Court finds Trustee Act takes precedence over ten-year limit for land recovery claims
The Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the two-year limitation period under the Trustee Act applies to a surviving spouse’s claim for a 50-percent ownership interest in his deceased wife’s property, overturning a lower-court decision that applied the ten-year limitation period under the Real Property Limitations Act (RPLA).
In Thiessen v. Thiessen Estate, 2026 ONCA 730, the court held that the Trustee Act governs claims against estates arising from alleged wrongs for which the deceased was liable, even when those claims involve real property, unless a statutory exception applies.
The dispute arose after the spouses married in March 2014 and signed a marriage contract in March 2015. Both received independent legal advice before signing the agreement, which contemplated selling their respective homes and purchasing a new property together as tenants in common.
After failing to find a suitable property, the couple agreed to live in the wife’s existing residence. The husband sold his home in June 2016 and deposited $223,000 into their joint account the following month.
On the same day, the wife transferred $100,000 from the joint account to her three children. The husband claimed that this payment secured him a 50-percent ownership interest in the residence.
However, title remained exclusively in the wife’s name, and the couple never amended their marriage contract or registered any joint ownership.
Following the wife’s death in January 2022, the husband commenced proceedings against her estate in April 2024, seeking a beneficial ownership interest in the property. Her will had granted him a conditional life interest in the residence, with the deceased’s interest passing to her children upon its termination.
The husband also sought dependant support under the Succession Law Reform Act, but the Superior Court dismissed that claim as statute-barred in September 2024.
The estate trustees subsequently brought a motion under Rule 21 of the Rules of Civil Procedure, arguing that the property claim was also statute-barred.
The motion judge dismissed the damages claim under the Trustee Act but permitted the constructive trust claim to proceed under the RPLA’s ten-year limitation period.
On appeal, the estate trustees argued that the Trustee Act governed the claim because it arose from an alleged wrong attributable to the deceased.
The Court of Appeal agreed, finding that any alleged contractual or equitable wrong arose when the deceased failed to register the husband’s claimed ownership interest after the $100,000 payment.
The court rejected the husband’s argument that the estate trustees, rather than the deceased, had committed the relevant wrong.
The court also found that the claim did not fall within the statutory exception for claims to recover land or rents involving express trusts vested in a trustee. The alleged agreement to substitute the existing residence for the contemplated jointly purchased property was oral and had not been recorded in the marriage contract or the deceased’s will.
The court emphasized that equitable trust claims are not exempt from the Trustee Act and that the nature of the alleged injury, rather than the remedy sought, determines whether the statute applies.
Relying on Ingram v. Kulynich Estate, 2024 ONCA 678, the court held that the specific limitation provisions governing estate claims take precedence over the RPLA’s general provisions on recovering land.
The court allowed the appeal and found the husband’s property claim statute-barred. It did not address the estate trustees’ alternative argument that the claim disclosed no reasonable cause of action.
