Real Property Law
California Case Summary Update: December 2025 Real Property Case Summaries
December 2025
Monty A. McIntyre, Esq.
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Here are the case summaries from last month:
CALIFORNIA COURTS OF APPEAL
Land Use
Airport Business Center v. City of Santa Rosa (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 3295545: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s denial of plaintiff’s writ petition seeking to overturn the defendant’s resolution declaring that a property the city was using as a parking garage constituted surplus land under the Surplus Land Act (Act; Gov. Code, §§ 54220 et seq.). The trial court denied plaintiff’s writ petition, upholding defendant’s resolution declaring the Garage 5 parking structure to be surplus land under the Surplus Land Act. The Court of Appeal affirmed, held that the Surplus Land Act allows a city to declare property “surplus” if it is not necessary for the agency’s use even if it still serves a public function, and concluded that substantial evidence supported defendant’s determination that Garage 5 was not essential for its operational parking needs, and also found that defendant’s written findings in the resolution satisfied the Surplus Land Act. (C.A. 1st, Div. 3, November 26, 2025.)
Rodriguez v. City of Los Angeles (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 3295008: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order sustaining defendant’s demurrer, without leave to amend, to plaintiffs’ complaint for quiet title and declaratory relief against defendant seeking to overturn the development requirements imposed by defendant’s grant of a 35 percent density bonus to the prior property owner for the development of residential units on property located at 443 West 49th Street in Los Angeles (the property). The density bonus allowed the prior owner to develop one more unit than otherwise would be authorized, resulting in a three-unit project. In exchange, the prior owner agreed to rent one of the three units exclusively to low-income households for at least 30 years, and this agreement was memorialized in a written agreement, which defendant recorded against the property in January 2006. The trial court sustained defendant’s demurrer, holding that the 2006 affordable housing rental covenant recorded against the property survived a 2013 foreclosure and thus barred plaintiffs’ quiet title and declaratory relief claims. The Court of Appeal agreed that the plaintiffs could not use a quiet title action to evade the limits on challenged land use approvals and held that the 2006 agreement operated as a condition attached to a density bonus building permit which ran with the land, survived foreclosure, and remained enforceable against successor owners, so the complaint stated no viable cause of action and was properly dismissed without leave to amend. (C.A. 2nd, November 26, 2025.)
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