A millionaire Lotto winner who gave his old home as a wedding present to a brother who was ill has failed in a legal attempt to renege on his promise.
Judge Elizabeth Dunne ruled in the Circuit Civil Court that the €205,000 house, the former home of Lotto winner Mr Patrick Fallon, was legally the property of Mr Seán Fallon.
After ruling in Mr Seán Fallon's favour, Judge Dunne was then told that he [Seán Fallon] had agreed to accept a settlement cheque for €80,000 from his estranged brother and give this money to a hospital to aid the fight against cancer.
Following a daylong hearing in which she heard of a serious family rift because of the Lotto win, Judge Dunne said that money had reared its ugly head within a family and had plundered that family from top to bottom.
Judge Dunne heard that, in 1994, Patrick and Patricia Fallon, of Millbrook Lawns, Tallaght, Dublin, had won €1,075,690 on the National Lottery. They had then bought a new home in Limekiln Park, Walkinstown, Dublin. In August of that year, both had promised Seán Fallon, who had cancer, that since he had been unable to afford to get married, they would give him their old home as a wedding present.
Mr and Mrs Fallon had previously bought out the house through a mortgage they were still paying off at the time to South Dublin County Council. Negotiations on the mortgage and on gift tax had been drawn out and the house had never been legally conveyed to Seán Fallon, despite him having moved in after his marriage in 1995.
The Fallons told the court that their promise and intention had always been to give Seán Fallon a life residency in the property and afterwards the house would revert back to their children. Several brothers and their father gave evidence of Patrick Fallon having given the house to Seán Fallon as an outright wedding gift.
The judge told Mr Micheál O'Connell, for Patrick and Patricia Fallon, that she preferred the evidence called by Ms Maria Colbert for Seán and Aisling Fallon and felt they were entitled to legal title to the house.
After adjourning the proceedings to allow for talks, Judge Dunne was told that the parties had reached a settlement.
Seán Fallon was accepting a payment of €80,000 which, because of his cancer, he intended donating to a Dublin hospital to help fight cancer.
Judge Dunne said she felt this was a very honourable way of dealing with the matter and she made orders to facilitate a written agreement between the parties allowing the house to remain in the ownership of Patrick and Patricia Fallon on the payment of €80,000 before January 31st next.