Real Estate MediationLos Angeles & Glendale

Real estate mediation is a confidential negotiation, led by a neutral mediator, in which buyers, sellers, agents, neighbors, co-owners, or landlords try to resolve a property dispute themselves, often ending in a signed settlement or in a document such as an easement or boundary agreement that can be recorded against the property. Mediation communications are protected by Evidence Code section 1119.

Often yes, because many California home sales use the California Association of REALTORS residential purchase agreement, and the version quoted by the Court of Appeal in Lange v. Schilling (2008) requires the buyer and seller to mediate disputes arising out of the agreement before resorting to arbitration or court action. Check the exact clause in the form you signed, because the association revises its forms.

Under the purchase agreement clause the court enforced in Lange v. Schilling (2008), a party who files suit without first attempting mediation, or who refuses to mediate after a request has been made, is not entitled to recover attorney fees, even if that party later wins and fees would otherwise be available. In Lange, the buyer prevailed at trial but lost a fee award of more than $80,000 because he sued before offering mediation.

Yes, neighbor disputes over fences, walls, encroachments, and shared access are well suited to mediation because the households stay next to each other afterward, and a mediated agreement can set cost sharing, describe the line, and grant an easement or license that is then recorded so it binds later owners. For boundary fences, Civil Code section 841 presumes adjoining owners share reasonable costs equally.

Civil Code section 841 presumes that adjoining landowners benefit equally from a fence dividing their properties and share equally the reasonable costs of building, maintaining, or replacing it unless they agreed otherwise in writing, and a court can reduce one owner's share when equal division would be unjust under the factors the statute lists. An owner planning fence work must give 30 days' prior written notice describing the problem, proposed solution, estimated cost, and proposed cost split.

Generally yes, because Evidence Code section 1119 makes statements, admissions, and writings prepared for the purpose of a mediation inadmissible and not discoverable in later civil actions or arbitrations, although documents that existed independently, such as inspection reports, disclosures, and surveys, remain usable evidence even if they were shown to the mediator. Section 1120 preserves that independent evidence.

Yes, agents, brokers, inspectors, and escrow or title companies can take part in a real estate mediation when they agree to participate, and bringing every party whose conduct is at issue in a disclosure or defect dispute to the same session often makes a complete settlement possible instead of several separate negotiations later. Whether a particular agent must mediate depends on the agreements that agent signed.

Bring the purchase agreement or lease with every addendum, the seller disclosures and inspection reports, any survey or title report, photographs, repair estimates, the mediation request you sent or received, and draft language for any easement, boundary agreement, or repair plan you want recorded, so the session can end in a signed document. Positions that are not supported by documents rarely move in property mediations.