BANGOR – A Hancock County couple’s oral agreement to purchase a Bar Harbor farm was affirmed on Tuesday by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

In a unanimous ruling, the justices agreed with a lower court’s decision that Merval and Susan Porter of Swans Island had entered into a contract in 2000 with Joan Sullivan and her partner, David Andrews, to sell Lakewood Farms to them for $350,000.

With few exceptions, real estate sales are required to be in writing, according to Sullivan and Andrews’ Bangor attorney, Bernard J. Kubetz. He said Wednesday the court didn’t set a precedent in its ruling, but affirmed the few instances in which the courts recognize the validity of an agreement to sell real estate when there is no written agreement.

“The decision, from my perspective and my clients, represents a victory for fairness because Ms. Sullivan and Mr. Andrews were relying upon a verbal commitment from the Porters,” he said. “They put a heck of a lot of money, time and sweat into substantially renovating the property and did those things because they trusted the word of Merval Porter that he would sell them the property.”

Last year, a Superior Court judge ordered the Porters to sell their 37-acre property to Sullivan and Andrews for $350,000.

Justice Jeffrey Hjelm made that decision in October 2003, a week after a Hancock County jury decided Porters had broken an oral promise to sell the property to the couple for that price and finance the mortgage.

The Porters appealed the decision and the Law Court justices heard arguments in May when the court convened at the Penobscot County Courthouse.

“A review of the record supports the jury’s finding that there was a meeting of the minds between the Porters and Sullivan and Andrews,” Chief Justice Leigh Saufley wrote for the court. “The parties’ agreement in August 2000 embodied the essential material terms for a contract to sell the farm, including the identification of the property, the parties to the sale, the purchase price, the amount of the down payment, and the type of financing.”

Kubetz said Wednesday that Sullivan and Andrews still reside on the property and the transaction can now go forward.

Efforts to reach the Porters’ attorney were unsuccessful Wednesday.

In an unrelated case, the justices unanimously affirmed a decision of the Washington County Superior Court that although two neighbors claimed titled to a disputed piece of land in Trescott Township, neither held title to it.

Since the case was argued before the state’s high court in February, both sides have filed new title claims to the property.

The confusion over who owns the property traces back to the transfer of a portion of a lot in 1948, according to court documents.