TO BE CONTESTED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20620, 22 November 1941, Page 7

TO BE CONTESTED

OLD RECLUSE’S WILL ESTATE OF £IOO,OOO SOLICITOR’S STATEMENT (Per Press Associaticm.) AUCKLAND, this day. An exhaustive search of the late Mr. Joseph Partington’s house and the old windmill has failed to reveal any trace of a will. In a statement issued to the press to-day, Mr. C. H. M. Wills, Mr. Partington’s solicitor, explained that under the terms of a will prepared in 193 G the mill and all Mr. Partington’s property was bequeathed to the Auckland City Council, the will providing for the old mill to be kept in good working order and never to be destroyed or used for other purposes. The other buildings were to be kept in repair until they were past repair and then demolished and the area laid out in lawns, trees, and shrubs. In the meantime the house rents would be used to maintain the property, the whole area to be known as Partington Park. Early Auckland photographs, prints and paintings were bequeathed to the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Another Will

“It now appears,” states the solicitor’s statement, “that during a period of ill-health in the latter part of 1940 a certain firm of land agents whom Mr. Partington employed temporarily to collect the rents took the old gentleman to their solicitors, where he signed another will, which was word for word the same as that prepared in 1936 with two exceptions (1) these two land agents wertappointed sole executors and trustees, and (2) they were appointee sole agents for their respective livet for letting and collecting rents from all the properties devised to the Auckland City Council. “The existence of this will was unknown to Mr. Wills until after Mr. Partington’s death. “It cannot be denied,” continues the statement, “that Mr. Partington’s powers were declining during the last two years or so, but his fixed determination to preserve the mill and surrounding land for all time is so well known to Mr. Wills, who has acted for him continuously for 10 years and saw him frequently on business, and even a day or so before his death, that Mr. Wills is taking immediate steps to uphold Mr. Partington’s intentions and wishes as expressed in 1936.” Application is being made forthwith to the Supreme Court for probate in the solemn form of the 1936 will, but the matter cannot be decided until the next session, commencing on February, 1942. In the meantime Mr. Wills is asking the Supreme Court to appoint an interim administrator to guard the estate. The value of the property in 1936 was £IOO,OOO.