Stevenson Whelton LLP lawyer Dan McConville obtained an order for the sale of a commonly owned cottage property on behalf of the applicant, a part owner of the property. The application was complicated because the applicant’s father had attempted to unequally sever the property through a will years earlier, and the respondents delivered expert evidence relating to the possibility of severing the property.
The court found in favour of Stevenson Whelton’s client on all the contentious issues in the application, including: (1) the test to be applied on an application for partition or sale, (2) that a sale was the most appropriate and fair outcome because a severance would be complicated, uncertain, costly and unequal, and (3) that the applicant and respondents each owned a fifty percent share of the Property because an attempted gift of unequal parcels of the property in a prior will lapsed. The decision can be found here.