Cal. Pub. Resources Code § 7526
If at any time after such affidavit is filed in the office of the commission, and prior to the issuance of a patent for the lands described therein it is made to appear to the commission by the affidavit of any settler or person occupying such land for farming purposes, that he, or those under whom he claims, have been in the possession and occupancy of such lands, or any part thereof, for farming purposes, for over 10 years next prior to the date of the filing of the affidavit of the person desiring to purchase, and that his or their occupancy was open and notorious and was evidenced by actual enclosure, or by ditches, or monuments, or embankments, or levees, showing the actual extent thereof, and that he, or they under whom he claims, had, at the time of the filing of the affidavit by the person desiring to purchase, actually reclaimed such land and reduced it to a state of cultivation, and had been farming and cultivating the land; or if it appears from such affidavit filed by such person, that the affidavit filed by the person desiring to purchase the land is false in any of the statements made therein, the commission shall make an order referring the questions raised by such affidavits to the superior court of the county in which the land, or some part thereof, is situated.
Ca. Pub. Res. Code § 7526