Is a tenant entitled to recover the cost of making improvements to land?

Long v. Keller (1980) 104 Cal.App.3d 312, is instructive. There, a tenant made improvements to land pursuant to a lease that gave her an option to purchase the property. The tenant exercised the option. Before escrow closed, a fire destroyed the improvements. The sellers' fire insurance carrier reimbursed the sellers for the destruction of the improvements. The tenant did not have fire insurance. Based on the good faith improver law, the tenant contended that she was entitled to recover the cost of the improvements because she had made them "'in contemplation of purchasing the property.'" (Id. at p. 321.) The appellate court rejected her contention: "[Tenant], in making these improvements in contemplation of purchasing the property, in no way became a person who in good faith and under an erroneous belief thought she was the owner of the land. Her contention that she contemplated purchasing the property clearly takes her out of the protection of these provisions [i.e., the good faith improver law]." (Id. at p. 322.) Appellant is in no better position than the tenant.

Finally, we question whether the road qualifies as "an improvement to land" within the meaning of Code of Civil

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