California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from Valenzuela v. Superior Court, 3 Cal.App.4th 1499, 5 Cal.Rptr.2d 186 (Cal. App. 1992):
CAMSI IV addressed the "harm" element of tortious injury to property: "First, it is apparent as an abstract proposition, and has been assumed in a number of cases, that for limitations purposes the harm implicit in a tortious injury to property is harm to the property itself, and thus to any owner of the property once the property has been injured and not necessarily to a particular owner. Thus once a sewer line has been improperly located on the property [citation], or the lot preparation and foundation construction have been improperly done [Bradler v. Craig, supra ], or the encroaching buildings are constructed [citation], the tort is complete and the statute of limitations (unless forestalled by the 'discovery rule' or some other special doctrine) begins to run: An owner must bring its claim to court within the statutory period or the claim will be barred for that and all subsequent owners. Normally a subsequent owner will not be personally harmed by the tort until he or she becomes the owner, but no case has held
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