Client Wins Dispute Over Family Home

Robinson & Henry’s knowledgeable attorneys share their professional insight in “From Our Perspective,” where we examine successful outcomes achieved by our attorneys. We’ll also share our legal expertise on other cases and legal issues in Colorado.

In this episode, Civil Litigation Senior Associate Ben Owens-Filice discusses a recent case involving a family dispute over the cherished family home. The case began after the mother passed away, leaving behind the children in a fight over the property.

Past results afford no guarantee of future results; each matter is different and must be judged on its own merits. Facts are those of an actual Robinson & Henry litigation case. 

A Home Divided: How the Dispute Began

After their mother passed away, a dispute between seven siblings started over the family home. The mother had signed a series of quitclaim deeds, leaving the house to two of her children.

The rest of the siblings felt blindsided by this decision. They filed a lawsuit, hoping to cancel the first quitclaim deed and take ownership of the property.

The issue was whether those siblings had actually given up their rights to the home when the deeds were first signed 30 years ago. 

The Handwriting Battle: Expert Witnesses Face Off

Family feuds are tough, and emotions can get heated in cases like this.

Ben laid out his strategy for handling plaintiffs' testimony: establishing favorable facts, exposing bias, and discrediting key testimony.

The plaintiffs' claims of forgery and handwriting analysis further complicated the case. However, our team had the upper hand, with a former FBI document analyst on its side. 

Victory for the Client: A Favorable Ruling

In the end, the court sided with our client, upholding the quitclaim deed and allowing her to keep the family home.

Ben has a crucial piece of advice for anyone in a similar situation: don’t wait to get legal help.

When family disputes put your home at risk, it’s important to act quickly and protect what matters most – your home. 

Read this video’s full transcript:

Question: Ben, thank you for joining me. Tell me more about our client and why they retained us.

Ben: Thanks for having me. We represented a client who's the oldest of a family of seven. Her and her other siblings, whose mother just recently passed away. She and one of the other siblings were given the family home. This was accomplished through a series of quitclaim deeds that were executed throughout the years. 

Now the other siblings, they didn't essentially appreciate being cut out of their mother's estate. They brought a lawsuit to claim ownership of the property. Their lawsuit depended on invalidating the first in that series of quitclaim deeds, so that's how we came to be representing them in this fight. 

Question: As you mentioned, this centered around a quitclaim deed. Can you explain what that is and how that works here in Colorado? 

Ben: A quitclaim deed is essentially an instrument, like a document that conveys an interest in real estate. If you wanted to provide somebody an interest in real estate, say a house or something, that's how you could do it. 

That's what happened here. Our client's mother executed a quitclaim deed providing one third ownership to herself, our client and one other sibling. The thought being that when she passed away, when the mother passed away, then our client and the other sibling would each have a 50% ownership of the home.

Now, what makes a quitclaim deed different than, say, what you may have received when you purchased your home? A general warranty deed, is that a quick claim deed provides no warranties or provides no protections. For example, say I wanted to execute a quitclaim deed and give you this office that we're in right now, that would be a valid instrument. However, I have no ownership in this office, so it would be worthless to you, right? And you would have no protections. So essentially that's what differentiates a quitclaim deed from a general warranty deed, which would provide protections and warranties about ownership of that property.

Question: For this case, tell me more about how did you handle the plaintiff's testimony? I can imagine with a number of siblings, probably emotions were running high. 

Ben: First you have to understand that this involves a quitclaim deed going back 30 years, right? The other siblings, the plaintiffs, claimed that they never signed this 30 year old quitclaim deed granting back ownership to their mother. They're saying we never signed this deed therefore, we still have ownership of this property. With that in mind, my strategy for dealing with the plaintiffs was essentially a three-pronged approach. 

First, I wanted to confirm facts favorable to our case. One of the more important facts for us was that these plaintiffs knew why their mother needed the property, that she wanted to take out a mortgage to get money to do repairs on the family home. They knew this 30 years ago. They knew that she took out the money and they knew that she was doing the repairs. And that makes it all more likely that they did, in fact, sign this quitclaim deed. 

Second, I wanted to bring out their biases. We wanted to establish or show why they were now claiming they did not sign that quitclaim deed. For some of them, it was that they needed money. For others, they were afraid about having a place to live. And for others still, they just thought it was unfair that they were left out of their mother's estate. We tried to bring all that out on cross-examination. 

Finally, I wanted to tie all that together, needed to tie all that together and pin it on one of the plaintiffs. We tried to pin it on one of the plaintiffs, claiming that she was trying to steal from our clients, the family home. 

The way we did that is we brought out texts and phone calls of her threatening other witnesses to include our clients and the other players. She was essentially the ringleader trying to keep everybody on one page to lie about what happened 30 years ago. That was essentially our strategy in approaching them on the stand. 

Question: How was our own handwriting expert very important in this case? 

Ben: Our handwriting expert was in fact, very important. Now, the plaintiffs had their own expert, but he was not as credible as ours. We had a FBI agent, a former FBI agent who, with years of experience, had a long and distinguished career in the document analyst unit.

He was important in establishing that – one, their expert had insufficient samples, two, he used an incorrect methodology, and three, he just plain came to the wrong conclusions. 

In fact, we were able to leverage his reports and testimony earlier, even before we got to trial to keep out a lot of what the plaintiffs wanted to put in as his opinion.

By the time we got to trial, their expert was left with essentially a watered down opinion of a forgery that wasn't supported by any of the facts that were before the court. He was very helpful, very important, and ultimately, helped us succeed in this case. 

Question: What did the court decide ultimately in this case?

Ben: The court did rule in our favor. The court upheld the quitclaim deed, and our clients got to keep their house. 

Question: If someone is watching and they're in a similar situation, what advice would you give to them? 

Ben: If someone's trying to take your home from you, whether by foreclosure or due to fraud or a claim of ownership, you need to hire an attorney immediately. You know your home is too important to you or your family to take any risks.