In Almasy v. Ward , Tony J. Almasy sued his former father-in-law, Wendell Ward, over a piece of property located in the Town of Norfolk, St. Lawrence County.
When Ward and his wife purchased the home in 1995 there was supposedly an oral agreement that if Almasy and Ward's daughter made the mortgage and tax payments, Ward would transfer title to Almasy upon the mortgage's satisfaction.
The couple married in 2000, divorced a year later, but continued to live together for a period of time. In 2006, when the daughter moved out for good, Almasy refused to leave and staked an ownership interest in the home.
When Ward later tried to have Almasy thrown out of the house, the father-in-law cited to a state law -- known as the Statute of Frauds -- to support the argument that any alleged oral contract to transfer the property was invalid. Almasy countered that his "constructive trust" theory (that he was promised the property and relied on that representation) trumped Ward's Statute of Frauds argument.
After the St. Lawrence County Supreme Court sided with Ward, an appeal to the Appellate Division, Third Department, ensued.
The AD3 found that while a family relationship may buttress a constructive trust claim, Almasy was only the boyfriend of Ward's daughter at the time the alleged oral contract was made and the requisite degree of "confidentiality" didn't exist. And, to complicate things just a bit further, when Almasy and his wife were in the process of divorcing, Almasy didn't claim he owned the property nor was there any post-divorce promise to convey the property.
In G*d WE trust!
To download a copy of the Appellate Division's decision, please use this link: Almasy v. Ward