Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Oregon
I am a caregiver for an 80 yr old lady. She told me that she bought a house through her real estate agent son in 1989 with money she inherited from her mother (used for down-payment). Her and her husband lived in the house for 14 yrs making mortgage payments and also spending $20K on a room addition. In 2003 the house sustained some flooding. The adult kids helped clean it up and added a new deck and painted inside. Her husband (kids father) developed Alzheimers and my client decided to relocate themselves to the coast from Portland. She decided to sell the home (through her Realtor son again) and divide the money with her kids because they so kindly helped improve the house after the flood. After moving to the coast she never heard anything from them until years later that the house had been sold. She or her husband never received any money from the sale nor did they get the furniture and personal belongings (moved into retirement home). After doing some investigating, I found that her son put the house in his name from the begining. All those payments she thought were mortgage payments were paying off the house for her son. He sold the house to his sister in 2003, she sold it to her sister in 2004 and they all gained over $100K in profit. Nothing to the mother who thought she owned it. Is there any legal recourse the mother can take? Certainly there are records that she inherited money and put down a large sum, and why would a renter spend $20K on a room addition (inherited money from an aunt) if she didnt think she owned it? The kids really pulled the wool over her to insure they got money out of their parents. Now the mother is 80, living on a small pension with no money in the bank, a step away from being sent to a nursing home (she has no relation with her kids because she called the police on them when they took over her house and kept her belongings when she moved to the coast. I guess the police did nothing because the son showed he owned it). Can anything be done?
1 Answer from Attorneys
What you have described would constitute the tort of fraud. The elderly lady can sue her relatives for fraud, demanding that the money from the sale of the house be paid to her. She must file the lawsuit within 2 years of discovering the fraud.
But note that an element of fraud is that the victim was fooled into doing something she otherwise would not have done. You state above that her plan was to "divide the money with her kids." How much of the money? If her plan was to give all of it to the kids, then she suffered no damages due to the fraud. But it sounds like she was planning to give only some of the money to the kids, so she was defrauded out of the rest of the money.
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