A Verbal Contract Is Not Worth The Paper It’s Written On*

Gus Sorkos was born in Greece and immigrated to Canada as a young man. In 1960 when he was 22 years old he was working as a short order cook in a small restaurant in London, Ontario. It was there that he met Victoria who was then a waitress and the mother of a young boy. Victoria and Gus started a common-law relationship which lasted about forty years until Victoria's death in 2001.

Although both Victoria and Gus had little formal education, they achieved financial success and acquired a number of real estate properties including a farm and two cottages. Victoria's son, Brian who died in 2008, had two children, both sons, Paul and Mark, who over the years spent more and more time with Gus, particularly at the farm and cottages.