Unjust Enrichment Denied Absent Fraud or Wrongdoing | Soma v. Winborne (2025)

Soma v. Winborne, 12-25-00307-CV, July 31, 2026.

On appeal from 349th Judicial District Court, Houston County, Texas

Synopsis

A plaintiff cannot recover on an unjust-enrichment theory in Texas merely because he spent substantial funds improving another person’s land. Absent proof that the landowner obtained the benefit through fraud, duress, or undue advantage—and especially where the factfinder rejects any alleged promise to convey the land—voluntary improvements do not support restitution.

Relevance to Family Law

This opinion matters in divorce-related property litigation because family cases routinely involve informal improvement arrangements with parents, in-laws, separate-property owners, and family land entities. Soma underscores that a spouse cannot convert disappointed expectations about future title into an equitable reimbursement or unjust-enrichment recovery without proof of actual wrongful conduct by the titleholder. For Texas family-law litigators, that has direct consequences when pleading reimbursement, economic contribution-style theories, constructive trust claims, and third-party claims involving residences built during marriage on land owned by relatives.

Case Summary

Fact Summary

Chad Soma and Valerie Soma married in 2007, later moved from Washington to Texas, and eventually placed their RV on a 202-acre tract in Houston County owned by Valerie’s parents, Bert and Janel Winborne. With the Winbornes’ knowledge, Chad and Valerie then constructed a house on the tract, spending more than $200,000 in cash, credit, and borrowed funds. They lived in the house for several years.

The dispute turned on why the house was built there and whether the Winbornes had promised to convey a parcel of land. Chad testified that Valerie’s parents induced the move to Texas by saying Chad and Valerie could build on the property and would receive five to ten acres. He described selecting the homesite with the Winbornes present and proceeding with construction in reliance on that understanding. Valerie, however, denied any expectation that her parents would deed land to the couple or compensate them for the improvements. Janel likewise denied ever promising a conveyance and maintained that Chad and Valerie knowingly built a permanent improvement on land owned by the Winbornes.

Other facts complicated Chad’s equity narrative. Chad admitted he knew the Winbornes owned the land, and the record showed he never requested a deed. The Winbornes later refinanced the tract and treated the house as part of the collateral. After the marriage deteriorated, Chad sued for fraud and later added equitable partition and unjust enrichment. Following a bench trial, the trial court entered a take-nothing judgment on all claims not expressly granted and made findings that there was no contract, no oral promise of a gift of land, and no agreement to convey land. The court also found Chad and Valerie had no ownership interest in the acreage.

Issues Decided

• Whether Texas law permits recovery for unjust enrichment when a plaintiff voluntarily pays to construct improvements on land owned by another.
• Whether unjust enrichment can be established absent proof that the landowner obtained the benefit by fraud, duress, or undue advantage.
• Whether an alleged oral promise to convey land can support restitution when the trial court, as factfinder, rejects the existence of that promise.
• Whether a take-nothing judgment was proper where the evidence showed voluntary expenditures but no actionable wrongdoing by the title owner.

Rules Applied

Texas unjust-enrichment doctrine is narrow. The court relied on the familiar principle from Truly v. Austin, 744 S.W.2d 934 (Tex. 1988), that unjust enrichment is not an independent catchall remedy for every failed transaction or disappointed expectation. Rather, it applies when one person has obtained a benefit from another by fraud, duress, or the taking of an undue advantage.

The court also invoked Heldenfels Bros., Inc. v. City of Corpus Christi, 832 S.W.2d 39 (Tex. 1992), which reiterates that restitution is unavailable merely because one party benefits from another’s efforts. A person who confers a benefit officiously, mistakenly without a qualifying equitable basis, or through a voluntary arrangement that later proves unfavorable does not automatically obtain restitution.

Equally important procedurally, the trial court’s findings after a bench trial carried the same force and dignity as a jury verdict if supported by legally and factually sufficient evidence. Because the trial court expressly found there was no oral promise of a gift of land and no agreement to convey land, those findings sharply limited the legal theories available on appeal.

Application

The court’s analysis was straightforward and disciplined. Chad’s theory depended on recasting a failed informal family arrangement into a restitution claim. But the doctrine did not fit the facts as found by the trial court. The key problem was not simply that Chad lacked a deed; it was that the factfinder rejected the factual premise that would make the enrichment “unjust.” The trial court found no oral promise, no agreement to convey, and no contractual relationship with the landowners. Those findings eliminated the alleged inducement that Chad claimed justified reimbursement.

Once those findings stood, what remained was a voluntary decision by Chad and Valerie to spend community funds improving land they knew belonged to someone else. Texas law does not treat that circumstance alone as unjust enrichment. The Winbornes undeniably received a benefit because the land was improved, appraised value increased, and the house later supported refinancing. But under Truly and Heldenfels, benefit alone is not enough. The decisive missing element was wrongful procurement of the benefit—fraud, duress, or undue advantage.

The trial court was entitled to believe Janel and Valerie rather than Chad on whether any promise of title had been made. It was also significant that Chad never obtained a deed, never secured a writing, and never had evidence locating any promised parcel by survey or legal description. In that evidentiary posture, the appellate court had little difficulty affirming the take-nothing judgment. Equity would not be used to reverse the consequences of an informal, undocumented improvement arrangement when the trial court found no wrongdoing by the record owner.

Holding

The court held that unjust enrichment was unavailable because Chad failed to prove that Janel or Bert obtained the benefit of the house by fraud, duress, or the taking of undue advantage. Expenditures made to improve property owned by another, without more, do not support restitution under Texas law.

The court further held that alleged promises to convey land could not sustain an unjust-enrichment recovery where the factfinder expressly found there was no oral promise of a gift and no agreement to convey land. Once those findings were made, Chad’s theory collapsed into a complaint about voluntary improvements to another’s real property, which Texas law does not remedy through unjust enrichment.

The appellate court therefore affirmed the trial court’s take-nothing judgment on Chad’s unjust-enrichment claim.

Practical Application

For family-law practitioners, Soma is a warning against overreliance on generalized equitable pleading when marital funds have been used to improve property titled in a parent, in-law, trust, LLC, or one spouse’s separate estate. If your client’s theory is that improvements were made because of promises about future ownership, exclusive occupancy, estate planning, or eventual reimbursement, those facts must be developed and proven with precision. A court may be sympathetic to the economics but still deny relief if the evidence shows only a voluntary expenditure and a failed family understanding.

This case is especially important in divorce matters involving so-called “barndominiums,” second residences, ranch houses, or shop-houses built on family land without conveyance documents. If the title owner is a third party, counsel should evaluate early whether the real claim sounds in contract, fraud, promissory estoppel, reimbursement between marital estates, resulting trust, constructive trust, or partition of removable improvements. Simply alleging unjust enrichment may not survive a bench trial if the defendant can frame the transaction as a permissive and voluntary improvement to land the claimant knew he did not own.

The decision also has pleading and joinder implications. When the improvement sits on third-party land, family litigators should not assume the divorce court’s just-and-right division can solve the entire problem. The title owner may need to be joined, title records and loan documents obtained, and a separate evidentiary record built regarding inducement, ownership expectations, fixture characterization, and the source of funds. Without that record, the spouse who financed the improvement may leave the marriage with debt but no recoverable property claim.

Practically, Soma should push counsel toward front-end documentation in family transactions. If a couple is going to build on parents’ land, get the conveyance, lease, life estate, easement, reimbursement agreement, or construction agreement signed before the first dollar is spent. Once the relationship deteriorates, courts are unlikely to use unjust enrichment to rescue what should have been papered at the outset.

Checklists

Before Improvements Are Made on Family Land

• Confirm record title to the land through deed records.
• Determine whether the land is owned by a parent, in-law, trust, entity, or one spouse’s separate estate.
• Reduce any promise to convey land to a signed writing.
• Obtain a survey or legal description identifying the homesite parcel.
• Document ingress, egress, utility access, and any easements.
• Decide whether the arrangement is a gift, sale, lease, life estate, license, or reimbursement agreement.
• Address what happens if divorce, death, refinancing, or default occurs.
• Clarify whether the structure will be treated as a fixture or removable improvement.

Pleading the Case in Divorce or Related Property Litigation

• Plead specific causes of action, not just “equity.”
• Evaluate fraud, promissory estoppel, constructive trust, reimbursement, partition, declaratory relief, and contract theories.
• Join third-party title owners when necessary.
• Plead the source of funds with specificity, including community and separate-property components.
• Tie the requested remedy to the actual legal theory and available evidence.
• Anticipate statute-of-frauds problems if the case depends on an oral promise to convey land.

Proving Wrongful Conduct for Unjust Enrichment

• Develop evidence of fraud, duress, or undue advantage—not merely benefit to the defendant.
• Identify who made the promise, when, where, and in whose presence.
• Gather texts, emails, letters, loan applications, and appraisal-district filings reflecting ownership expectations.
• Obtain admissions regarding inducement, representations, or refinancing conduct.
• Show how the defendant procured the benefit wrongfully, rather than merely accepted improvements knowingly.
• Avoid assuming that increased value alone establishes an equitable claim.

Protecting the Record for Appeal

• Request detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law.
• Object to unsupported or incomplete findings.
• Request additional findings on inducement, wrongdoing, ownership expectations, and damages.
• Challenge adverse findings promptly if they omit a theory necessary to appeal.
• Preserve evidentiary complaints tied to excluded documents or testimony.
• Make sure surveys, plats, legal descriptions, and title documents are admitted.

Avoiding Chad Soma’s Outcome

• Do not allow clients to build first and document later.
• Do not rely on informal family assurances about future title.
• Do not assume appraisal-district records establish ownership of an attached residence.
• Do not treat unjust enrichment as a fallback that cures proof defects in fraud or contract claims.
• Do not ignore refinancing documents that may reveal how the title owner treated the improvement.
• Do not go to trial without a coherent theory explaining why the enrichment was legally unjust.

Citation

Soma v. Winborne, No. 12-25-00307-CV (Tex. App.—Tyler July 31, 2026, no pet.) (mem. op.).

Full Opinion

Read the full opinion here

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