Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Indiana

Re: Is gift letter a legal document?

As I understand your situation, you were not able to close this transaction because the person who promised to send you a gift to help pay for the house reneged and/or that because of delays occasioned by the donor of the gift, the seller sold to someone else? I assume you are being sued to compel you to come up with the money or to pay damages for being unable to close? Your question is not very clear about what has happened or what is happening.

Nonetheless, the letter which promises money for the purpose of purchasing the home is a document that clearly represents part of your transaction and should be admissible as evidence. If there are "hearsay" concerns, then your family member who wrote the letter should come to court to testify. I you are asking whether you can sue the person who promised you the money but failed to send it and want to use this letter to do so, then you run into a problem as to whether the gift was complete upon execution of the letter or whether another condition existed to be fulfilled for purposes of the gift being complete. I would argue that the gift was complete when the letter came. Someone else will argue that you knew this family member did not have that kind of money and had no reason to rely on such an offer and that the letter merely represented an offer to give you the money if you really needed it to qualify to buy a house and only if the donor really wanted to do it when it came time to pay over the money. I think the latter argument fails when told to a judge.