Civil Code - Boundaries & Property

The owner of land in fee has the right to the surface and to everything permanently situated beneath or above it.

Each coterminous owner is entitled to the lateral and subjacent support which his land receives from the adjoining land, subject to the right of the owner of adjoining land to make proper and usual excavations on the same for purposes of construction, on complying with the following requirements:

1. Notice: Owners must provide reasonable advance notice to adjacent property owners before excavating, including the intended depth and start date.

2. Duty of Care: Excavators must "use ordinary care and skill, and reasonable precautions taken to sustain the adjoining land."

3. Protection Period: If excavation threatens adjacent buildings, owners have "at least 30 days" to take protective measures.

4. Deep Excavation Standards: For excavations exceeding nine feet below curb level, the excavating owner must protect adjoining property from damage "without cost to the owner thereof" and remains liable for harm, except minor settlement cracks.

Trees whose trunks stand wholly upon the land of one owner belong exclusively to him, although their roots grow into the land of another.

Trees whose trunks stand partly on the land of two or more coterminous owners, belong to them in common.

An island, or an accumulation of land, formed in a stream which is not navigable, belongs to the owner of the shore on that side where the island or accumulation is formed; or, if not formed on one side only, to the owners of the shore on the two sides, divided by an imaginary line drawn through the middle of the river.

If a stream, navigable or not navigable, in forming itself a new arm, divides itself and surrounds land belonging to the owner of the shore, and thereby forms an island, the island belongs to such owner.

The following land burdens, or servitudes upon land, may be attached to other land as incidents or appurtenances, and are then called easements:

1. The right of pasture
2. The right of fishing
3. The right of taking game
4. The right of way
5. The right of taking water, wood, minerals, and other things
6. The right of transacting business upon land
7. The right of conducting lawful sports upon land
8. The right of receiving air, light, or heat from or over, or discharging the same upon or over land
9. The right of receiving water from or discharging the same upon land
10. The right of flooding land
11. The right of having water flow without diminution or disturbance of any kind
12. The right of using a wall as a party wall
13. The right of receiving more than natural support from adjacent land or things affixed thereto
14. The right of having the whole of a division fence maintained by a coterminous owner
15. The right of having public conveyances stop, or of stopping the same, on land
16. The right of a seat in church
17. The right of burial
18. The right of receiving sunlight upon or over land as specified in Section 801.5

The land to which an easement is attached is called the dominant tenement; the land upon which a burden or servitude is laid is called the servient tenement.

The extent of a servitude is determined by the terms of the grant, or the nature of the enjoyment by which it was acquired.

A servitude is extinguished:

1. By the vesting of the right to the servitude and the right to the servient tenement in the same person;

2. By the destruction of the servient tenement;

3. By the performance of any act upon either tenement, by the owner of the servitude, or with his assent, which is incompatible with its nature or exercise; or,

4. When the servitude was acquired by enjoyment, by disuse thereof by the owner of the servitude for the period prescribed for acquiring title by enjoyment.

Occupancy for any period confers a title sufficient against all except the state and those who have title by prescription, accession, transfer, will, or succession; but the title conferred by occupancy is not a sufficient interest in real property to enable the occupant or the occupant's privies to commence or maintain an action to quiet title, unless the occupancy has ripened into title by prescription.

Occupancy for the period prescribed by the Code of Civil Procedure as sufficient to bar any action for the recovery of the property confers a title thereto, denominated a title by prescription, which is sufficient against all, but no possession by any person, firm or corporation no matter how long continued of any land, water, water right, easement, or other property whatsoever dedicated to a public use by a public utility, or dedicated to or owned by the state or any public entity, shall ever ripen into any title, interest or right against the owner thereof.

No use by any person or persons, no matter how long continued, of any land, shall ever ripen into an easement by prescription, if the owner of such property posts at each entrance to the property or at intervals of not more than 200 feet along the boundary a sign reading substantially as follows: "Right to pass by permission, and subject to control, of owner: Section 1008, Civil Code."