Another Appellate Court Victory

We recently achieved a very favorable result from the Illinois Appellate Court.  Our client was an elderly woman who bought a home in joint tenancy with her husband in 1963.  She left the abusive relationship and divorced her husband in 1968 while remaining on the title to the home.  Her ex-husband remarried and remained in the home with his new family until his death in 1993.  By law, the title vested entirely in our client at that time.  However, her ex-husband’s new wife and daughter failed to notify our client of the death and continued to use and occupy the property until they decided to sell it in 2017.  When a buyer was found, our client was made a nominal offer to relinquish her interest in the home she owned but had not used in many years.  She declined and the daughter of her ex-husband filed a lawsuit seeking title to the property under a claim of adverse possession.  The trial court granted summary judgment in the plaintiff’s favor.  We filed and won an appeal, forcing the plaintiff to settle for 16 times what she offered in 2017.