I PAID $550,000 THINKING THIS HOME WOULD BE MINE..! – DAUGHTER’S SHOCK AFTER 11 YEARS OF PAYMENTS TO HER PARENTS END WITH THEM CLAIMING SHE WAS ONLY THEIR TENANT.
A woman who handed more than $550,000 to her parents over 11 years, thinking she was paying towards ownership of the $1.1million home her parents had bought on her behalf, has lost her legal bid to stop them from selling – but she might get some of the profit.
Breanna Lane launched civil action against her parents, Alan and Wendy Briggs, in the Supreme Court of Western Australia in July over claims they had an informal agreement that the home would become hers if she made monthly repayments.
Ms Lane, who used to run her own commercial property business and now works for the University of WA, told the court she and her husband, Ben Lane, were facing financial hardship in 2014 and that her parents agreed to help.
The retirees borrowed $1.2million to purchase the three-bedroom Swanbourne home, located just three minutes from Perth‘s picturesque Cottesloe Beach, with the understanding their daughter and son-in-law would pay $4,300 a month to live there.
But while Ms Lane thought she was paying off the mortgage, her parents told the court they were under the impression she was a rent-paying tenant and that there was no written or verbal agreement to suggest otherwise.
Further, according to the judgement by Justice Larissa Strk last Wednesday, Mr and Mrs Briggs said their daughter would periodically pay irregular amounts of rent, sometimes nothing at all and at other times as little as $334 per month, and ultimately fell $5,300 into arrears.
The Briggses also said Ms Lane encountered further financial issues in mid-2024 and that they gave her more than $10,000 per month for the next year to cover her expenses, equating to about $122,000.
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Breanna Lane (pictured) tried to stop her parents from selling their investment property
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Alan and Wendy Briggs (pictured) bought a house for their daughter and her family to live in
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The house cost $1.1million and their daughter, Breanna Lane, made monthly repayments
In the judgement, Ms Lane claimed she visited her parents at their former five-bedroom estate in Yallingup, in the Margaret River region south of Perth, in October 2014 and told them her young family was at risk of losing their Claremont rental.
She claimed her father would not help them buy a property in their own names by acting as a guarantor, but instead agreed to buy a home in his name and allow his daughter to cover the mortgage so she would eventually own it herself.
According to Ms Lane, her father said that was the only way they could stop renting, provide stability for their children, and get back on the property ladder.
The Briggses bought the property in November 2014, and the Lanes started making repayments the following month.
Ms Lane calculated that she made 69 monthly repayments between December 2014 and August 2020, totalling $296,700. She then withdrew $10,000 from her superannuation through the government’s COVID-19 program to keep up with repayments.
Between September 2020 and April 2026, Ms Lane said she continued to make monthly repayments, which were identified in bank statements with the description ‘mortgage’.
She acknowledged missing three payments but claimed she paid a total of $253,462 during that period, along with an additional $19,080 between 2015 and 2022 for the installation of a fireplace, electrical work, security measures and other items.
The dispute began in 2024 when Mr Briggs told his daughter the property belonged to him, that she was a tenant, and that a lease should be put in place. The following year, he told her he wanted to sell the home.
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Breanna Lane (pictured) was struggling financially in 2014 when her parents bought the house
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The house was in an affluent part of Perth and had a pool and three bedrooms (pictured)
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Justice Strk noted that the parties gave sharply conflicting accounts of the arrangement and stressed that the court was not determining whose version was correct at this stage, only whether Ms Lane’s claim was arguable.
Ms Lane called the real estate agent and told them she didn’t agree to any viewings by prospective buyers. The agent complied with her wishes.
Between October 2024 and January 2026, Ms Lane said she received a series of texts from her father where he appeared to offer to give her money.
On October 16, 2024, he wrote: ‘Don’t forget that on the sale you’ll have cash to invest or top up any shortfall.’
Two weeks later, he wrote: ‘Once the house is sold, we can give you money or selectively send it we can discuss that by phone.’
On January 20, 2026, he gave her a proposal for the sale of the property and use of the profits.
Four days later, he wrote: ‘Again I may be repeating what you are already doing but it seems that the agent work to tie together the sale of [the house] and the location of a house for you. All this needs settlement coordination.’
The Briggses accepted an offer on the house in April 2026. The amount was not specified in the judgement, but property databases indicate the property may have almost doubled in value and is now worth about $2million.
Ms Lane stopped making payments on July 9. She launched legal action against her parents later that month.
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Pictured: A mock-up of texts sent from Alan Briggs to his daughter, Breanna Lane
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While her parents did not dispute the sequence of events or the amount Ms Lane paid, they told the court the fundamental misunderstanding concerned ownership of the property. They claimed they never said their daughter would eventually own it.
In her judgement, Justice Strk found Ms Lane had raised a serious question to be tried but said her claim was ‘not a strong one’ and that the dispute would ultimately need to be resolved in separate proceedings.
Further, the Briggses told the court they kept diaries of conversations with their daughter about the property and said there was no record of her visiting the Yallingup home to discuss her impending eviction in 2014.
They also said money was rarely discussed at family gatherings, except for details relating to the understanding that the house would eventually be sold.
Mr Briggs said Ms Lane sometimes wrote ‘rent’ in the descriptions on her bank transfers to him, and those descriptions would sometimes alternate between ‘rent’ and ‘mortgage’ after April 2020.
Mr Briggs also said Ms Lane told him about further financial issues in June 2024, so he offered to pay her $10,000 a month on the basis that she would continue to pay rent.
According to Mr Briggs’ evidence, he told Ms Lane she needed to demonstrate that ongoing payments would help her secure another rental property in the future.
He told the court that he and his wife gave their daughter $10,000 per month, plus a further $2,100 in July 2025, for a total of $122,100 to subsidise her income and living expenses.
Mr and Mrs Briggs said they bought the house with a 12-year interest-only mortgage, which meant they could keep the repayments at $5,500 a month because they were paying only the interest on the loan, rather than reducing the principal.
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Breanna Lane (pictured) tried to stop her parents from selling their investment property, which she lived in with her family
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If the property was not sold by December 2026, repayments would nearly double to $10,500 a month to cover the remaining $1.2million debt, plus interest.
The couple told the court they had a history of buying homes with interest-only loans and that they would be penniless by 2032 if they were forced to cover the remainder of the loan on the Swanbourne property.
Ms Lane had tried to impose an ‘absolute caveat’ on the property title to stop the registration of any new dealings, sales or transfers.
Justice Strk ordered that the caveat be removed and allowed the sale to proceed, finding the balance of convenience favoured selling the property and preserving any disputed interest through the sale proceeds instead. She noted the parents faced rising loan repayments – set to reach $13,513 a month by December 2026 – and that Ms Lane had not offered to take over or discharge the mortgage.
However, the judge said Ms Lane may have a claim over the sale proceeds, estimated at about $800,000 after the loan, settlement costs and capital gains tax were paid, and ordered her to launch formal proceedings against her parents within 21 days.
The judge ordered that the profits be paid into a court fund until any additional claim was determined.
