To secure the land for its multibillion-dollar Downtown West development, the company has had to track down dozens of distant relatives of 19th-century landowners.
“Writing up legal descriptions was far less of a science back in the day,” says Nanci Klein, director of real estate for the city. “To my knowledge, Google’s extensive historical research did not yield anyone who could meet the criteria of controlling the property.”
In its letter to Adams, Google wrote that it was “in the process of cleaning up title” to the San Jose roads, and that it would pay Adams a “courtesy fee” if he filed a quitclaim deed that surrendered his rights and interest in the property and kept the deal strictly confidential. The $5,000 offered was almost an insult, according to one legal expert WIRED spoke with; another defendant described it as “a meaningless sum” in a court filing.
“In order for Google to proceed with its development plans for the Project, fee title in the Subject Properties must be perfected in Google,” reads ain the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara, in April. Others are proving trickier to track down. In May, Google and San Jose admitted in a filing that “despite reasonable diligence, [they] had been unable to find addresses or locations for a number of defendants,” and asked the court for extra time to serve their summonses.in early May—later joined by five other of the men’s descendants—demanding that the court confirm their ownership of the two larger parcels.
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