Quiet title

This legal action is "brought to remove a cloud on the title" so that plaintiff and those in privity with them may forever be free of claims against the property. The action to quiet title resembles other forms of "preventive adjudication," such as the declaratory judgment.

This genre of lawsuit is also sometimes called either a try title, trespass to try title, or ejectment action "to recover possession of land wrongfully occupied by a defendant."

Grounds for a quiet title action or complaint

It comprises a complaint that the ownership (title) of a parcel of land or other real property is defective in some fashion, typically where title to the property is ambiguous—for example, where it has been conveyed by a quitclaim deed through which the previous owner disclaims all interest, but does not promise that good title is conveyed. Such an action may also be brought to dispel a restraint on alienation or another party's claim of a nonpossessory interest in land, such as an easement by prescription.

Other typical grounds for complaint include:

• adverse possession where the new possessor sues to obtain title in his or her own name;
• fraudulent conveyance of a property, perhaps by a forged deed or under coercion;
• Torrens title registration, an action which terminates all unrecorded claims;
• treaty disputes regarding the boundaries between nations;
• tax taking issues, where a municipality claims title in lieu of back taxes owed (or a subsequent purchaser of land at a tax sale files action to gain insurable title);
• boundary disputes between states, municipalities, or private parties;
• surveying errors
• competing claims by reverters, remainders, missing heirs and lien holders (often arising in basic foreclosure actions when satisfied liens are not properly discharged from title due to clerical or recording errors between the county clerk and the satisfied lien holder)