A Perth woman who says she paid her parents more than $550,000 over 11 years believing she was buying the family home she lived in has failed to stop them selling the property — but the extraordinary family dispute is far from over.

Breanna Lane has taken civil action against her parents, Alan and Wendy Briggs, over a valuable Swanbourne property near Perth’s Cottesloe Beach, arguing there was an informal family agreement under which she would eventually become its owner.

Her parents tell a dramatically different story.

They say the house was always their investment property, their daughter was effectively a tenant and no agreement — written or verbal — ever existed promising her ownership.

After more than a decade of payments, improvements to the home and increasingly bitter disagreement within the family, the dispute has now reached the Supreme Court of Western Australia.

Justice Larissa Strk has allowed the parents’ proposed sale of the property to proceed and ordered Lane’s caveat over the title removed.

But that does not mean the court has ruled that Lane was simply a tenant or that her parents have conclusively won the underlying dispute.

The judge found Lane had raised a serious question to be tried over her claimed interest in the property, although she described the case as “not a strong one”.

And in a significant protection for Lane, the court ordered the net proceeds from the sale to be preserved while the competing claims are resolved.

It started with a family financial crisis

The dispute traces back to 2014, when Lane and her husband, Ben, were experiencing financial difficulties.

According to Lane’s account to the court, her young family was renting in Claremont and was at risk of losing its home.

She says she approached her parents for help.

Lane claimed she visited them at their then-home in Yallingup, south of Perth, in October 2014 and discussed finding a way for her family to regain a foothold in the property market.

Her father allegedly declined to act as guarantor for a property purchased in Lane’s own name.

Instead, according to Lane, another arrangement was reached: her parents would purchase a property in their names, she would make the mortgage payments and eventually the house would become hers.

It was, on her account, a family solution to a financial problem rather than an ordinary landlord-and-tenant relationship.

The Briggses reject that characterisation.

They say their daughter was permitted to live in a property they owned in return for rent, and there was never any promise that paying them would eventually transfer the house to her.

Parents borrowed $1.2 million

The couple purchased the three-bedroom Swanbourne property in November 2014.

The home was in one of Perth’s most desirable coastal areas, only minutes from Cottesloe Beach.

The Briggses borrowed about $1.2 million to fund the acquisition.

Lane and her family moved in and began making payments the following month.

The amount initially expected from the Lanes was about $4,300 a month.

That is where the two interpretations of the arrangement diverge.

Lane says those payments represented her contribution towards the mortgage under the understanding that the property would ultimately belong to her.

Her parents say they were rent.

More than $550,000 changed hands

The sums involved are substantial.

Lane told the court she made 69 monthly payments between December 2014 and August 2020, totalling $296,700.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she said she withdrew $10,000 from her superannuation under the government’s early-release program to help continue making payments.

From September 2020 until April 2026, Lane says she paid another $253,462.

Bank transfers during parts of that period were labelled “mortgage”, according to material described in the proceedings.

She acknowledged missing three payments.

Lane also claimed to have spent another $19,080 between 2015 and 2022 on improvements and works at the property, including electrical work, security measures and installation of a fireplace.

Combined, her claimed payments associated with living in and improving the property exceeded $550,000.

But paying hundreds of thousands of dollars towards a house does not, by itself, answer the central legal question: what did both sides agree those payments actually represented?

Parents say the payments were rent

Alan and Wendy Briggs do not dispute that their daughter made substantial payments.

They dispute what those payments meant.

The parents told the court there had never been an agreement for Lane to acquire ownership of the Swanbourne property.

According to their evidence, the payments were rent and were not always consistent.

They alleged there were periods when Lane paid nothing and others when the monthly amount fell as low as $334.

They say she ultimately fell about $5,300 behind.

Mr Briggs also pointed to descriptions on some bank transfers that he said identified payments as “rent”, with descriptions later alternating between “rent” and “mortgage”.

Those details are potentially important because the arrangement was not documented through the sort of conventional written purchase contract that would ordinarily establish who was acquiring a property and on what terms.

Instead, Lane’s case relies heavily on what she says was understood and promised within the family.

The mortgage itself adds another twist

There is another complication.

The parents say the $1.2 million loan used to purchase the property was structured as an interest-only mortgage for 12 years.

That distinction matters.

If payments were primarily servicing interest rather than paying down principal, Lane’s assertion that she was effectively “paying off” the house is economically more complicated than it might first appear.

The Briggses said the interest-only structure kept their repayments at approximately $5,500 a month.

They told the court that once the interest-only period expired, their costs would increase dramatically because repayment of the underlying debt would begin.

By December 2026, the court was told, monthly repayments could reach $13,513.

The parents argued that continuing to hold the property therefore exposed them to serious financial consequences.

Parents say they later gave their daughter $122,100

The flow of money was also not entirely one-way.

The Briggses told the court Lane again encountered financial problems in 2024.

Mr Briggs said he offered to provide his daughter with $10,000 a month while she continued making rent payments.

The parents say they ultimately transferred $122,100 to her for income and living expenses.

According to Mr Briggs’ evidence, part of the purpose was to help Lane demonstrate a continuing payment history that might assist her in obtaining another rental property.

That evidence forms part of the parents’ argument that everybody understood the Swanbourne arrangement to be a tenancy rather than an instalment purchase.

Lane’s interpretation of the family’s financial dealings is fundamentally different.

Relationship deteriorated in 2024

The long-running arrangement began to unravel dramatically in 2024.

Lane said her father told her the property belonged to him, that she was a tenant and that a formal lease should be put in place.

The following year, he indicated he wanted the property sold.

For Lane, that position was irreconcilable with what she says she had understood for approximately a decade.

The disagreement eventually escalated when a real estate agent became involved.

Lane contacted the agent and said she did not consent to prospective buyers viewing the home.

The agent complied.

The conflict had moved beyond a family disagreement about an old conversation. A valuable property was now heading towards sale, and both sides believed they had significant financial interests at stake.

Messages from dad become part of the case

Lane relied on a series of communications from her father that she says support her understanding that she would receive money connected with the property.

In October 2024, Mr Briggs sent a message referring to Lane having cash to invest after the sale.

Another message discussed giving her money once the house was sold.

In January 2026, he sent her a proposal dealing with the sale and the use of the proceeds.

A later message referred to coordinating the sale of the Swanbourne property with finding another house for Lane.

Those messages do not necessarily establish that Lane owned the property.

But they form part of the broader evidentiary picture she relies upon in arguing that her financial interest was more substantial than that of an ordinary tenant.

Parents point to diaries and a different family history

The Briggses have their own evidence challenging Lane’s version of events.

They told the court they kept diaries recording conversations with their daughter concerning the property.

They said those records contained no account of the crucial 2014 Yallingup meeting Lane says established the arrangement under which she would eventually own the home.

The parents also said financial matters were rarely discussed during family gatherings, apart from an understanding that the property would eventually be sold.

The result is an unusually stark factual contest.

Both sides agree that the parents bought the house.

Both agree Lane and her family lived there for years.

Both agree she paid substantial sums.

What they profoundly disagree about is why.

House could now be worth about $2 million

The financial stakes have grown enormously since the arrangement began.

The property was acquired for around $1.1 million in 2014, according to reports of the case.

Property estimates cited in reporting on the proceedings suggest it could now be worth approximately $2 million.

That capital growth transforms the significance of the dispute.

If Lane was simply renting, the increase in the property’s value principally belongs to its registered owners.

If she can establish an equitable interest arising from the alleged family arrangement and her contributions, however, she could potentially have a claim against some of the proceeds.

That is a matter still to be determined.

Daughter tried to stop the sale

By April 2026, the Briggses had accepted an offer for the property.

The precise sale price was not disclosed in the reported judgment.

Lane subsequently stopped making payments in July and launched Supreme Court proceedings against her parents.

She had lodged what was described as an absolute caveat over the property’s title.

A caveat can prevent dealings with land from being registered while a person claiming an interest in that property seeks to protect that interest.

For the proposed sale to proceed, the dispute over Lane’s caveat had to be resolved.

Judge says daughter has an arguable case — but ‘not a strong one’

Justice Strk’s decision is more nuanced than simply declaring that Lane lost.

The court was not conducting the final trial of whether the alleged 2014 agreement actually existed.

Instead, it was deciding what should happen to the property while the underlying dispute remained unresolved.

The judge found Lane had demonstrated a serious question to be tried.

That meant her claim was not dismissed as incapable of succeeding.

But Justice Strk also characterised it as “not a strong one”.

The sharply conflicting accounts of the family arrangement will require further proceedings if the parties cannot resolve their differences.

Why the parents were allowed to sell

Despite finding an arguable case, Justice Strk concluded the balance of convenience favoured allowing the sale to proceed.

The parents faced rapidly increasing mortgage obligations if the property remained unsold.

Lane, meanwhile, had not offered to discharge or take over the approximately $1.2 million mortgage debt.

Keeping the house frozen while the parties fought a potentially lengthy civil case could therefore create substantial additional financial damage.

The judge ordered Lane’s caveat removed, clearing the way for the transaction.

That resolved the immediate fight over whether the house itself could be sold.

It did not resolve who may ultimately be entitled to the money.

About $800,000 could remain after the sale

The court heard that after the outstanding mortgage, settlement expenses and capital gains tax were dealt with, approximately $800,000 might remain from the transaction.

Rather than simply allowing that money to pass to the parents while Lane’s claim remained unresolved, Justice Strk ordered the net proceeds to be paid into court.

Lane was ordered to commence formal proceedings against her parents within 21 days if she wanted to pursue her claimed interest.

The money can therefore be preserved while the court considers the underlying dispute.

That is a critical distinction.

Lane has lost her attempt to stop the property itself being sold.

She has not yet received a final ruling that she has no financial interest arising from the alleged arrangement.

A warning about informal family property deals

The extraordinary dispute highlights the risks created when enormous financial arrangements between relatives are based on conversations and family understandings rather than carefully drafted documents.

Had the parties signed an agreement in 2014 clearly stating whether the monthly payments were rent, mortgage contributions or instalments towards an eventual transfer, much of the present uncertainty might have been avoided.

So too could documentation have established who was responsible for maintenance and improvements, what happened if payments were missed, whether Lane accumulated an interest in the property and how any eventual sale proceeds would be divided.

Instead, more than a decade later, a judge is being asked to determine the consequences of two fundamentally incompatible recollections of what parents and their daughter agreed.

The difference is potentially worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What happens now?

The immediate answer is that the Swanbourne property can be sold.

The more important question — whether Lane is ultimately entitled to any of its value — remains unresolved.

Her parents maintain they are the owners and she was their tenant.

Lane maintains that she spent more than a decade making payments because she believed she was acquiring the home.

The court has deliberately avoided deciding which version is correct at this preliminary stage.

Instead, it has converted the dispute from a fight over whether the bricks and mortar can be sold into a fight over the money left behind after the sale.

For the family, what began as parents helping a daughter through financial hardship has ended in one of the most painful kinds of litigation imaginable: parents and child in the Supreme Court, arguing over what was promised around the family table more than a decade ago — with hundreds of thousands of dollars now hanging on the answer.