California Assembly Bill 2474 Targets Rural Property Owners Disproportionately

Governor Brown this year has waged a campaign to charge rural residents for the costs of fire protection since an increasing number have moved into wildland areas. And state fire officials say the greater the number of homes in rural areas, the higher the cost of fighting fires.

Assembly Bill 2474 (Chesbro) was introduced in the California Legislature on February 24, 2012 to address some of the concerns facing Californians who own real property in the state fire responsibility areas (SRA), and who will start seeing bills (in the amount of $150 per habitable structure for fire prevention fees) show up in their mailboxes this June.
AB 2474 will require the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to take into consideration: (1) any amounts that an owner of a structure in a SRA already pays for local fire prevention services, and (2) the severity of the fire zone where the structure is located. If this bill is signed into law it should comfort homeowners who already actively engage in fire prevention measures on their own, and those who own property in SRA zones where the fire severity rating is lower.

The current existing law requires the Board to adopt emergency regulations to establish a fire prevention fee in an amount not to exceed $150 to be charged on each structure on a parcel that is within a SRA. The Board is required to adjust the fee annually using prescribed methods. The fees (tax) will provide $85 million to State coffers. This is another way to slowly increase the cost of living to homeowners and land owners. Rural property owners have less support and clout than urban property owners, and they call it a fee instead of a tax to reduce its attention. Nevada County Supervisor Hank Weston was quoted as calling the $150 charge "a farce to fill a budget gap created by the state."

Adverse Possession of Lancaster, Palmdale California Land

We ran across this issue as we were trying to sell a property where the owner lived overseas outside the Antelope Valley area. We were attempting to drive by the property and we found an illegal dwelling and a man with a gun defending the property. Now this doesn’t occur everyday, but in parts of the Antelope Valley surrounding the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, Ca. there is a lot of vacant land with little access or only a dirt road. Now the squatter was on the property but had taken physical possession. He appeared to have been living on the property for some time and making a home of his own, but didn’t complete all the factors of adversely possessing the property. You can acquire a property by adverse possession including a house or vacant land in California, but the action will take at least five years.

The process to make a claim of adverse possession in California by a claimant (the party seeking to gain title to the property) they must successfully demonstrate the following. 1. Possession under a claim of right or color of title, which means ownership of property by a person in possession, without being regular( so not the documented registered owner), Color of title is where the claimed owner has some piece of paper claiming to transfer title to him or herself. This can be done writing a document saying you are the owner. 2. Actual, open, notorious occupation (protected by a substantial enclosure such as a fence, barrier or wall and usually cultivated or improved. 3. Claimant is adverse and in hostile possession. 4. Continuous possession for a period of five years. 5. Payment of all taxes assessed against the property during the five-year period. Most people think you just have to pay the taxes, but in order to fully take the property and defend it in court then you need to have all of the above.

It could be easier to acquire this type of property at a tax sale then doing all of the above unless it is a house where the time and value is more in your favor. Adverse possession of tens or hundreds of acres of land could be more difficult to fence if you are challenged in court. You may have to do more research to find out what is open and notorious in adverse possession of vacant land. We have ran across potential properties that can be taken by adverse possession as the property owner has given up and no longer intends to pay the property taxes, so the other parts of adverse possession can be undertaken.