Daniel Grollo and his wife caught up in property legal dispute in UK
The man who transformed skylines across Australia, Daniel Grollo, is embroiled in a bitter $1.85 million family property dispute.
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Exclusive: The man who transformed skylines across Australia is embroiled in a bitter $1.85 million family property dispute.
Daniel Grollo’s wife Katerina is being sued by Kathleen O’Toole in the Supreme Court of Victoria over a disputed property sale.
Court documents filed this month (1/11/2019) alleged that Ms O’Toole moved in with the Grollos after she sold her house in Vermont, Melbourne in 2000, which she purchased with her former husband.
She had been living there on her own for four years before she sold up.
Ms O’Toole, who now lives in Birmingham, England, said in court documents that Daniel Grollo, Katerina’s husband, purchased a new property in Highview Drive, Doncaster, with the proceeds of the sale of the Vermont property.
She is now claiming that the Grollos sold that house in 2014 without sharing the profits with her, lodging a demand for $1.85 million, and $20,000 in legal fees.
Court documents listed Ms O’Toole’s address in Birmingham.
A woman at the address denied she was Ms O’Toole but confirmed that the woman making the legal complaint lived there.
When asked if the legal claim related to Daniel Grollo, the well known property developer, she replied: “Yes it is.”
The stoush is the latest legal battle for Mr Grollo, 49, whose company Grocon has built the iconic Eureka Tower in Melbourne, the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games village, and the ANZ Tower at 161 Castlereagh Street in Sydney.
He wound-up two of his companies last month following a $28 million dispute with property developer Dexus over claims of an unpaid lease at 480 Queen Street, Brisbane.
He has also been in legal battles with The GPT Group and APN Property Group.
The court documents in the family dispute, which put the Grollos address as the Eureka Tower in Melbourne, claim Mr Grollo purchased the Doncaster property with Ms O’Toole’s money.
“The plaintiff (Ms O’Toole) advised the defendant (Katerina Grollo) and Daniel Grollo, the defendant’s husband, of her intention to purchase the Doncaster property,” the document claims.
“In or about December 2000, the plaintiff, the defendant and Daniel Grollo agreed that Daniel Grollo would attend the auction for sale of the Doncaster property to purchase the Doncaster property on the plaintiff’s behalf.”
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They bought the property and Mrs Grollo was listed on the documents as the sole owner, even though Ms O’Toole contributed almost $240,000 to its purchase, according to the statement of claim.
Ms O’Toole lived there for 11 years before the Grollos asked her to move to another property in Toorak, one of Melbourne’s most exclusive suburbs, in 2012.
The Toorak property was owned by the company Twenty Twenty2, which the Grollos controlled.
The Doncaster property was sold in 2014, but Ms O’Toole claimed that she was not given a share of the profits.
She was then “evicted” from the Toorak property in 2016.
An Australian Securities and Investments Commission document, lodged on June 14, 2019, for the company Twenty Twenty2 corrected the spelling of Birmingham as Mrs Grollo’s place of birth.
News Corp Australia was unable to contact the New York office of Grocon, Mr Grollo’s company.