Real Property Law
Cal. Real. Prop. Journal VOLUME 44, ISSUE 2, JULY 2026
Content
- Anti-slapp Motions In Real Property Litigation
- 2025-2026 Executive Committee of the Real Property Law Section
- Inside This Issue
- A Declaration of Independence: a Proposal To Break From the Past By Adopting the Standard Partition Act
- A Yacht Named Change Order: California's Private Works Change Order Fair Payment Act
- Chair Letter
- Editorial Board
- Letter From the Editor
- Permitting the Grid: Power and Preemption In California's Energy Infrastructure
- Proposed Standard Partition Law
- The Italian Real Estate Agent's Role In the Purchasing Property Process and How It Differs From Its American Counterpart
- Update: Courts Make the Case For Adoption of the Uniform Easement Relocation Act
ANTI-SLAPP MOTIONS IN REAL PROPERTY LITIGATION
Written by Ben Covington*
California’s anti-SLAPP statute allows a party to weed out meritless claims early in litigation if those claims arise from protected petitioning or speech-related activity. The statute uses a summary-judgment-like procedure, often results in attorney fees for a successful movant, and generally triggers an immediate right to appeal. And recently, the court of appeal has addressed the statute’s application across several real property contexts—including, landlord-tenant, homeowners associations, land use, title disputes, and especially malicious-prosecution cases that follow litigation in one of these previous categories. Given this, a working knowledge of the anti-SLAPP statute is becoming critical for litigators practicing in the area of real property.
This article provides a brief overview of the anti-SLAPP statute: its procedure, what types of petitioning and speech-related activity it protects, and when attorney fees are recoverable. It then walks through recent decisions assessing anti-SLAPP motions brought in real property and land-use cases, before offering some concluding thoughts.