Lucas sues to iron out property line discrepancy
Filmmaker George Lucas is suing the town of San Anselmo and a family that used to own his home to clear up a discrepancy over a property line.
Lucas, who created the “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” franchises, is seeking to prevent the town or the previous resident’s family from claiming ownership over a sliver of the property where part of his house is situated.
Lucas bought the San Anselmo property in 2007, according to a lawsuit filed in Marin County Superior Court by attorneys Richard Munzinger and Diego Flores. The suit says Lucas learned recently that a strip of land along the eastern edge of the property, adjacent to Sequoia Drive, is a road easement, according to an official Marin County map of the Sequoia Park subdivision. But because of inconsistencies in the way deeds to the lot were written, that strip of land could also be claimed by the family of Frances Hamilton, who bought the property in 1928, the suit says.
When lots in the Sequoia Park subdivision were sold by the developer, the Doherty Co., in the early 1900s, each property included the adjacent road up to the center line, according to the lawsuit. The roads were not retained as easements, it says.
According to the suit, the developer did not initially offer any of the streets in the neighborhood for public use. The company later offered the Sequoia Drive easement to the town of San Anselmo in 1921,
“but the town never accepted the dedication,” the suit says.
When Hamilton bought the property that Lucas now owns, the deed did not specify the eastern boundary of the lot and by default it included part of Sequoia Drive, according to the suit. But after Hamilton sold it, future deeds did spell out the lot’s eastern boundary, it says.
As a result, Hamilton’s family “may assert some interest in, or cloud on (Lucas’) title to, the land between the parcel’s eastern boundary and the center line of the portion of Sequoia Drive that abuts the parcel,” the suit says. That sliver of land includes a portion of Lucas’ house.
The suit aims to “correct decades- old surveying errors,” Flores said.
The lawsuit says the Hamilton family, the town of San Anselmo and anyone seeking to claim ownership of that portion of the parcel “have no right, title, estate, lien, or interest whatsoever” in the land.
After a closed- session San Anselmo Town Council meeting on the suit last month, Mayor Brian Colbert announced that the town “never accepted the subject land and therefore has no interest in the property.” He declined to discuss the suit further.
The Hamilton interests have no lawyer of record and have not made a court appearance. A case management conference is set for March 24.