2 total
Costs of $6,500 awarded to successful applicants, with respondent estate trustee held personally liable for $3,500.
Following a partial judgment requiring the transfer of a property, the successful applicants sought costs.
The court found the applicants were presumptively entitled to costs and had obtained a result more favourable than their settlement offer.
The court fixed costs at $6,500, apportioning $3,000 to the estate and $3,500 personally to the respondent estate trustee, finding she had acted in furtherance of her personal interests as a beneficiary rather than solely in her fiduciary capacity.
Part performance justified enforcing an oral estate land transfer agreement.
This estate application concerned whether residual beneficiaries made an enforceable oral agreement in or about 2009 to transfer estate land to one beneficiary, whose will later gifted the property to a family member.
The responding estate trustee denied any enforceable agreement and relied on s. 4 of the Statute of Frauds.
The court found an oral agreement existed based on cumulative direct and circumstantial evidence, including post-agreement conduct and contemporaneous documents.
The court held the agreement was enforceable through the doctrine of part performance, including waiver of an option over related estate land and longstanding tax payments referable to the disputed property.
Relief ordering transfer of the Bush Lot was granted, while claims for trustee removal, passing of accounts, and damages were adjourned sine die.
