An Action to Quiet Title

If you are attempting to establish ownership of property then you will soon come to know what a quiet title is. It is a legal proceeding that determines a person's right to the ownership of a piece of property against one or more other claimants to the land.

To put it another way, it is a form of a lawsuit that makes it possible for an individual who wishes to become owner of a property to legally be in a position to take position of it. This includes land as well as any buildings that are attached to the land. The person who is the plaintiff in the case, known as a quiet title action must get a court order that will prevent anyone else from making any type of claim on the property in question. These actions are required due to the fact that real estate often changes from the hands of one party to another often and knowing who has title to a property is not always simple to determine. The law must step in to decide who the rightful owner is and who must step aside.

An action of this sort also has another purpose, which is to remove any clouds that are cast upon it. A cloud is a claim or a potential claim to property ownership. It could be a partial claim or a full claim. For instance a cloud could be a lien in an amount of money that is not higher than what the property is valued at. A title to the property is considered to be clouded if the plaintiff (i.e. potential buyer) is placed into the position of having to defend the full ownership of the real estate in a court of law against another party at some point in the future. A quiet title action is something a landowner can bring to the courts regardless of when a respondent is asserting that they rightfully own the premises being disputed.

An example of this would be if a homeowner agreed to sell a piece of real estate but then died before the sale could go through. Let us assume that the homeowner willed the property to a niece. In this scenario the prospective buyer as well as the niece of the deceased homeowner would have valid grounds for filing a quiet title suit because both people have a claim to the real estate that is valid in the eyes of the law. The courts would then have to decide whose claim to uphold.

In some states there are statutes on these actions while in other states there are not. Some states allow the courts to use their own discretion when it comes to title actions involving property whereas others have stricter standards that must be followed. According to common law the plaintiff must already be in possession of the real estate to file this action while some state statutes do not require this.