Promissory Estoppel Real Estate - YouTube

Speaker 1: Scared in new Boston and scared,  

writes in and tells us that my son borrowed  $75,000 for me to purchase a home. He said  

he was going to give me a lien on the property,  but his wife is on title to the home with him.  

And now after the closing, she refuses to let  him sign anything that acknowledges my money  

that I gave them for their new home. She says it  was a gift and that they reported the money as a  

gift to their mortgage company. I am so angry and  so concerned about my money. What can I do here  

from scared in new Boston? Speaker 2:  

Yeah, it's really unfortunate.  I do want to, you know,  

I'm going to keep going back to that  earlier question about like the attorney  

and free consultations. Here's an example that  like, if somebody called me with that question,  

you know, I would, of course be very empathetic,  but at the same time, I'd have to say,  

Hey, can you do me a favor? We're going to need to  see the documents that were signed and we're going  

to need to see the information, you know, showing  me that you conveyed the 75,000. How was it  

conveyed? Was it a deed? Was it wired? Did you put  a memo in the memo? Did you write the word gift?  

Did you give a gift letter to the mortgage  company? I mean, there's all these questions  

I have, but in general, let's, let's just  hypothetically say that pretend that she never  

meant it to be a gift. Speaker 2:  

Okay. And they had an agreement between each  the family members. Hey, I'm going to give  

you the 75 as a down payment. If there's no gift  letter, if there's nothing, that references gift.  

But there's conversation, there's  something called promissory estoppel or  

yeah, promissory estoppel where the  family moved forward and took the 75,000.  

And so it's evidencing some type of arrangement  between the parties. So I believe, you know, if  

she says I gave the 75, it wasn't supposed to be  a gift. It was alone. Okay. If I can show the wire  

and I can show the 75 and I don't say anything  about a gift letter, I'm going to assume that that  

is most likely true than the other thing is to  to this question, which was that the wife doesn't  

want this or this lady's son to sign anything. Speaker 2:  

Well, that's a problem. Okay. because there's two  people on that deed and she has certain rights  

this, the, the daughter-in-law sounds like he has  certain rights. She doesn't have to be compelled  

initially to sign over like a deed or some type  of acknowledgement of this lady's interest.  

Here's the thing. It sounds, you know, I I'd  like to know the attorney who reviewed their  

documents before they closed on this property.  I have a feeling there was no attorney. Okay.  

the other thing is, you know, it does happen lot  in family situations where people want to be good  

to their family members. They want to help their  children. You know, I wrote a book called shady.  

It's about doing business with family and friends  and how to protect yourself. And this is a perfect  

example of what you need to do when you're about  to allocate huge sums of money to help your family  

members, whether it be for a business or home,  or what have you, you need to have the, you know,  

the consult and the advice of an attorney. Speaker 2:  

Okay. So in the end, I'm kind of  getting off topic a little bit  

but she does have rights. We just have to see  how she signed the paperwork. I also want to  

suggest that this daughter-in-law's said something  about that the money was a gift and they made a  

statement to the bank that there was a gift it's  problematic because if there's a gift letter,  

usually these gift letters that banks use  have some language in there that says, Hey,  

this is a gift letter. We're relying on you not  to have to come back against the borrowers because  

we're making a loan to these borrowers. And we're  going to assume that they don't have to pay any  

more money back than what they currently go up. Speaker 1:  

Right. Speaker 2:  

And so the bank is kind of  relying on that letter as well.  

I'd like to see what the  closing package has. Okay.  

Speaker 1: That's a good point because,  

you know, you're, you're only so financeable, and  perhaps the reason why they needed that 75,000 I'm  

just speculating is because they weren't financial  above and beyond. So that, that, that would be a  

problem that I didn't think about for sure. Speaker 2:  

I, you know, Blair just like the mechanics of, of  doing intake and dealing with people with these  

type of issues is we would want to see a complete  loan package, a closing package I'd want to see  

the transaction, how the closing settlement  statement, I'd also want to see any emails  

taxed or anything like that, because you'd  be shocked. I mean, we've gone in many cases  

where we're going down one route, and then  all of a sudden we get a text we find in that  

has some language in there that changes the whole  case. In fact, it's happened twice in the past.  

Today's only Monday, but last week, well, no last  week it happened twice to us where, you know, it's  

constantly litigation, you know, one minute you're  up at the next minute you're down. And, you know,  

we have, we have so many instances where just one  tax will completely change the outcome of a case.  

So I'll tell this lady not to despair, but  it's too soon to speculate what she hasn't,  

unless we saw the paperwork. But yeah, there  are things that we can do to help protect  

somebody's interest. Once we see the paperwork,  

Speaker 1: Okay,