Settling even a relatively modest estate can sometimes require asking for intervention by a court. What squabbling heirs may not realize is that the first question a judge may consider is if all the parties have the legal right to participate in the dispute – what lawyers call “standing.”
That was the key issue in a case recently decided by the California Court of Appeal (Amundson v Catello).
Leslie Knoles and Ruth Catello bought a San Diego home in 2005. They held the property – a house with an accessory dwelling unit – as joint tenants with a right of survivorship. This meant they each held an equal, undivided share in the entire property which, if one joint tenant died before the other, would automatically pass to the survivor instead of becoming part of the decedent’s estate.
In September of 2020, Knoles recorded a quitclaim deed which, if valid, severed the joint tenancy and replaced it with a tenancy in common with Catello that did not include a right of survivorship.
(A quitclaim deed is a legal document that can be used to transfer property ownership, but unlike other deeds it does not guarantee that the grantor transferring the property has valid ownership or that the title is free of claims; it simply transfers whatever interest the grantor may have in the property.)
The effect of severing the joint tenancy was that the ownership interests of Knoles and Catello could be devised by their wills or, if they died intestate (without a will) it could be passed to their heirs through the laws of intestacy.
Knoles died a few weeks after recording the quitclaim. She was unmarried and had no children. She did have four living siblings, who in November of 2020 initiated probate proceedings to distribute the assets of her estate, including the San Diego home.
In February of 2021, Catello filed a competing petition for letters of administration, asking the probate court to appoint her as administrator of Knoles’ estate. The probate court did so a year later, and in March of 2023 Catello filed a petition to administer Knoles’ will. A trial on the parties’ competing petitions is scheduled for later this year.
After being appointed as administrator of the estate, Catello sued two of the siblings, asking the court to cancel the 2020 quitclaim deed and seeking “quiet title” that would confirm her ownership of the San Diego property. Catello argued to the court that the quitclaim deed was invalid, so the joint tenancy deed gave her full ownership of the home.
All four of Knoles’ siblings responded to Catello’s quiet title action with a cross claim to partition the property by sale. (A partition action is a legal proceeding initiated by a co-owner of real property to force its sale when co-owners cannot agree on its disposition.)
The siblings argued that the quitclaim deed was valid, and therefore Knoles’ interest the property would pass to them as her only heirs.
During the court proceedings, Catello never questioned whether the siblings had standing to bring their claim – that is, the legal right to be a party to the dispute.
In January of 2023 the court issued an order for the partition by sale of the property held by Catello and Knoles. The order identified the siblings as the “estate successors in interest/beneficiaries.”
Catello appealed, arguing to the appellate court that the siblings lacked legal standing to prosecute their partition claim. Such claims can only be made by property owners, she argued, but the siblings had “no ownership interest in the property at this time,” and would only acquire one “if their petition prevails in the probate court.”
The siblings asserted that they did have standing. They pointed out to the appellate justices that at the time the partition action was filed, the probate court was administering an intestate estate (one without a valid will), and they were Knoles’ only intestate heirs.
In addition, they argued, even if Catello now claimed the siblings lacked standing she had already conceded their status as Knoles’ legal heirs by naming two of the siblings in her quiet title action.
The justices noted that both sides agreed that “there is a possibility” that, when Knoles’ estate is probated, the siblings will own part of the property. But, they said, “the primary question for us is whether [the siblings] jumped the gun” by filing their partition claim before the probate proceedings were concluded.
“Standing is a threshold issue necessary to maintain a cause of action,” the justices said, and courts have held that in cases such as this, to have standing the siblings they would have to demonstrate that they had an interest in the property “that is concrete and actual, and not conjectural or hypothetical.”
The siblings might prevail in the probate court – but so might Catello, the justices noted, while the law requires that “the party seeking partition must have clear title.” Because the probate court has not issued its ruling, no one has clear title to the property.
The fact that Catello named two of the siblings in her quiet title action is irrelevant, the justices said. Catello had no power to define their standing, and in any case Catello was suing persons who might have claims to the property adverse to hers, rather than conceding their ownership interest.
Because the siblings’ action “was brought by parties without standing to prosecute it,” the justices reversed the lower court’s ruling on the partition action and ordered the parties to bear their own costs on appeal.
By Lynda I. Chung