The Supreme Court of British Columbia has dismissed a woman’s application to overturn her mother’s transfer of the majority of her assets to her younger sister. The assets — including her house and her investment and bank accounts — were excluded from her estate. The mother was closer to her younger daughter and was more concerned about that child’s finances, according to the court.
According to the court’s decision, a dispute arose over the estate of a woman, Mildred Amelia Lyons, who died in 2022. Her older daughter, Maureen Peterson, filed a claim against the other, arguing that Lyons’ house in Vancouver should form part of the estate, along with certain financial assets.
The defendant, Nancy Louise Emery, argued that the house was hers, as Lyons gifted it to her by adding her as a joint tenant on title to the property back in 2014, leaving her as the sole owner after their mother died.
“Ms. Peterson says as the property transfer was a gratuitous transfer from a parent to an adult child,” the court noted. That created the presumption of a resulting trust, which shifted the onus to the defendant, Emery, to prove that the gift was intended.
Ultimately, the court found that Emery did establish that the transfer was in fact a gift to her.
According to the court’s ruling, Emery and her family were close to her mother, and provided more care and support over the years — whereas Peterson and her family lived in the U.S., were independently wealthy and had a more contentious relationship with their mother.
Indeed, according to the court, the decision to give the house to the younger daughter came in the wake of an alleged conversation between Lyons and her older daughter, in which she purportedly told her mother that she didn’t want the house, but wanted $500,000 for each of her two sons instead — followed by Lyons purportedly saying, “nobody tells me what to do with my money.”
After that conversation, Lyons reportedly decided to put the house in the younger daughter’s name, so that it would eventually be passed on to her alone.
“While Ms. Peterson disputes this conversation, the court concludes it occurred,” the decision noted — adding that this is consistent with an intent to gift the house to the younger daughter.
The court also rejected the claim that the gift was made amid “undue influence” from the younger daughter.
“It is uncontroverted that Mrs. Lyons was ‘sharp as a tack’ until her stoke in 2018. In 2014 she was mentally acute and as the evidence has already shown a determined individual,” the court said. It added that while she relied on her younger daughter in various ways, her daughter, “was not in a position to dominate her.”
After undertaking a similar analysis, the court also found that Lyons intended to gift her financial assets to her younger daughter as well, excluding those assets from the estate too.
“The Lyons while independent and in control of their finances, gifted property to one of their two children, whom they perceived to be in significant need in contrast to the other child who had significant wealth. The evidence supports this conclusion along with the reality of the constant care and devotion of one child, Ms. Emery and her family to the Lyons, all of which led to those gifts,” it said.
Ultimately, the court dismissed the case, with costs to the defendant.