Every solicitor who has added an adult child to a parent’s title has made a judgment call about how much to document. Brunton v. Lanzarotta et al, 2026 ONSC 4080, released July 13, 2026, is a decision about what happens roughly a decade later when a judgment creditor moves against the title, the surviving parent has to prove what was actually intended — and the only lawyers who can help have no notes.

The transfers

Between 2016 and 2017, Dr. James Brunton and his wife Marilyn added Janet, Marilyn’s daughter from a previous marriage, to title on three properties: a Grand Harbour townhouse, a Toronto condominium Janet had lived in since 2013, and a Collingwood condominium. Janet was later added to three of Marilyn’s bank accounts during the pandemic. Each Land Transfer Tax affidavit recited “Transfer from parents to themselves and their daughter for natural love and affection.” On the parcel register, the box indicating the transfer was in trust was left unchecked.

Dr. Brunton died in 2020. In 2023, A.J. Lanzarotta Wholesale Fruits and Vegetables Ltd. obtained judgment against Janet for $1,793,732.90 on a finding of civil fraud, and moved to seize and sell the properties. Marilyn, now 79, applied for a declaration that Janet held everything in a resulting trust for her.

The presumption and who has to rebut it

Following Pecore v. Pecore, 2007 SCC 17, a gratuitous transfer to an adult child raises a presumption of resulting trust, and the burden falls on the party asserting a gift. Lanzarotta therefore had to prove the Bruntons intended to give Janet a beneficial interest. Harris J. accepted Marilyn’s evidence that the purpose was survivorship and probate avoidance — that if both parents died suddenly, Janet “could just take over” — and found no bargain in which the properties were consideration for Janet’s caregiving.

Marilyn won. That is the outcome, and it is the last comfortable thing about this decision.

What the court said about the lawyers’ files

Two lawyers testified. Edward Olkovich had drafted the wills; Maureen Galea, the Bruntons’ long-time real estate lawyer, actually effected the transfers. Neither had notes. The court’s assessment is blunt:

The lawyers’ evidence, because a lack of notes or other aid memoire and the effluxion of time, is—unfortunately–unreliable. Ms. Galea, who had the principal responsibility to clarify the Bruntons’ intentions, did not do so adequately. (para. 46)

Ms. Galea’s reporting letters for all three transactions were filed at trial. None mentioned the purpose of the transfer or the need for estates advice. She relied instead on habit evidence — that she generally told clients “natural love and affection” signalled a gift. Harris J. was unpersuaded:

Evidence of habit is not necessarily reliable: R. v. Pilon, 2009 ONCA 248. Habits are not invariably adhered to, depending on their kind. They are open to exceptions. In this situation, one would expect a lawyer would get explicit written instructions or at least make a memo to file to explain the purpose of the legal step being taken. (para. 42)

The point is sharpened a paragraph later. Because failing to give the advice would expose the solicitor, the court reasoned, if the advice had in fact been given “one would expect it to be memorialized to protect herself” (para. 43). The absence of a record was not treated as a neutral gap: it left the court skeptical the advice had ever been given. Mr. Olkovich fared worse. Although his own published books warn against adding adult children to title, the court inferred from his lack of notes and recollection that he never raised the issue with Dr. Brunton, “at least proximate to the time frame of the transactions putting Janet on title” (para. 40).

The disconnect between the two files

There is a second lesson buried in the chronology. Mr. Olkovich executed the Bruntons’ wills on August 18, 2016 — two days after Ms. Galea put Janet on title to the Collingwood condominium. He did not know the transfer had happened, and to his recollection never spoke to her. As the court put it, “The left hand did not seem to know what the right hand was doing” (para. 39). Had either lawyer been fully alive to the issue, Harris J. observed, “there would have been some indication in the documentary evidence one way or the other” (para. 46).

For your file

The transaction itself was a five-minute instruction: add the daughter. The litigation it produced ran to a trial with three witnesses and an earlier ruling on the same file. A few habits would have shortened it considerably.

Take instructions in writing on why the child is going on title, and record whether the intention is a present gift or bare legal title. Make a memo to file the same day. Say it in the reporting letter — purpose, the advice given, and the recommendation to obtain estates and tax advice. Where the intention is not a gift, document it: a declaration of trust or a signed acknowledgment executed contemporaneously is worth more than any later recollection. Reconcile the LTT affidavit language and the trust box on the transfer with what the client actually intends, because “natural love and affection” is the language the other side will point to as signalling a gift. And when you know estates counsel is working on the same client, close the loop.

Marilyn Brunton was saved by her own credibility on the stand. A client who has died, or who simply does not remember, will not be.