While the death of a family member typically causes enough grief of its own, in some situations family squabbles arising after the death of a loved-one can be worse (and can drag on for years). That was what happened in this case. Here, family members fought over their mother’s estate for more than five years in three separate lawsuits.
Mother died owning a 160-acre tract of farmland. One child, a son (and his wife) had operated a salvage business on a five-acre portion of the farmland for about 15 years before Mom died. The business was enclosed by a fence and two grain bins were also located within the fenced area. The other 155 acres were leased to a farm tenant who had access to the grain bins. Mom’s two other children were co-executors of her estate. Two separate lawsuits between the parties failed to resolve their differences, so a written settlement agreement was entered into. As part of the agreement, the estate agreed to sell the five acres to the son that had been operating the salvage business with the legal description conforming to the existing fence boundary. The settlement agreement contained a clause specifying that a $20,000 down payment would be forfeited if the estate provided marketable title and the buyer failed to perform their other obligations under the agreement. The parties never closed the transaction primarily because the estate proffered a deed with a legal description that was about one-half acre less than the acreage enclosed by the fence. A survey determined the existing fence did not conform to the boundaries set forth by a county zoning ordinance, and the estate maintained that the fence should conform to the zoning ordinance.
The trial court held that the parties had contemplated that the existing fence would be the boundary, but upheld the forfeiture provision. The Court of Appeals agreed. On further review, the Iowa Supreme Court reversed. The Court noted that the estate never conveyed marketable title to the five acres because the legal description in the deed did not conform to the existing fence - and that was what the parties contemplated. As such, the forfeiture provision did not apply. The estate’s conveyance of marketable title was a precondition to enforcement of the forfeiture provision. Other claims of the estate that the son had not fulfilled all of his obligations were held not to be part of the written settlement agreement, and there had been no valid oral modification of the written settlement agreement.Passehl Estate v. Passehl, 712 N.W.2d 408 (Iowa Sup. Ct. 2006), rev’g and vac’g, 707 N.W.2d 336 (Iowa Ct. App. 2005).