Your cohabiting partner seeks to recover property from your parents – will the court grant such claims?

Another case won!

Is the mere fact of living together enough for a share of the property, or monetary compensation for it, to be awarded in the event of a break-up? What evidence is considered sufficient? Is living in your parents' house without paying rent, but, for example, making some improvements to it, compensable?

The claimant (my client's former cohabiting partner) filed a claim with the court, arguing that several years of living together constituted a relationship to be regarded as contractual joint activity, since the income received was managed jointly. She stated that the cohabitants had lived in my client's parents' house with the parents' temporary permission and had paid no rent. However, she sought to prove that she and my client had renovated the house, and therefore a share of compensation had to be awarded to her after she moved out. She also claimed that together they had built another house of their own in his parents' name.

The court dismissed the claim. In the case I represented my client and his parents, whose position I had to defend for a long time. Although the court recognised that a relationship of joint activity (partnership) had developed between the claimant and her cohabiting partner, that was not enough. In the case I succeeded in refuting all the versions put forward by the claimant, which kept changing, and numerous witnesses were examined who had seen the process of building, renovating and fitting out the houses for more than 10 years.

The court upheld my position and held that:

 1) The dispute in the case concerned reimbursement of the costs of improving property in the absence of a lease or loan-for-use relationship.

 2) The Supreme Court of Lithuania has clarified that, when deciding on reimbursement of the costs of improving property, it must also be determined whether the tenant had the landlord's permission to make the improvements. In this case I proved that no such permission had been given.

 3) I defended my clients' position, and the court confirmed that implied conduct is not sufficient when it comes to making improvements to the house.

 4) Improvements made by the tenant without the landlord's permission may be removed by the tenant if they can be separated without damage to the leased property and the landlord does not agree to reimburse their value.

 5) The value of improvements made by the tenant without the landlord's permission that cannot be separated without damage to the leased property does not have to be reimbursed.

 6) Granting permission to improve leased property is in essence a transaction, since this act seeks to bring about certain legal consequences. When deciding on reimbursement of the costs of improving property, the following conditions must be established: the tenant improved the leased property; the tenant had the landlord's permission to make the improvements; the amount of the necessary costs incurred by the tenant for this purpose; and no other rules for reimbursing these costs are laid down by law or by the parties' agreement. In this case it was proved that this was not so.

 7) In claiming reimbursement of costs, the claimant had to prove not possible costs or expenses but funds actually paid, and to prove this by admissible evidence. I convinced the court that in this case this had not been done properly and sufficiently.

 8) Under Article 6.636 of the Civil Code, the claimant, living in the house free of charge, was obliged to carry out current and major repairs and to pay all the costs of maintaining the house.

 Thus, the claimant failed to prove by admissible means of proof either that she and my client had improved the house, or that she had built another house and incurred the costs she sought to recover.

Do you know what's most interesting? When the court delivered its judgment, another client came to my office with a similar situation, only on the opposite side of the evidential argument, so once again I had the feeling of working on the same case, only with different parties and circumstances. I very often represent clients in such cases, and they are sometimes much more complex than divorce cases between spouses.