Cancer Council, Victoria, is preparing to file a lawsuit in court after a donation from a deceased elderly man was cancelled, alleging he had amnesia at the time of changing his will and was unable to take effect, the Australian Times reported.
The old man`s name is Elizabeth Bell Thomson, who died last year at the age of 94. In 2004, the old man wrote a will stating that if her husband had died before he died, she would have donated her $12 million worth of assets to Cancer Council (, which was then called Anti-Cancer Council).
Seven years later, however, the old man changed his will and changed the estate to his nephew Peter Gordon Jeffs and niece Victoria Anne Wilshire, with the exception of $500 each donated to animal protection associations and hospitals.
The second will was signed on July 1, 2011. Four months later, the old man was diagnosed with dementia and vision impairment and was admitted to a nursing home.
According to Cancer Council`s donation manager, Andrew Buchanan, the old man`s nephew and niece contacted him at the time, but vaguely said "you`ll get a big donation, but it`s not that simple."
One of the elderly`s nephews, William Jeffs, and his family doctor, Dr Geoffrey Hanson, have made it clear that when they signed the second will, they began to suffer from amnesia and dementia.
The two beneficiaries of the will are currently in contact, but Peter`s wife says they`re just looking at his ailing aunt`s visit to Melbourne, and there`s no other attempt.
, Cancer Council is still collecting evidence of the condition of the elderly and, if true, will formally challenge and file a complaint against the legality of the will.
