On Tuesday morning, in the hallway outside a San Francisco courtroom, the fate of the Mission District’s most famous taqueria was secured in a scrum of suits. It took only a few minutes for La Taqueria owner Miguel Jara Sr., his sons Angel and Jesus, and his lawyer to successfully bid $1.7 million on a building the Jaras thought they had owned since 1972.

La Taqueria, dear burrito lovers, has been saved.

The La Taqueria auction was the result of a five-year inheritance dispute that has swept up the entire Jara family — Miguel Jara Sr., his children, his eight siblings and their families.

In 1972, the elder Jara bought a one-story building on Mission and 25th streets for $39,000 and renovated it, opening La Taqueria in 1973. It joined a handful of neighboring restaurants that had begun making what the entire country now knows as the Mission burrito. (According to the website Fivethirtyeight’s 2014 Burrito Bracket, it still makes the best burrito in the country.)

According to court documents and to Miguel Jara Sr. himself, in 1972 the then-30-year-old couldn’t get any banks to loan him money, so he enlisted his parents’ help. Herminio and Clodoalda Jara thus became the official owners of 2889 Mission St. Their son says that he made all mortgage payments until the loan was paid off in 1995 and has paid all property taxes since.

However, Miguel Jara Sr. never filed any paperwork transferring the property from his parents’ names to his own. His father died in 1990, his mother in 2000, and since neither left a will, the property legally transferred to their nine children.

According to an October conversation with Steven Hassing, lawyer for five of Miguel’s sisters and brothers, no one in the family even knew that Herminio and Clodoalda Jara were the owners of the building until Miguel Jara Sr. filed a claim in court in 2013 to assume ownership. That suit riled up the family. Countersuits were filed. Negotiations failed.

The court eventually ruled that the building would have to be sold and the proceeds distributed equally among Miguel Jara Sr. and his eight siblings. A sister and a brother legally transferred their shares to Miguel, leaving him officially a one-third owner.

Under the auspices of a court-appointed receiver and real estate broker, La Taqueria’s building has officially been on the market since the spring. Jara and his sons Angel and Jesus, who oversee the day-to-day operations, have filed bids in an attempt to buy the property, but the receiver would not negotiate until she received a valid opening bid from a prospective buyer.

On Tuesday, three parties joined the courthouse scrum to place their bids. The first prospective buyer offered $1.6 million. The Jaras countered with $1.7 million. The third bidder, it turned out, was a concerned fan who was unaware of the family’s participation in the auction and was willing to buy the 2889 Mission St. to lease to La Taqueria. She quickly backed down.

Jara Sr., now 76 and the lone short-sleeved guayabera shirt among the herd of suit jackets, was quietly jubilant.

“I’m all right,” he told The Chronicle. “I’m 100 percent good.” He told the reporter to come in to La Taqueria for a burrito.

Then he and his lawyer hustled into the courtroom to record the sale.

Jonathan Kauffman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jkauffman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jonkauffman