Partition Action - How to deal with lies of defendant

[ProperProPer]

California Partition Case, concurrent joint tenants.

Pro Per plaintiff affected eviction of uncooperative, vigorously represented Defendant, and partition prior to trial on the basis of preliminary injunction given defendant was causing waste.

During litigation plaintiff's motion for summary judgment was denied on the strength of defendant's declaration (made under penalty of perjury). Plaintiff contended joint tenancy and $62,00 down payment and had the deed and bank records to prove it. Defendant claimed tenancy in common and $200,000 down payment in spite of the deed and the bank records. Court found triable issues of fact and denied the MSJ.

At the eve of trial Defendant amended the answer to allege, as the plaintiff did in the summary adjudication motion and his complaint, that the tenancy was joint as the total down payment was $62,000.

Question now is what to do. Will the court care about such blatant lying? Should one move to strike the amended answer as a sham? Should one just proceed to trial pointing out the lies and ask for further equitable offsets?

 

[justalayman]

Huh? If the defendant amnended their response and it aligns with your claims and their remains to triable facts, it means only that the distribution of the proceeds of the auction should be easily determined. A partition action is much more than that though. In seeking a partition through the courts, you are asking the court to take control of the entire matter. The court will contract an auctioneer to dispose of the property. After the sale the court will distribute the net proceeds after any liens, court costs, and auctioneers fees are paid to the parties as their share has been determined.

 

[ProperProPer]

Huh? If the defendant amnended their response and it aligns with your claims and their remains to triable facts, it means only that the distribution of the proceeds of the auction should be easily determined. A partition action is much more than that though. In seeking a partition through the courts, you are asking the court to take control of the entire matter. The court will contract an auctioneer to dispose of the property. After the sale the court will distribute the net proceeds after any liens, court costs, and auctioneers fees are paid to the parties as their share has been determined.

In CA a referee sells the house usually by private sale, as happened here. In this case, the house was sold, proceeds in escrow, and everyone (realtor, referee, bank, taxes, escrow firm) paid. Question is how big a point, if any, to make of the defendant's previous lies at the MSJ stage, prior to trial or at trial.

 

[LdiJ]

In CA a referee sells the house usually by private sale, as happened here. In this case, the house was sold, proceeds in escrow, and everyone (realtor, referee, bank, taxes, escrow firm) paid. Question is how big a point, if any, to make of the defendant's previous lies at the MSJ stage, prior to trial or at trial.

If you are trying to say that you are down to arguing how the proceeds of the sale should be distributed, then just say so...and ask your questions in plain ordinary English.

 

[justalayman]

The law allows for any means of sale a court deems appropriate and personally, if
the parties agree to a sale to split the property, it's a foolish waste to engage the courts and the added expenses to partition the property.

As to claiming the other party lied; your proof? Mistakes are not lies. A belief of a claim being proper is not a lie.

The only purpose of making what you believe are lies an issue would be to put the other party's veracity into question. Unless it is needed for that purpose, all it does is look like you stomping your feet. The determination of the court is to be based on facts. If the other party now agrees to your claims, that's all that really mattters. Do you expect the court to award you more than your fair and proven share because of the (claimed) lies? If the veracity of the other party is important to the courts determination, and you can prove the statements are lies rather than simply claiming they are, then do so. Otherwise it's nothing more than a childish attempt to cause some sort of problems for the other party.


In other words:

Do you want to get this done and over with or do you want to attempt to use it in some childish way to hurt the other party?