Bill VanFarmer died leaving the family farm to his wife and 3 children jointly. The farm was heavily mortgaged and was facing imminent foreclosure by the Bank. Edna VanFarmer (Bill’s widow) desired to keep the farm out of foreclosure and was willing to use all of the proceeds from Bill’s life insurance policy (of which she was the sole beneficiary), to pay the Bank so long as her children agreed to transfer their interests in the farm to her. Once the Bank was paid, Edna intended to sell the farm to AJM Outlets, a national retail chain looking to develop a location of their chain stores nearby. AJM Outlets offered to pay Edna twice what the property was worth and Edna could not wait to close the deal.

To this end, the following interactions occurred: Edna wrote all of her grieving children demanding that they transfer their interest in the farm to her for $100. In her letter, she advised all of her children that Bill wanted her to own the farm exclusively and live there through the end of her days. She further advised them that they owed it to her, as their mother, to follow her wishes. Edna promised them she would save the property from foreclosure with the insurance proceeds, but mentioned nothing about AJM Outlets, knowing that her children would be opposed to any such sale of the family farm and refuse to transfer their interest to her. Overwhelmed with sadness over the recent loss of their father, two of the children, Maggie and Al, wrote letters to their mother agreeing to transfer their respective interests in the property to Edna.The third child, Nick, called his mother and promised that he would sign his interest in the property over the next time he was in town.The next week, a representative from AJM Outlets called each of the children and expressed the retailer’s appreciation of their willingness to consider its offer to buy the farm. Apparently, AJM Outlets was not aware that Edna was keeping her plans to sell a secret. The children, all outraged, immediately contacted their mother to express their anger about her plans to sell the farm. Edna advised each of her children that it was too late to be upset and that all of them had entered into enforceable contracts promising to transfer their property interests to her.

Is Edna correct? Highlight any circumstances that might render any agreements between Edna and her children unenforceable.

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

Whether Edna is correct in her claim that the agreements between her and her children are enforceabl... View the full answer