The son sued to impress a constructive trust on his father’s home. When the son was married, he accepted his father’s offer to convert the upstairs floor of his one-family house into an apartment where the son and hiswife would live and in 15 years it would be the son’s. The son paid his father every month, who advised him that he was paying towards equity in the house.

The amount paid each month was determined by the father based on what the son could afford. The father eventually remarried. He and the son had a “falling out.” The father thereafter served eviction papers on the son and complained of noise being made inside the apartment. The son then stopped paying the father and did not have further discussion with him about the house.

The purpose of a constructive trust is to prevent unjust enrichment. To impose a constructive trust, four factors must be established:

(1) a confidential or fiduciary relationship,
(2) a promise,
(3) a transfer in reliance thereon, and
(4) unjust enrichment.

The Nassau County, New York Supreme Court found that the son had demonstrated that he had a close relationship with his father and that the father had promised to give him the house after 15 years. As to whether there was a transfer in reliance on the promise, merely showing that funds were transferred or expended by the claimant does not necessarily satisfy the requirement of proving a transfer in reliance on a promise.

Prior judicial decisions have rejected claimants’ attempts to establish the ‘transfer’ element based on their improvements to property inasmuch as the improvements also benefited the claimant. Proof of payments made by claimants for operating expenses and real estate taxes have likewise been held insufficient given that such payments could be considered rent.

The court reasoned that because the son had made improvements to the portion of the house occupied by him, and from which he benefited, and made monthly payments to the father, which could readily be considered rent, does not prove transfers in reliance on the promise to convey the house sufficient to satisfy the ‘transfer’ element of the constructive trust. Furthermore, the court held that the son failed to establish that the other party was enriched at that party’s expense and that it is against equity and good conscience to permit the other party to retain what is sought to be recovered.

The court concluded that the father had not been enriched by the improvements to the house or monthly payments made, all of which benefited the son. Accordingly, the court granted judgment to the father dismissing the complaint.