Bryony House sued by fundraising lottery operator for nearly $375K

Fallout from the controversial Bryony House home lottery continues with accusations of unpaid debt and two lawsuits related to the ill-fated fundraiser landing in court.

Ticket sales for last year's Dare to Dream Home Lottery were far lower than projected — while it raised $2.5 million, Bryony House says it failed to bring in any money for the charity that shelters abused women and said its planned expansion was stalled.

Now, it's facing more problems. The company that operated the lottery is suing the women's shelter, accusing it of failing to pay $374,905.50 in management fees it says is owed under a contract signed with Bryony House.

In a statement of claim filed in Nova Scotia Supreme Court, Maria Sancho — a former Bryony House client and president of ALPC Housing Solutions — said the agreement stipulates she is owed 15 per cent of what was collected.

"Bryony House has paid nothing to ALPC," she writes.

Sancho says she is not worried about the optics of suing a charity.

"I don't think I can say that I care about what the public says about me or if I should go after Bryony House or not," she said.

"Maybe if they were in my shoes, they would be doing the same thing. I'm sure, like I said, if your mother or father or yourself work for a year and you don't get paid, and you have a contract in place, you'll be doing the same thing."

No allegations have been proven in court and no defence has yet been filed.

A lawyer representing Bryony House told CBC News the charity will "aggressively defend this," and plans to file a statement of defence. Dennis James also said there are issues of "performance" related to ALPC Housing Solutions' work on the lottery.

Marketing company suing ALPC

This is not the only legal action related to the home lottery.

A Hammonds Plains marketing company is suing ALPC, saying it is owed $42,090 plus interest for work it did as marketing project manager between Oct. 23, 2013 and March 17, 2014.

Hyphen Marketing Solutions said it had a verbal agreement that was put in writing, and it hasn't been paid for the work.

In a statement of defence, Sancho says ALPC never made any agreement with Hyphen and suggests that at a certain point, Bryony House took over management of the lottery.

The Dare to Dream Home Lottery was plagued by questions and confusion. The hope had been to sell 60,000 tickets, but fewer than 24,000 were sold.

Sancho says it was still a success.

"I think the lottery went fantastic because this is the first time this kind of a project has been put together by two women in the community without any knowledge,of any kind, of an operation like that," she said.

Following its conclusion last fall, the lottery was the subject of an investigation under the Nova Scotia's Gaming Control Act. No violations of regulations were found.

ALPC Housing Solutions was run by Kris Martin and her friend, Sancho, although Martin is no longer listed as a director of the company.

Martin sold her Waverley home to Bryony House for $1,075,000, to be used as the grand prize in the home lottery. She then bought the house back from the winners for $620,000, a difference of $455,000.