Parents’ brutal response to daughter who sued them after paying $550k believing she’d own their home: Retirees turn the tables by taking HER to court in extraordinary Perth family feud

A woman who gave her parents more than $550,000 thinking she was paying off the $1.1million home they bought for her, only to find out she was merely a tenant, is now being kicked out of the house and sued by the retirees over $8,480 in unpaid rent.

Alan and Wendy Briggs bought the three-bedroom home in Swanbourne, an affluent suburb near Cottesloe Beach in Perth, in 2014 because their daughter Breanna Lane and her family were struggling to secure a rental property.

The Briggses borrowed $1.2million to buy the home with the understanding their daughter and her husband, Benjamin Lane, would pay $4,300 a month to live there with their two children.

But while the Lanes thought they were paying off the mortgage for the next 11 years, the Briggses were under the impression their daughter and son-in-law were rent-paying tenants and tried to sell the property for a profit earlier this year.

Ms Lane launched civil action against her parents in the Supreme Court of Western Australia in July to stop the sale, claiming they had reached an informal agreement that the home would become hers if she made monthly repayments.

Her parents told the court there was no written or verbal agreement to suggest the Lanes were anything other than tenants, and that the property had to be sold because the 12-year interest-only loan period was coming to an end.

The court ordered the property be sold because neither family could afford the repayments, which were set to jump from $5,500 to $10,500 per month in December, but the judge said Ms Lane could still make a claim for the $800,000 sale profit.

In a stunning twist, the Daily Mail can now reveal the Briggses have instead launched a civil claim against the Lanes, issuing ‘urgent orders’ to terminate the existing lease agreement, recoup lost rent, and force the young family to vacate before the new owners move in.

According to court documents obtained by the Mail, the Briggses lodged the claim against the Lanes in the Perth Magistrate’s Court on August 20, the day of the Supreme Court judgement, to recoup four months’ worth of unpaid rent.

The elderly couple claimed they would suffer ‘undue hardship’ if settlement does not go through, likely due to the increased mortgage repayments and costs associated with finding new buyers.

They told the Supreme Court earlier this year that they would be penniless by 2032 if they were forced to cover the remainder of the $1.2million loan.

Settlement on the property was set for August 31. The matter was set to return to court on Wednesday, but was adjourned until September 16.

According to the Supreme Court judgement on August 20, Ms Lane claimed she had visited her parents at their former five-bedroom estate in Yallingup, in the Margaret River region south of Perth, in October 2014 and told them her family was at risk of losing their Claremont rental.

Ms Lane claimed her father would not help her buy a property in her own name by acting as a guarantor, but instead agreed to buy a home in his name and allow her to cover the mortgage so that she would eventually own it herself.

According to Ms Lane, her father said that was the only way the Lanes could stop renting, provide stability for their children and get back on the property ladder.

Mr and Mrs Briggs told the court that while their daughter had agreed to pay $4,300 a month to live at the property, she would periodically pay irregular amounts of rent.

Sometimes she didn’t pay anything at all, other times she paid as little as $334 per month, and she ultimately fell $5,300 into arrears.

The Briggses also said Ms Lane had financial issues in mid-2024 and that they gave her more than $10,000 per month for the next year to cover her expenses, including rent, which equated to about $122,000.

The dispute began in 2024 when Mr Briggs told his daughter the property belonged to him, that she was a tenant, and that a lease should be put in place. The following year, he told her he wanted to sell the home.

The Briggses accepted an offer on the house in April 2026. The amount was not specified in the judgement, but property databases indicate the property may have almost doubled in value and is now worth about $2million.

Ms Lane stopped making payments on July 9, according to the judgement, but her parents are now claiming she stopped paying rent in April.

The Briggses told the Supreme Court there was a fundamental misunderstanding concerning ownership of the property. 

They claimed they never said their daughter would eventually own it.

Ms Lane calculated that she made 69 monthly repayments between December 2014 and August 2020, totalling $296,700. 

She then withdrew $10,000 from her superannuation through the government’s COVID-19 program to keep up with repayments.

Between September 2020 and April 2026, Ms Lane said she continued to make monthly repayments, which were identified in bank statements with the description ‘mortgage’.

She acknowledged missing three payments but claimed she paid a total of $253,462 during that period, along with an additional $19,080 between 2015 and 2022 for the installation of a fireplace, electrical work, security measures and other items.

In her judgement, Justice Strk found Ms Lane had raised a serious question to be tried, but that her claim was ‘not a strong one’ and that the dispute would ultimately need to be resolved in separate proceedings. 

The judge said Ms Lane may have a claim over the sale proceeds and ordered her to launch formal proceedings against her parents within 21 days.

The judge ordered that the profits be paid into a court fund until any additional claim was determined.

Ms Lane has not yet launched civil proceedings against her parents.