Please help me understand offer of dedication

[PE_PLS]

I have a subdivision map in Santa Clara County, circa 1921. On the face of the map the owners "hereby dedicate the roads and avenues as shown on said map to the public use forever." On the face of the same map, the Board of Supervisors state "it is further ordered by said Board that all roads or avenues as shown on said map be not accepted as public highways."

So, my reading of this is the offer was rejected.

My questions: Can the Board of Supervisors accept this offer of dedication at any time going forward, or does the offer ever expire?

Another question: At some point after the initial offer some, but not all, of the roads became public. What is the legal status of roads that never became public that are shown on the map? Are they still roads but for private use only? Are they nothing at all, unless specifically granted as easements to use as private roads? FYI: The portion of road that is of concern to me is currently not a roadway, and I don't know if it was ever used as such.

Does the date of this map (2/9/1921) have any impact on these questions?

Thanks for your time.

[D Ryan]

Dylan-

This may be applicable to the status of the roads offered for dedication:

CALIFORNIA CODE OF CIVIL PROCEDURE
SECTION 771.010-771.020

771.010. If a proposal is heretofore or hereafter made to dedicate real property for public improvement, there is a conclusive presumption that the proposed dedication was not accepted if all of the following conditions are satisfied:
(a) The proposal was made by filing a map only.
(b) No acceptance of the dedication was made and recorded within 25 years after the map was filed.
(c) The real property was not used for the purpose for which the dedication was proposed within 25 years after the map was filed.
(d) The real property was sold to a third person after the map was filed and used as if free of the dedication.


As to the remaining roads shown, on a subdivision map generally (especially the older ones that may have been sparse on easement language), all the roads that may be necessary for the use of any of the lots on the map are appurtenant to the lots.

Dave Ryan,
Humboldt County

[steffan]

You might review 66477.2 of the Gov't Code (SMA) in entirety, in particular that portion of (a) which states in part:

"....If at the time the final map is approved, any streets.... are rejected, .... the offer of dedication shall remain open and the legislative body may by resolution at any later date, and without further action by the subdivider, rescind its action and accept and open the streets...."

While 771.010 of the CCP Dave referenced has some relevance, your stated situation is one where the rejection was declared so the analysis of presumption would seem to be moot. It may be as much or more worthwhile to read the next section of the CCP, 771.020, which discusses the ability to pursue quiet title action to remove the encumbrance created by the original offer of dedication.

The instances where I've encountered similar situations have all found fairly painless resolution by approaching the local agency and requesting abandoment. I'd think quiet title action would be more a last resort should the local agency refuse to abandon the non-used/rejected easement.

[dedkad]

Heres an interesting case in 2008 that I think answers a few questions regarding rejections of offers of dedication.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/cal ... 054915.pdf

They quote a finding from Danielson v. Sykes (1910) that says: when one lays out a tract of land into lots and streets and sells the lots by reference to a map which exhibits the lots and streets as they lie with relation to each other, the purchasers of such lots have a private easement in the streets opposite their respective lots, for ingress and egress and for any use proper to a private way, and this private easement is entirely independent of the fact of dedication to public use, and is a private appurtenance to the lots, of which the owners cannot be divested except by due process of law.

I interpret this 1910 case to mean that it is considered a private street available to all lots within the subdivision that created it.

Whether or not the street can be used for the general public as opposed to just lots in the subdivison is discussed further in the 2008 case. When I read the findings, it almost sounds like the offeror has the ability to fence an offer and preclude use by the general public until such time as the public agency accepts the offer.

[LS_8750]

Dylan,
You can find the acceptance documents in the Board of Supervisors resolutions.

There is also such thing as "implied acceptance"... I have run across this term doing drainage studies while working with attorneys.

[PE_PLS]

Thanks all for your input. This has been helpful.