Delaware Chancery Court Case: Can a Family Take Back Gifts Given to a Loved One’s Mistress?

Does one of your parents have a younger significant other   (the so-called May to December relationship)? Do you want to undue large transfers of assets given to that person while your parent was rather elderly? You may want to see what a Delaware court had to say about this very issue.

Employing Equity

• What can you do if the will is valid, and you know that your loved one was competentwhen they gave gifts to that third party? Can you get back these live gifts ( inter vivos transfers)?
• Maybe your loved one was about to buy his girlfriend a new condo in Delray Beach and you contest his mental competency, and you lose!
• Are you out of options?
• Courts can and have employed the use of equity to undue unfair transfers.
• Do you know when the West Palm Beach probate courts would utilize their powers in equity to undue gifts and transfers?

Estate of Reed by and through Reed v. Grandelli

• This case is most notable for what the parties did not do. They did not allege that their father lacked capacity, or that he was vulnerable to the exercise of undue influence. They did not even contend that the gifts and transfers made were too excessive that they caused financial duress!
• What did they argue?
• Why didn’t they argue undue influence?
• The family argued essentially that the transfers were inequitable and that the court had authority to undue the transfers, and justice required that it do.
• Do you agree?
• Should the court be able to do this if there is no fraud or undue influence on the West Palm Beach estate?
• Ultimately the court found that the case was tragic and that certain things were improper for example how the young woman had used a condo purchased in both of their names. But at the end of the day despite being upset about the lavish gifts they for the most part did not rise to the level of standing in the face of equity.
• Do you agree? How would you feel if  “in the last months of his life, [your] father lavished expensive gifts on a much younger woman?”

Want to read more? There is a complimentary copy of the case just click right here.