as if owned solely in fee simple. The court sends notice of the appraised value within 10 days of filing, parties have 30 days to object, and the hearing occurs no sooner than 30 days after notice.

Step two — the non-selling cotenants may buy

Under section 874.317, once value is determined, any cotenant except one who requested the sale may buy all the interests of the cotenants who did request it.

The absence of a fractional-interest discount is what disarms the classic predatory pattern — an investor buying one heir's fractional share cheaply and filing for partition by auction. Under the current statute, the remaining family can buy that investor out at the investor's proportionate share of full appraised value.

Step three — division, sale, or dismissal

Section 874.318(a) directs that the court shall order partition in kind unless it finds, after considering the section 874.319 factors, that in-kind division would result in great prejudice to the cotenants as a group. Section 874.318(c) permits owelty — compensatory payments to equalize an uneven physical division.

And section 874.318(b) contains a provision with no analogue in the general statutes: if the court does not order partition in kind and no cotenant requested a sale, the court dismisses the action.

The section 874.319 factors

1. Whether the property practicably can be divided among the cotenants;
2. Whether division would reduce aggregate fair market value compared with selling as a whole;
3. Evidence of the collective duration of ownership or possession by a cotenant and that cotenant's relatives;
4. A cotenant's sentimental attachment, including attachment arising because the property has ancestral or other unique or special value;
5. The degree to which cotenants would be harmed if they could not continue the same use;
6. The degree to which cotenants have contributed their pro rata share of property taxes, insurance, and other expenses;
7. Any other relevant factor.

Section 874.319(b) directs that no single factor is dispositive without weighing the totality. Factors three through five have no counterpart in the general partition statutes and are the strongest statutory arguments available to a family resisting the forced sale of a long-held home. Factor six cuts sharply against a co-owner who has contributed nothing.

If the property is sold

Section 874.320 requires an open-market sale unless the court finds sealed bids or an auction would be more economically advantageous to the cotenants as a group. If the parties agree on a California-licensed broker within 10 days of the sale order, the court appoints that broker; otherwise the court appoints a disinterested one. The court-determined value functions as a floor. Auctions — historically the mechanism by which heirs' property lost value — are now the disfavored last resort.

Accounting: who gets credit for what

Code of Civil Procedure section 872.140 permits the court to order allowance, accounting, contribution, or other compensatory adjustment among the parties according to equitable principles. In practice this phase often matters more to the client than the division itself.

A cotenant is credited for expenditures in excess of their fractional share for necessary repairs, improvements that enhance the property's value, taxes, payments of principal and interest on mortgages and liens, insurance for the common benefit, and protection of title (Wallace v. Daley (1990) 220 Cal.App.3d 1028; Milian v. De Leon (1986) 181 Cal.App.3d 1185). Note that improvements are credited at their enhancement to value, not at what was spent — a co-owner who over-improves does not recover the overspend.

Attorney's fees in partition — stated accurately

Partition is a genuine exception to the American Rule, but not the exception most people assume.

Section 874.010 makes the costs of partition include reasonable attorney's fees incurred or paid by a party for the common benefit, along with the referee's fees, surveyor compensation, title report costs, and other disbursements incurred for the common benefit. Section 874.040 directs the court to apportion those costs among the parties in proportion to their interests, or to make such other apportionment as may be equitable.

Three consequences follow, and content that skips them is misleading:

• This is not a prevailing-party statute. Fees are spread across all owners including the party who incurred them. A 50% owner who spends $40,000 for the common benefit recovers, at most, roughly half.
• Only common-benefit work counts. Fees spent pressing a meritless position are not for the common benefit, and courts may deny them or shift costs toward the party pressing spurious matters (Finney v. Gomez (2003) 111 Cal.App.4th 527; Forrest v. Elam (1979) 88 Cal.App.3d 164; Orien v. Lutz (2017) 16 Cal.App.5th 957).
• Since 2023, opposition alone is protected. Section 874.321.5 provides that the court shall not apportion the costs of partition to a party who opposes the partition unless doing so is equitable and consistent with the purposes of the chapter. The old threat — "file partition and the court will make you pay my fees" — no longer works against a co-owner whose only position is that they do not want to sell.

Quiet title actions

A quiet title action under Code of Civil Procedure sections 760.010 through 765.060 asks the court to determine title against competing claims — a disputed deed, a clouded chain of title, an unreleased lien, a forged or fraudulent conveyance, a boundary or easement claim, or a title-insurance dispute.

Section 761.020 requires a verified complaint containing the property description (both the legal description and the street address), the plaintiff's title and its basis, the adverse claims to be determined, the date as of which determination is sought, and a prayer for determination. Where title rests on adverse possession, the complaint must plead the specific facts constituting it. The requirement to plead the basis of title, not merely ownership, is a frequent demurrer target.

Section 761.010(b) requires the plaintiff to record a notice of pendency of the action immediately upon commencement — mandatory here, unlike the optional lis pendens available in ordinary real property claims. That recording fixes the cutoff date that determines who is bound by the judgment under section 764.030.

And section 764.010 provides that the court shall not enter judgment by default, but shall in all cases require evidence of the plaintiff's title. A non-appearing defendant does not hand the plaintiff a win. Every quiet title case ends in an evidentiary prove-up.

On timing, there is no limitations period specific to quiet title; courts borrow the period of the underlying theory. Under Muktarian v. Barmby (1965) 63 Cal.2d 558, no cause of action accrues while the plaintiff remains in undisturbed possession — the clock does not begin until possession is disturbed or the adverse claim is pressed. Laches remains available as a defense.

Situations we handle

What to bring to a first conversation

1. The deed and any TIC, co-ownership, or operating agreement — the existence of a written agreement governing partition changes which statutes apply.
2. A current title report or preliminary report.
3. Records of who paid what: mortgage statements, property tax bills, insurance, repair and improvement invoices.
4. Any probate file, if the interest was inherited.
5. Correspondence about access to or use of the property.

Page current as of August 2026. The Partition of Real Property Act took effect for actions filed on or after January 1, 2023 and has been the subject of very little published appellate interpretation to date.

Frequently asked questions