June 12, 2008
Posted by smitty3946
I enterd into a verbal contract with my sister in which I was to have a lein sale and pay the lein holder in full.We agreed that my sister would become the legal owner of the house for a purchas price of $1.00. We agreed that the house would be legally returned to me once all of my creditors were paid in full.The reason I entered into the the oral contract with her was so that the home, in which my disabled mother lives in, would not have another lein place against it.Now she refuses to return the property to me even though I have documentation showing that I have paid for this house twice. Since it is a verbal contact do I have any recoarse? The home is located in Montana.
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June 13, 2008
Posted by Gorillapaws
( 1 rating )
I'd hire an attorney. Verbal contracts are notoriously difficult to prove in court and are always discouraged by anyone who has any legal experience or knowledge--especially when it comes to something really serious like your home. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't really know what I'm talking about, but tort law requires a 50/50 standard of burden of proof (i.e. if you can show that there is a 51% chance that you're telling the truth and your sister is lying, then you should win).
In the absence of documentation, were there any 3rd party witnesses to this agreement (your disabled mother for example?). You may also be able to trick her into giving you concrete evidence of your contract. For example, if she leaves a message on your answering machine that says something like: "You can't prove that we made that agreement in court, so stop bugging me" you could keep the tape and then wait until AFTER she denies any agreement ever existed and then use your tape as evidence that she is lying about the existence of such an agreement. That example won't ever prove the terms of the agreement, but if there's direct evidence that she's lying to a judge, you've got a much better shot at making your case. You could try to trick her into writing you an e-mail or letter that you could use in a similar way too.
If you're thinking of going with the sneaky route, just be careful about secretly taping phone conversations or hiding tape recorders and "bugging" yourself in an attempt to get her to admit something when talking face-to-face. I'm pretty sure secretly taping people is illegal--at least when done over the phone-lines, but I'm not a lawyer or a cop so I would make sure I knew what I was allowed to do before trying something like that. Because this involves the title to your home, I would get a lawyer involved though--this is clearly important enough to justify the expense.
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