FORTUNE FOR AUCKLANDER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 16 July 1929, Page 4

FORTUNE FOR AUCKLANDER

ESTIMATED AT OVER £IO,OOO WILL UNSUCCESSFULLY CONTESTED My Teleg-apb—Bi>6otal to "The Mail") AUCKLAND, This Day. A bitter conflict raged in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, in June, before Judge Thomas F. Graham, when, after eight months of preliminaries, theie was opened a contest to the will of Gearhart H. Engels, _ a wellnnown New Zealand sheep raiser who cut off his relatives, and left his entire estate to Andrew Grey, a New Zealand friend a;«d business associate who hails from Auckland. A petition to revoke probate of the will was filed in San Francisco last 22nd October on behalf of 16 persons claiming to be heirs at law. At that time the fortune bequeathed to Andrew Grey was placed at 1,000,000 dollars, and the will was admitted to probate with Grey appointed administrator. When the contest was commenced in Judge Graham's Court, it was estimated to be 200,000 dollars, a large, portion of it being in securities held by San Francisco banks. The contest was waged by 16 cousins, led by Lambert Ter Brake.' of Holland, >ind Anton. Braverman, of Los Angeles. The contestants asserted that Gearhart 11. Engels made a trip to Holland in IC2I for ihe special purpose of rounding up all his relations, and making a will providing for them. They declared he (lid make such a will, which document they sought to have admitted to probate. They contested the last will of Engels executed .just before his death on 28th April, 1928, in San Francisco, on the ground that he was of unsound mind nt that time.. Andrew Grev was a witness before the jury, and testified to his friendship with Engels. He said the last time he saw Engels was in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1927, and that the following April he leceived a cablegram from Enqels to hurry to San Francisco, but by the time he arrived Engels was dead. He admitted making a statement that he knew of no reason vhy Engels should have cut oli his relatives. Andrev Grey, of Auckland, was pronounced the sole beneficiary under the. Will, and becomes possessed of an estate calculated to be worth at least £40.000 Mr Grey was warmly congratulated on the outcome of the bitterlv contested suit-