Andrade v. Casteel

NOURSE, P. J.

Plaintiff sued to quiet title to real property under a deed of gift; defendant claimed under a lease and option to purchase which he offered to complete, and made tender of the purchase price. The defendant had judgment and plaintiff has appealed on an agreed statement.

On July 1, 1936, Manuel Silva, as owner, leased the land to defendant for a term of five years with option to purchase for $1,000. In 1937, Silva and his wife executed a deed of gift to their minor grandson, plaintiff herein. Manuel Silva died April 3, 1938, and on April 7, a deed from Manuel to his wife Frances was recorded. In April, 1941, Frances Silva renewed the lease to plaintiff for a term of three years under the same terms as the original lease of 1936. Defendant occupied the premises with his family of a wife and five children and expended $1,000 in the construction of roads, buildings, and other permanent improvements.

After the death of Frances Silva in 1944, defendant tendered the full purchase price according to the terms of the lease, but the offer was refused on behalf of the estate and of the donee under the gift deed.

The plaintiff was a minor at the time the gift deed was executed and was in the military service until the spring of 1946, when he reached his majority just before his discharge. It is stipulated that at the time the gift deed was executed he knew that defendant was in actual possession under the lease and knew its terms and particularly the terms of the option to purchase. On the other hand, defendant had no knowledge of the gift deed until after the death of Mrs. Silva in 1944.

Appellant argues that the gift deed vested title in him upon delivery, that thereafter grantors held no more than a life

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estate; that all rights of defendant under the lease terminated on the death of Mrs. Silva.

Wilkerson

v.

Seib,

20 Cal.2d 556 [127 P.2d 904], and similar cases are cited with which no quarrel is suggested.