In the recent case of Buffa v. Giacomelli, the court was asked to determine if large gifts the Deceased made to her Daughter from jointly held accounts were valid inter vivos gifts and if the Daughter had rebutted the presumption of a resulting trust with respect to the funds held in those joint accounts.

The Deceased had two children, who both shared her estate under her Will with the Applicant Son receiving 45% of her estate and the Respondent Daughter receiving 55% of her estate. However,  during her lifetime,  the Deceased gifted most of her assets to her Daughter.  She opened joint bank accounts with her Daughter, had the proceeds of sale of her property deposited into these accounts and made her Daughter the beneficiary of her other investments.  In total, the Daughter received $1.7 million in gifts from the Deceased before her death.

Upon their mother’s death,  the Deceased’s Son brought an application seeking to invalidate those gifts and arguing that the subject funds should form part of the Deceased’s estate under a resulting trust.

The court carefully reviewed the evidence and found the Deceased’s intention to gift the funds to her Daughter was clear. The court noted that the Son and his late mother had a strained relationship.  When his father died, the Son’s lawyer had sent a letter to the Deceased questioning her ability to administer her late husband’s estate.  The Son and the Deceased never spoke after this incident.  In contrast, the Deceased and her Daughter continued to have a close and loving relationship.

After receiving the lawyer’s letter and a cancer diagnosis shortly after, the Deceased took steps to gift her assets to her Daughter.  Importantly, she left two letters setting out her intention to gift her joint accounts and the proceeds of the sale of her property to her Daughter.  Moreover, the Deceased did not have diminished capacity when she made these gifts.

The court found that the funds transferred to the Daughter were valid inter vivos gifts and not subject to a resulting trust. The court also found no evidence of unconscionable procurement on the Daughter’s part.

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