As a follow up to the comments made in my blog earlier in the week about trust claims commonly arising upon a breakdown in a parties’ relationship, the case of Balkisson v. Sandy, 2025 ONSC 856 (“Balkisson”) provides a similar discussion with a twist: what happens if a party later has second thoughts and wishes to change his or her mind about a gift of property?
The Applicant mother in Balkisson funded the purchase of a home held in the name of her Respondent son. She alleged that her son took title to the property as a trustee and that the property was subject to a resulting trust in her favour.
On the other hand, her son argued that the home was gifted to him and his youngest sister. His mother had decided to give him and his youngest their planned inheritance money when she was alive so they could acquire the home. However, the home had to be in his name alone because his sister was not yet 18 years old at the time of the purchase. The son contended that the reason his mother was now seeking a resulting trust was because the mother’s relationship with the son’s wife had deteriorated at some point after the acquisition of the home.
After ordering viva voce cross-examinations, the Court concluded that the Respondent had successfully rebutted the presumption of a resulting trust and established that the home had been a gift. In so doing, it made the following findings:
- The mother had repeatedly referred to the “inheritance” gift in text messages. There was no text message that the mother changed her mind until well after the gift had already been made.
- The amounts advanced for the purchase of the home supported the mother’s intention, set out in her prior Will and again in text messages.
- In communications with her son, the mother referred to the sale proceeds of an unrelated property sale as her children’s money and not hers. These sale proceeds had been contributed towards the purchase of the home.
- The mother’s evidence that her moving furniture into the home evidenced her intention to live there was rejected by the Court. In fact, there were text messages indicating that the mother needed to move furniture out of storage and asked her son if she could use the home to store some of her items “until she rehomes” them.
- There was no bedroom for the mother or any other family members in the property, aside from bedrooms for the son and daughter’s families.
- Text messages indicated a plan for the son and daughter to live together for a few years, then take the sale proceeds and each purchase a larger house.
- The mother referred to the daughter as the son’s financial partner “half way.”
- After the fight with her daughter-in-law, the mother advised her son that she was thinking about the family situation and wanted to “change things.” This was the first indication that the mother was changing her mind, and it happened after the gift was made and after the fight. The mother had only changed her mind about the gift after she had the fight with her daughter-in-law. While she wanted to undo her gift, she was not entitled to do so. The Balkisson Court cited the comments of the Ontario Court of Appeal in Abdollahpour v. Banifatemi, 2015 ONCA 834 at para. 36: “a valid gift, once made, cannot be revoked or retracted and the failure of a donee to fulfill a donor’s expectations does not vitiate a valid gift.”