An Ohio woman who agreed to sell her 62-acre farm to a land conservancy for $350,000 died just one day after the sale agreement took effect, leaving a legal dispute over who should receive the money. In a ruling issued on 5 October 2026, Ohio’s Eleventh District Court of Appeals held that the proceeds belong to the heirs named in Eleanor M. Hovanick’s will, rather than the beneficiaries listed on her transfer-on-death deed, according to the court’s opinion.The decision resolves a question of first impression in Ohio appellate courts: Whether a valid transfer-on-death designation survives when the property owner signs a binding sale contract before dying. The court concluded that it does not, because the sale agreement converted Hovanick’s interest in the land into a right to receive money, which then passed through her estate. Read more details about this case, as per the court report, here:
The farm and the deed
Hovanick owned nearly 62 acres of real estate in Orwell, Ohio. In November 2010, she recorded a transfer-on-death designation affidavit naming Ann M. Zimmer, Carol Mohr, Michael Hovanick and Peggy Rodriguez as beneficiaries who would receive the land when she died.A transfer-on-death deed allows an owner to name people who will receive real estate after death without going through probate. Under Ohio law, the designation does not affect the owner’s present ownership, and the named beneficiaries acquire no interest in the property until the owner dies.Hovanick never recorded a new affidavit revoking the 2010 designation. That fact became central to the dispute, because the beneficiaries argued that the deed should still control who received the value of the farm.
The sale agreement
On 18 July 2021, Hovanick signed a will leaving all of her property in equal shares to Michael Hovanick and Lucinda Hovanick. The will specifically left nothing to Carol Mohr, while Zimmer and Rodriguez had already died before Hovanick.Months later, on 19 December 2021, Hovanick signed a purchase and sale agreement to sell the Orwell farm to the Western Reserve Land Conservancy for $350,000. She also signed a charitable pledge agreement to donate $50,000 of the gross sale proceeds to the conservancy to help offset its acquisition costs.The conservancy signed the agreement on 27 December 2021, making it effective that day. Hovanick died the following day, 28 December 2021, while still listed as the owner of record of the property.
What the heirs argued
Lucinda Hovanick, who served as executor of the estate, argued that the sale proceeds should be distributed under Eleanor’s will. Her position was that the binding sale agreement had changed the nature of Eleanor’s interest from real estate into a right to receive payment.Carol Mohr and Michele Boiarski, the granddaughter of the deceased, disagreed. They argued that the 2010 transfer-on-death affidavit remained valid because Eleanor had never formally revoked it, meaning the land and its sale proceeds should pass to the named beneficiaries rather than through the will.The dispute did not concern whether the conservancy could buy the farm. Both sides accepted that the sale could proceed; the question was whether the $350,000 belonged to the estate or to the people named on the transfer-on-death deed.
The court’s reasoning
The appeals court affirmed the probate court’s decision and held that the doctrine of equitable conversion applied. In simple terms, once a binding contract to sell land exists, equity treats the seller’s interest as a right to the purchase money rather than ownership of the land itself.Because Hovanick and the conservancy had entered into a written, unconditional and enforceable sale agreement before her death, the court found that her interest in the farm had been converted into personal property. That right to payment became part of her estate and was therefore governed by her will.The court stressed that a transfer-on-death affidavit concerns only real property. Once the land was validly sold under a pre-death contract, the remaining interest was money, and the statute does not provide for a transfer-on-death beneficiary to receive money.
Why the will controlled
The court also looked closely at Hovanick’s actions in the months before her death. Five months before signing the sale agreement, she had made a will that divided her property between Michael and Lucinda Hovanick and explicitly excluded Carol Mohr.The court said those actions showed a clear intention for the value of the farm to pass through her estate under the will. It concluded that treating her failure to record a revocation as more important than her deliberate decision to sell the property would elevate inaction over her expressed wishes.The ruling does not say that Hovanick’s contract revoked the transfer-on-death affidavit. Instead, the affidavit remained technically valid but had no real property left to transfer, because the sale agreement had already converted the owner’s interest into a claim for sale proceeds.
What it means for Ohio
The decision is significant because it is the first Ohio appellate ruling to address this exact interaction between a transfer-on-death deed and a pre-death sale contract. It confirms that an owner can still sell property after recording such a deed, and that the buyer’s right to purchase the land is protected.For families, the case highlights the importance of keeping estate-planning documents aligned with real-life decisions. A transfer-on-death deed may name one set of beneficiaries, but a later will and a signed sale agreement can determine what happens to the value of the property.The court’s ruling means the $350,000 from the conservancy will be treated as an asset of Hovanick’s estate. Subject to the agreed $50,000 charitable pledge, the remaining proceeds are to be distributed under her will, to Michael and Lucinda Hovanick rather than to the beneficiaries named on the 2010 deed.
