N.S. appeal court overturns homestead sale ordered against father’s estate

A Nova Scotia man has lost an order compelling his father’s estate to sell him the family homestead for $19,500 because the property’s beneficial ownership already belonged to his sisters under their mother’s will.

In Adams v. MacDonald, 2026 NSCA 69, released September 28, 2026, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal overturned the order enforcing an oral sale agreement. The decisive problem was not that the agreement was oral: the father’s estate could not convey beneficial ownership it did not have.

The appeal also reversed the trial costs order and required Michael MacDonald to pay the estate $10,000 for the hearing below and $4,000 for the appeal, both amounts including disbursements.

A mother’s gift came before the sale agreement

Christina MacDonald owned the family homestead in Pleasant Valley, Antigonish County. Her will gave her husband, Ronald, a life interest in her real estate and directed that the homestead lot go in equal shares to their four daughters after his death.

After Christina died in 1995, Ronald challenged her will and brought separate statutory claims seeking the property. Those proceedings were dismissed by consent. Christina’s executor then signed a quitclaim deed transferring her real estate to Ronald.

Ronald died in 1999. His daughter Jane Adams, acting as executor of his estate, later reached an oral agreement to sell the homestead to her brother Michael for $19,500. He had fully paid by 2009 but never received a deed.

In 2011, Adams instead conveyed the homestead to herself and her three sisters. After learning of that transfer, Michael obtained a refund of his $19,500. He then sought an order setting aside the sisters’ deed and requiring the property to be conveyed to him upon payment of the agreed price.

The trial judge granted that relief. Adams appealed, raising 12 grounds. The appeal court needed to decide only the ownership issue.

Legal title did not erase the daughters’ ownership

The court distinguished legal title—the title held formally—from beneficial ownership, the underlying interest held for someone’s benefit. Christina’s will gave the daughters beneficial ownership, subject to Ronald’s lifetime interest.

The trial judge had treated the settlement of Ronald’s earlier litigation and the quitclaim deed as eliminating the daughters’ interests. The appeal court found that approach legally wrong.

The settlement’s terms were not in evidence. No court order had set aside Christina’s will or displaced its gifts, and there was no evidence that a settlement authorized transfer of the homestead’s beneficial ownership to Ronald.

The daughters had not joined in the quitclaim deed. Their interests could not be released through a deed signed by someone else. Any legal title Ronald received remained subject to their beneficial interests; he held that title as a constructive trustee for them.

Michael also argued that Christina’s will gave her trustee a general power to sell estate property. But that power was expressly subject to the preceding gifts. Trustee powers are intended to carry out a will, not frustrate it. The court acknowledged that estate debts or other necessities can sometimes justify a sale, but this was not such a case.

The decision also notes an important historical limit: the rule under which real property vested on a testator’s death in 1995 changed with Nova Scotia’s 2001 Probate Act. The court’s explanation of the earlier rule should not be read as a statement that legal title now always passes directly to beneficiaries.

The sale order and costs were reversed

Once Ronald’s life interest ended, the daughters were entitled to a deed recognizing their beneficial interests. Adams, as his executor, was obliged to respect that ownership. The appeal court consequently rejected the trial judge’s criticism that conveying the property to herself and her sisters breached her fiduciary duty.

The court set aside the orders on both the merits and costs, and required the return of any costs Michael had recovered. The previous costs award had been $20,693.08 plus disbursements; it was replaced by the awards payable to the estate.

The $19,500 purchase money had already been refunded before this proceeding. It was not a new monetary award on appeal. The result turns on this will, the daughters’ existing interests and the estate’s lack of beneficial title—not a general prohibition on oral land-sale agreements or trustee sales.