Do we have any options?

[Callianna]

What is the name of your state? California

We bought a house in CA in summer 2004. We purchased title insurance from a major title company and got what we thought was 100% title. A few months later, the county assessor's office called to let us know that we did not hold clear title in their records.

The man that we bought the house from thought he had clear title also (he used the same title company we did). He bought it in 2002 from a woman who had it in trust (along with her son and nephew), and then sold it under her own name (although according to neighbors, she did in fact share all the profits with son and nephew- in fact the son was the one pushing for the sale).

The woman has since died. The son and nephew were also notified by the county assessor that they were still on title via the undissolved trust, and proceeded to sue us for 2/3 the value of the house, although ethically of course they have no claim to the house and have never paid any property taxes, etc.

We turned it over to the title company, but nearly three years have gone by! Not only is it taking too long to resolve, and taking up too much of our time with depositions, etc, but I feel that we are entitled to something for all this stress. If we wanted to sell at this point, I don't think we could. We're reluctant to do any home improvement till this gets resolved.

Should we continue to leave this to the title company or take some action of our own? It seems like the title company is trying to drag it out to avoid paying for their mistakes in two separate transactions.