Opinion
Page 653c
106 Cal.App.4th 653c ___Cal.Rptr.2d___ CITY OF WEST HOLLYWOOD, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. 1112 INVESTMENT COMPANY et al., Defendants and Appellants. B154768 California Court of Appeal, Second District, Fourth Division February 25, 2003[Modification of opinion (105 Cal.App.4th 1134; 130 Cal.Rptr.2d 168) on denial of petition for rehearing.]
This modification requires the movement of text affecting pages 1142-1154 of the bound volume report.
OPINION
THE COURT.
The petition for rehearing filed on February 14, 2003, the letter from Attorney Michael J. Simkin filed on February 21, 2003, on behalf of two nonparty homeowners associations, and the answer to the petition for rehearing filed on February 21, 2003, have been read and considered.
The opinion filed on January 30, 2003, is modified as follows:
Footnote 7 is added to the opinion. It is to be placed at the close of the last sentence on page 25 that ends with the phrase "on the issue" [105 Cal.App.4th 1154, advance report, last line before Disposition]. The footnote will consist of the following two paragraphs.
After we filed our opinion, we permitted an attorney who claims to represent nonparty homeowners associations at the two buildings to file a letter brief. In a conclusory fashion and without any supporting documentation, he alleged that since 2000, "three units out of eight units have been sold" at 1112 North Olive Drive and "14 units out of 21 units have been sold" at 625 North Flores Street "to good faith purchasers." This claim is not supported by the record on appeal. The parties' statement of stipulated facts, presented to the trial court in June 200 1, indicates that only one unit in each building had been sold. The parties' appellate briefs also proceeded upon that factual assumption as did our opinion. Nonetheless, based upon the dubious factual assertion that there have been multiple bona fide sales transactions, counsel for the homeowners' associations urges our opinion "divests each condo unit owner of their vested property rights." Not so. As we indicated above, the effect of our opinion on any present owners of condominium units in the two buildings is an issue to be addressed in further trial court proceedings. City's answer to the petition for rehearing reiterates
Page 653d
"City is not unsympathetic to those concerns" and "City's goal is not to interfere with the rights of those individuals who purchased units from respondents after the City initiated this litigation; the City's goal is to require respondents to obtain a CUP and to comply with the City's rent control regulations." We construe this to be a concession by City it will not interfere with any bona fide sales consummated before our opinion was filed on January 30, 2003. To the extent the purchaser-owners have legitimate concerns about the validity of the title conveyed to them, their most obvious recourse is an action against respondent owners given that their petition for rehearing concedes they "sold 14 units in one building and 3 units in the other project since the trial court's judgment in reliance thereon." This lawsuit is not the proper forum to resolve those concerns.
To the extent respondent owners rely upon our Supreme Court's very recent opinion in Gardner v. County of Sonoma (2003) 29 Cal.4th 990 [129 Cal.Rptr.2d 869] to urge our opinion is incorrect, we simply observe that case has no relevance to the issues raised on this appeal.
This modification does not constitute a change in the judgment.
The petition for rehearing is denied.