SECTIONS 1600-1605 - California Statutes

EVIDENCE CODE

SECTION 1600-1605

1600. (a) The record of an instrument or other document purporting
to establish or affect an interest in property is prima facie
evidence of the existence and content of the original recorded
document and its execution and delivery by each person by whom it
purports to have been executed if:
(1) The record is in fact a record of an office of a public
entity; and
(2) A statute authorized such a document to be recorded in that
office.
(b) The presumption established by this section is a presumption
affecting the burden of proof.

1601. (a) Subject to subdivisions (b) and (c), when in any action
it is desired to prove the contents of the official record of any
writing lost or destroyed by conflagration or other public calamity,
after proof of such loss or destruction, the following may, without
further proof, be admitted in evidence to prove the contents of such
record:
(1) Any abstract of title made and issued and certified as correct
prior to such loss or destruction, and purporting to have been
prepared and made in the ordinary course of business by any person
engaged in the business of preparing and making abstracts of title
prior to such loss or destruction; or
(2) Any abstract of title, or of any instrument affecting title,
made, issued, and certified as correct by any person engaged in the
business of insuring titles or issuing abstracts of title to real
estate, whether the same was made, issued, or certified before or
after such loss or destruction and whether the same was made from the
original records or from abstract and notes, or either, taken from
such records in the preparation and upkeeping of its plant in the
ordinary course of its business.
(b) No proof of the loss of the original writing is required other
than the fact that the original is not known to the party desiring
to prove its contents to be in existence.
(c) Any party desiring to use evidence admissible under this
section shall give reasonable notice in writing to all other parties
to the action who have appeared therein, of his intention to use such
evidence at the trial of the action, and shall give all such other
parties a reasonable opportunity to inspect the evidence, and also
the abstracts, memoranda, or notes from which it was compiled, and to
take copies thereof.

1603. A deed of conveyance of real property, purporting to have
been executed by a proper officer in pursuance of legal process of
any of the courts of record of this state, acknowledged and recorded
in the office of the recorder of the county wherein the real property
therein described is situated, or the record of such deed, or a
certified copy of such record, is prima facie evidence that the
property or interest therein described was thereby conveyed to the
grantee named in such deed. The presumption established by this
section is a presumption affecting the burden of proof.

1604. A certificate of purchase, or of location, of any lands in
this state, issued or made in pursuance of any law of the United
States or of this state, is prima facie evidence that the holder or
assignee of such certificate is the owner of the land described
therein; but this evidence may be overcome by proof that, at the time
of the location, or time of filing a preemption claim on which the
certificate may have been issued, the land was in the adverse
possession of the adverse party, or those under whom he claims, or
that the adverse party is holding the land for mining purposes.

1605. Duplicate copies and authenticated translations of original
Spanish title papers relating to land claims in this state, derived
from the Spanish or Mexican governments, prepared under the
supervision of the Keeper of Archives, authenticated by the
Surveyor-General or his successor and by the Keeper of Archives, and
filed with a county recorder, in accordance with Chapter 281 of the
Statutes of 1865-66, are admissible as evidence with like force and
effect as the originals and without proving the execution of such
originals.