Feuding Dragon's Den family can keep chapel, judge rules
Reality show star and investor Michael Wekerle and his three sisters have been embroiled in a dispute over the stalled sale of a chapel belonging to his mother

NationalPost.com
July 25, 2017
Joseph Brean

A “marathon” family feud involving hotshot investor and Dragon’s Den star Michael Wekerle, his three sisters and their 87-year-old mother, Hermine, has come to an uneasy resolution after a judge refused to force Hermine to sell a small chapel to an architect who wants it for an office.

The main cause of the conflict is concern from some of the siblings that Hermine is not competent to make legal decisions for herself as a result of dementia or some other chronic cognitive impairment. That concern sparked legal action last summer when Hermine’s daughter Caron agreed to sell the chapel on Yonge Street in Thornhill, Ont., north of Toronto, on Hermine’s behalf for $1.5 million. She was able to do so on the authority of a 2009 document giving her power of attorney, making her her mother’s substitute decision-maker.

Hermine was upset to learn of the sale, claiming she thought that power only came into force were she hospitalized, and so she tried to undo the deal, drafting a new document which gave all four Wekerle children power of attorney. That decision — likely too complicated to be legally effective — led to the involvement of provincially funded independent counsel to protect Hermine’s interests as the would-be buyer of the chapel, architect Ali Malek-Zadeh, principal of Urbanscape Group, brought his own lawsuit seeking to close the sale.

The feud was prolonged by the siblings’ fighting, which included allegations that Michael has borrowed a large sum of money from his mother without repaying her and that he is “taking advantage of Hermine’s vulnerability.” Carolyn, likewise, is accused by her sisters Caron and Christine of manipulating their mother to Carolyn’s own advantage, and seeking to prevent the chapel from being sold so she can keep using it as a yoga studio.

These unproven claims have not yet been tested in court.

Now, in a new decision, Judge Herman Wilton-Siegel refused to force the sale, citing case law that says such an order requires evidence the property is “unique to the extent that its substitute would not be readily available.”

“In this case, the applicants have done no more than establish that, in the opinion of (Malek-Zadeh), the Property is unique based on his assertion that it is a heritage property,” the judge wrote.

Built in 1846 in Greek Revival style by British Methodists, the chapel in question is now a designated heritage building known as the “Old Presbyterian Church.”

Hermine’s late husband and the children’s father, Anthony Wekerle, bought it in 1994 for $380,000, fixed it up, and renamed it St. Michael’s Chapel. It is dedicated to the memory of their fellow Danube Swabians, ethnic Germans who were driven from Eastern Europe in the Second World War.

If the decision withstands a possible appeal, Malek-Zadeh will be unable to close the deal he signed last summer to buy the chapel for $1.5 million. He can still seek monetary damages for breach of contract.