Jessica Guynn

USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Mark Zuckerberg is looking for more privacy on Kauai and he's going to court to get it.

The Facebook CEO, who purchased a 700-acre waterfront estate for $100 million in 2014, filed eight lawsuits last month against several hundred people to force the sale of land that belongs to local Hawaiian families, according to the Honolulu Star Advertiser. The 14 plots on eight acres within Zuckerberg's Kauai estate gives them the right to cross the tech billionaire's land.

Zuckerberg's legal maneuver, called "quiet title and partition," would force local families to sell land that has been in their families for generations to the highest bidder through a public auction, the newspaper said. Zuckerberg has done genealogical research to identify the owners of the Kuleana parcels which were granted to native Hawaiian tenant farmers between 1850 and 1855.

In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg said he wanted to clear up "misleading" news articles.

"The land is made up of a few properties. In each case, we worked with the majority owners of each property and reached a deal they thought was fair and wanted to make on their own.

"As with most transactions, the majority owners have the right to sell their land if they want, but we need to make sure smaller partial owners get paid for their fair share too.

"In Hawaii, this is where it gets more complicated. As part of Hawaiian history, in the mid-1800s, small parcels were granted to families, which after generations might now be split among hundreds of descendants. There aren't always clear records, and in many cases descendants who own 1/4% or 1% of a property don't even know they are entitled to anything.

"To find all these partial owners so we can pay them their fair share, we filed what is called a 'quiet title' action. For most of these folks, they will now receive money for something they never even knew they had. No one will be forced off the land."

According to the Star Advertiser, land ownership in the area often lacks legal documentation, with members of the families inheriting land passed down through the generations without a will or property deed. Some are unaware they own the parcels. The few hundred defendants, some dead, have 20 days to respond to the lawsuits.

In an emailed statement, Keoni Shultz, a partner at Cades Schutte and spokesperson for Zuckerberg, said "quiet title actions are the standard and prescribed process to identify all potential co-owners, determine ownership, and ensure that, if there are other co-owners, each receives appropriate value for their ownership share."

Using the law to force land sales has reduced Native Hawaiian landownership, according to A Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law primer on quiet title and partition lawcited by the Star Advertiser.

One of the owners of the land in question, Carlos Andrade, is helping Zuckerberg as co-plaintiff, the newspaper said.

Andrade is a retired 72-year-old University of Hawaii professor of Hawaiian studies who said he lived on his family’s kuleana land from 1977 until recently.

He told the newspaper he's supporting Zuckerberg to make sure that his family property isn’t lost to the county. Legally documenting who in his family owns what share in the property is too expensive for him, he told the newspaper.

This is not the first time Zuckerberg has taken steps to boost the privacy of his beachfront estate. In June, he upset neighbors by building a rock wall that obstructed their views of the ocean.