As residential mortgage interest rates have nearly tripled over the past 18 months, some participants in the real estate industry have been considering ways to market and sell real estate by keeping low-rate existing...more
The borrower has no post-sale redemption right in California’s nonjudicial foreclosure process. This redemption bar has long been justified as a trade-off for the lender’s post-sale deficiency bar under Civ. Proc. Code, §...more
The long moratorium on most evictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the de facto shutdown of the court system for civil matters, caused most California landlords to defer unlawful detainer and related...more
1/11/2023
/ California ,
Commercial Leases ,
Commercial Property Owners ,
Commercial Tenants ,
Eviction ,
Landlords ,
Lease Termination ,
Leases ,
Moratorium ,
Rent ,
Rental Property ,
Tenants
The Second District Court of Appeal’s decision in Canyon Vineyard Estates I, LLC v. DeJoria sidesteps several potentially troublesome conveyancing issues by focusing on the statutory authorization for “conservation easements”...more
California’s continuing shortfall of new housing to meet demand has led to the enactment of a number of measures at the state level to encourage housing development and to limit the grounds for local governments to disapprove...more
The use of private covenants governing the use, improvement, and occupancy of real property has a long and sometimes checkered history in California, as it does throughout the nation. Beginning in the late 19th century, the...more
Addressing an issue of first impression in California, the Court of Appeal for the Second District has confirmed that businesses compelled to cease operations as a result of governmental directives issued in response to the...more
1/6/2022
/ Business Closures ,
Business Interruption ,
California ,
Commercial Insurance Policies ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Government Shutdown ,
Insurance Litigation ,
Property Insurance ,
Public Health Emergency ,
Workplace Safety
On September 16, 2021, Governor Newsom signed two bills that take effect on January 1, 2022, and are intended to foster more intensive residential development in existing single-family zoned areas. One of these, Senate Bill...more
The latest United States Supreme Court decision in the contested ground of Fifth Amendment takings law, Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, is yet another chapter in the long-standing argument regarding the distinction between...more
9/17/2021
/ Agricultural Workers ,
Cedar Point Nursery v Hassid ,
Farm Workers ,
Farms ,
Fifth Amendment ,
Fourteenth Amendment ,
Just Compensation ,
SCOTUS ,
Takings Clause ,
Unions ,
United Farm Workers
The pace of construction of new housing in California consistently falls far short of demand. As much as 100,000 housing units per year are needed, and fewer than 15 percent of that need is constructed each year, resulting in...more
A national “eviction moratorium” issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on September 4, 2020, initially was set to expire December 31, 2020, and subsequently was extended through January 31, 2021, and...more
5/3/2021
/ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Eviction ,
Landlords ,
Moratorium ,
Popular ,
Relief Measures ,
Rent ,
Rental Assistance Programs ,
Rental Property ,
Residential Leases ,
Residential Property Owners ,
Tenants
In response to shut-down orders resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, which effectively put many individuals in California out of work, the Governor and Legislature of the State of California, as well as many local...more
The general limitations on reassessment of real property without a “change of ownership” under the 1978 voter initiative known as “Proposition 13” deserve renewed attention after the failed effort to enact Proposition 15 in...more
A new set of ground rules for processing and approval of residential development projects has found its way into law and became effective January 1, 2020. The “Housing Crisis Act of 2019,” sponsored by State Senator Skinner...more
The recent case of Taniguchi v. Restoration Homes, LLC, on rehearing, held unenforceable a default clause in a loan modification agreement that purported to allow the lender to call due a deferred principal and interest...more
With the enactment of Assembly Bill 1482, signed by Governor Newsom in October 2019, the California legislature imposed a “just cause” limitation on lease terminations, non-renewals, or evictions for most California...more
1/8/2020
/ Affordable Housing ,
Civil Code ,
Commercial Leases ,
Eviction ,
Governor Newsom ,
Housing Market ,
Just Cause ,
Local Ordinance ,
New Legislation ,
Real Estate Development ,
Rent Control ,
Rental Property ,
Residential Leases ,
State and Local Government ,
Tenants
An unfortunate trend in recent legislation is the increased use of technical definitions in widely separated areas of law, forcing the reader to review multiple volumes of several different codes in order to understand a...more
In January 2017, the Department of Housing and Community Development published statistics indicating that there is a need, on average, for approximately 180,000 housing units to be developed each year in California, while...more
A fundamental precept of American law is the authority of the government, in the exercise of the police power for the protection of the health, safety, and welfare of the public, to regulate the conduct of individuals in the...more
Under the Real Estate Law that governs the regulation of brokers and salespersons by the Bureau of Real Estate, a salesperson is theoretically subject to supervision and control at all times by the broker that employs the...more
The recent Napa earthquake caused significant damage to buildings in the historic downtown areas of the cities of Napa and Vallejo, and brought to the fore the limited extent to which California law requires seismic safety...more
With the “housing collapse” and the ensuing “foreclosure crisis” behind us, it is time to assess the myriad changes in the law of mortgage lending and foreclosure enacted in response to the crisis. The short space of this...more
Adverse possession is the acquisition of title to another’s real property by continuous possession and use of the property for the prescribed period of five years. A party seeking title to real property by adverse possession...more