Armstrong mom sues son, his ex-wife after helping them buy first home
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When an Armstrong woman loaned her son and his new wife money to get established in a modular home, she didn’t bother writing a contract.
But when the marriage went bad less than three years later and she tried to collect, her daughter-in-law tried to claim it was a gift and refused.
Sharon Gail Jones was eventually forced to sue her son, Vincin Boone and his then-wife Simone Berg, also known as Simone Boone for $200,000, according to a recent BC Supreme Court decision.
In 2018, Jones got a home equity line of credit for $200,000 to buy the $150,000 trailer for them, paid for pad rental and other expenses for the first year. She had an agreement with her son to pay $1,200 per month but admitted he often never paid for it. He paid a total of $21,000 between June 2018 by the time they separated in August 2021.
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It appears Berg was the only one living in the home at that time, with a new boyfriend. Berg said the home was always intended to be a gift from Jones’s deceased husband, Charles Jones, who Berg said was like a father to her. Jones’s son said he knew it was a loan and made payments, but declined to fully back his mother in the suit, as was shown in an email he sent to Jones’ lawyer.
“I will not be attending any more of this bs and you tell that piece of shit mother of mine she can have her fucking house back and don’t ever contact me again,” he wrote.
Berg said she was completely unaware her ex-husband was making payments and she believed the home to be a gift she didn’t have to repay. She said when Charles Jones was alive, he twice set up the couple in an RV worth more than $75,000. She presumed the home was for the same purpose.
That was her mistake, Justice Steven Wilson said.
“There was no intention by the plaintiff to provide a gift to the defendants. Rather, she was willing to permit her credit to be used in order to assist the defendants in purchasing a home, which turned out to be the (modular home),” he wrote.
Wilson also found evidence Berg knew it wasn’t a gift — in text messages between her and her new beau.
Technicalities broke the claimed amount down to $167,000 plus interest and Wilson ordered Berg and Boone to pay it.
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