California Legal Glossary
Clear definitions of the legal terms our clients ask about most, written by the Los Angeles business, real estate, construction, and trust litigation attorneys at The Darvish Firm, APC. Each entry explains what the term means in California, the statutes behind it, and where disputes actually come from.
Real Estate
Adverse Possession
Acquiring ownership of someone else's land by occupying it openly and hostilely for five years while paying its property taxes.
Dual Agency
One broker representing both buyer and seller in the same transaction, legal only with informed written consent.
Easement
A legal right to use someone else's land for a specific purpose, like access or utilities.
Escrow
The neutral third party that holds funds and documents and closes the sale strictly according to written instructions.
Joint Tenancy
Co-ownership in equal shares with a right of survivorship: when one owner dies, the survivors automatically absorb the share.
Lis Pendens
A recorded notice that a lawsuit affecting title to a property is pending, which effectively freezes its marketability.
Partition Action
The lawsuit a co-owner files to force the sale or division of jointly owned property.
Quiet Title Action
A lawsuit that asks the court to declare who actually owns a property and wipe out competing claims.
Specific Performance
A court order forcing a party to actually complete a contract, most often the sale of real property, instead of just paying damages.
Tenancy in Common
Co-ownership in separate, transferable shares with no survivorship rights; each owner's share passes to their heirs.
Transfer Disclosure Statement (TDS)
The statutory form on which California residential sellers must disclose known material facts and defects.
Construction
Construction Defect
Workmanship, design, or material failures that breach building standards, from leaks and cracks to structural problems.
Mechanics Lien
A contractor or supplier's recorded claim against the property itself for unpaid work or materials.
Retention (Retainage)
The percentage of each construction payment held back until the work is complete, with statutory release deadlines.
Stop Payment Notice
A subcontractor's claim that freezes construction funds still in the owner's or lender's hands.
Business & Corporate
Alter Ego (Piercing the Corporate Veil)
The doctrine that lets a court hold owners personally liable when they treat the company as an extension of themselves.
Breach of Fiduciary Duty
When someone entrusted to act for another's benefit, a partner, officer, trustee, or agent, puts their own interests first.
Business Judgment Rule
The presumption protecting directors' honest, informed decisions from second-guessing in court.
Buy-Sell Agreement
The owners' contract that fixes in advance how shares change hands on death, exit, deadlock, or divorce.
Derivative Action
A lawsuit a shareholder or LLC member brings on the company's behalf when management won't sue the wrongdoers.
Involuntary Dissolution
A court-ordered wind-up of a deadlocked or abused company, and the statutory buyout that can stop it.
Liquidated Damages
A pre-agreed damages amount for breach, enforceable if it was a reasonable estimate and not a penalty.
Tortious Interference
Liability for an outsider who intentionally disrupts someone else's contract or business relationship.
Trusts, Estates & Probate
Heggstad Petition
A probate shortcut confirming that an asset the decedent meant to hold in trust belongs to the trust, without a full probate.
Intestate Succession
The statutory formula that decides who inherits when someone dies without a valid will or trust.
No Contest Clause
A trust or will provision that disinherits anyone who challenges it, enforceable in California only in narrow circumstances.
Pour-Over Will
A backstop will that sends any assets left outside a living trust into the trust at death.
Probate
The court-supervised process of validating a will, paying debts, and distributing a deceased person's estate.
Probate Code Section 850 Petition
The probate court's tool for deciding who really owns disputed property, moving assets into or out of estates and trusts.
Trust Accounting
The trustee's formal financial report to beneficiaries, and the lever for uncovering mismanagement.
Trustee
The person or company that administers a trust, bound by strict fiduciary duties to the beneficiaries.
Undue Influence
Excessive persuasion that overcomes a person's free will to procure an unfair estate plan, gift, or transfer.
Trucking & Cargo Claims
Bill of Lading
The contract, receipt, and title document for a freight shipment, and the first exhibit in every cargo case.
Carmack Amendment
The federal law making interstate motor carriers liable for cargo loss or damage, and preempting most state law claims.
Double Brokering
When the carrier hired to haul a load secretly re-brokers it to someone else, a leading source of cargo theft and unpaid haulers.
Released Value (Liability Limitation)
The agreed cap on a carrier's liability, often pennies per pound, in exchange for a lower freight rate.
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