Trespassing Laws for California

[CSACANNONEER]

First of all, read the CA statutes regarding trespassing. You will see it is precisely defined. I am not legally trespassing.

Second, I don't intend on doing so, but I could totally decide to establish a prescriptive easement on that part of the property I am going through several times a week, and that its owner never uses.

You seem to believe that unless you have a written or utility easement to cross or use someone's property, you are automatically trespassing. Things are not that simple. There are lots of other factors at play here.

You're right, it's not alway that simple to get a presciptive easement.

If you are not "tresspassing" what would you call traversing another's property with any legal right to do so?

[a1c]

You're right, it's not alway that simple to get a presciptive easement.

If you are not "tresspassing" what would you call traversing another's property with any legal right to do so?

Right there, in your question, you establish a flawed premise. I don't need a "legal right" to cross someone's unfenced, unsigned property. You have probably done so yourself many times while hiking, mountain biking or hunting, without even knowing it. It's not trespassing unless certain specific conditions are met.

[E Pluribus Unum]

Then it wouldn't work. If the property is already fenced off, and if someone else pushes it out, it's trespassing. Doesn't qualify - at least not in California.

Prove it.

If I am a land owner and I fence off my property, and my neighbor tears down my fence and builds his own, encompassing my property, if I don't go back every 5 years to make sure that has not happened, how can I prove what he did? In reality, if I don't check every 5 years, this could happen.

Right there, in your question, you establish a flawed premise. I don't need a "legal right" to cross someone's unfenced, unsigned property. You have probably done so yourself many times while hiking, mountain biking or hunting, without even knowing it. It's not trespassing unless certain specific conditions are met.

This.

It is not the burden of the public to bring a transit, and a plot map, to make sure he avoids private property.

It is the obligation of the landowner to fence his borders and post no trespassing signs. If it is not fenced, and or is not posted, trespassing only occurs after the owner asks him to leave, and he refuses to do so.

English common law. Been this way for hundreds of years, maybe a thousand years.

We fought a revolution to separate ourselves from "English common law." Why the hell are we bound by it today?

And what happens when you abandon your property in the middle of my neighborhood? Do I just leave your rotting corpse of a home and lot as-is so that it destroys the neighborhood or do I rehabilitate it and maintain it? If I do the latter do I not deserve some compensation?

We are not talking about abandonment. There are already city ordinances in place to prevent abandonment in your neighborhood. Also, if it's abandoned, the county will sell it off on a tax sale.

[sfpcservice]

All the articles I've read on prescriptive easement state that documentation is not needed for the easement to exist. I just interpret that to mean you may have to argue the easement in court either after you've been asked to leave or have been arrested for trespassing.

I've been dealing with this a bit in my area as well. There is a road in my county that runs on a ridgetop and is located on private property. The county has had a 40' wide easement on that ridgetop since the 1890's. I contacted the county surveyor regarding this road because it is posted no trespassing. The county surveyor, in writing, has told me the public has a prescriptive easement along this road because it has been using the road since the 1890's and it is assumed the intent of the actual easement (which doesn't exactly follow the current path of the road) was to establish access along that road. Therefore, the signs have no legal weight and the public has an absolute right to use that road.

[Meplat]

The definition of the word implies a legal meaning. I am NOT legally trespassing.

The definition of the word implies a legal and/or moral meaning. But I see no reason to believe you were doing anything immoral either.

[Meplat]

We fought a revolution to separate ourselves from "English common law." Why the hell are we bound by it today?

No. We fought a revolution to separate ourselves from the British Crown. Partly due to the fact that the Crown was in violation of English common law!