Elefterios ‘Lefty’ Piagalis – who caused his father (83) to write a new will on his death bed, thereby disinheriting his two brothers – will now have to share the family wealth as per their father’s original wishes. According to a Saturday Star report, Lefty asked the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) to declare that his father’s ‘last will’ – signed shortly before his death in June 2010 – was legitimate.

In terms of that will, Lefty inherited his father’s entire property empire, while his brothers would each only receive a meagre monthly allowance. The eldest son Stavros (Steve) and youngest son Georgios (George) frowned on this, but it was actually Lefty who turned to court to get its legal stamp of approval. Lefty had filled in the blank spaces in the will while his father was in hospital and he witnessed the will. He had one of his father’s caregivers sign the will, even before his father had signed it and he then signed it himself.

In terms of the Wills Act, Lefty, as a beneficiary, could not be a witness to the will, nor could he have written in part of the will in his own handwriting. He was thus disqualified as a beneficiary, unless he obtained a declaratory order that it was not fraud or that he did not influence his father and that the latter was mentally capable to realise what he was signing. Judge Wendy Hughes concluded that the father was not of sound mind when he signed the will and he was coaxed into signing the document. ‘These (the stipulations of the will) were the intentions of Lefty and not the deceased… The evidence all points towards Lefty pushing his own intention instead of the deceased in the will,’ the judge said.

Full Saturday Star report (subscription needed)