Tim Posa was difficult in life and difficult in death. A demanding and irascible man, Posa dangled before a series of women the prospect of inheriting his $1.6 million home if only they met his increasingly difficult demands.
Posa died in October 2018 aged 86. Three years later, a judgment from the High Court at Auckland finally put him to rest, dividing his Auckland home between Lale Nelson, who shared almost 50 years of his life, and Ortencia Tenchavez, who turned up from the Philippines a few years before his death.
Posa died with little to leave other than the home he built largely with his own hands. A decade ago, it had a valuation of $500,000. Go back 20 years and it was worth $255,000.
The rise in property values across New Zealand, and particularly in Auckland, appears to be fuelling cases such as that which has swirled around Posa's Massey home.
The house, as eccentric as its owner, might not have summoned a challenge over his will if he had died younger when it was worth less. Now, though, it's enough to create an overnight millionaire.
Lawyers working in the specialist field say the courts are seeing an increase in contested wills. Carolyn Ranson, a partner at Smith and Partners, says rising property values mean "there's a lot more to fight over". There are other reasons - a more aggressive legal climate, the boomer population bulge reaching life expectancy - but rising property values mean expensive court proceedings won't eat an entire inheritance.
Lawyer Greg Kelly of Wellington agrees: "If you've got a figure in the millions, people are more inclined to have a go."
Nelson met Tihomir Posa in 1972. Both came to New Zealand from elsewhere - her from Samoa and him from Yugoslavia, as it was then.
The 1300cc 1968 Wolseley he was driving that first meeting still sits in the garage at his Massey home. Nelson was walking with a friend in New Lynn to catch a bus into the city for a night dancing at the Oriental Ballroom.
It was an age of big brass and big hair, swinging jazz and sharp suits. Posa was all turned out for a night on the saxophone when he swung back to offer a lift.
Two weeks later, there he was at another nightspot. Posa was, all five-foot-and-not-much-more with a thick Dalmatian accent, asking for her number.
"He'd keep ringing up, wanting me to come over there." Posa was always demanding. Nelson, single with her young son Rodney, went to him. From then, as it was later described, "they were bound together on life's journey".
That journey saw Nelson, and Rodney as he grew older, put "countless hours" into helping Posa build the house in Massey. It was 1986 when she and Rodney moved in, and 1998 when she moved out again after a savage and unprovoked home invasion.
Despite Posa's demands she move back in, she just couldn't, and yet would turn up most days of the week to cook, clean, do washing, run errands or, as the High Court judgment phrased it, she "did anything he wanted to make his life better and more comfortable".
By 2004, that wasn't enough for Posa and his advancing years. He wanted someone there overnight. Together, he and Nelson advertised for a flatmate. They chose Linda, originally from China, who moved in with her young son.
Nelson told the High Court it was a platonic arrangement. By then, age and health had robbed Posa of the ability to have an intimate, physical relationship.
Linda moved out around 2007 then, after Posa had a stroke in 2011, she moved back in again. Nelson's presence was constant - recognised by Posa through his insistence to a hospital social worker his house and savings "go to her".
Even though she wasn't living there, Nelson's routine centred on Posa. She helped with the toilet, did his shopping, answered his many demands.
"By all accounts, Mr Posa had a challenging personality," said Justice Christine Gordon. He held a generally "disrespectful" attitude to women and - as witnesses told her - it was "my way or the highway".
"After his stroke, he became even more temperamental, impatient and was not an easy person to deal with."
In 2012, Posa's will was changed to leave Linda his house. A year later, when Linda moved out again, Posa tore up the will and set about finding someone else.
That person was Lorelie Trinidad, recently arrived from the Philippines. She stopped at George Vezich's well-known fruit stall on Fred Taylor Drive, down the road from Posa, and asked after work. A week later, Nelson collected her and helped move her in.
At first, she slept in a room neighbouring Posa's but the difficult old man would bang on the walls, calling out through the night. She began sleeping at the foot of his bed, or in a chair, and eventually his bed.
As she told the court, "he wanted to have someone to look after him … and that he would look after her financially".
Trinidad's presence brought her pastor, Adrian Codilla, into Posa's life. When Trinidad left for Christchurch in 2014, Codilla stayed in Posa's circle of support. "At that point," Codilla told the Herald, "Mr Posa was really struggling." Posa asked Codilla to find a home helper in New Zealand, but the pastor said that the rate he was willing to pay meant no one would take on the role.
Posa had been corresponding with and sending money to women from the Philippines for years. A bank teller who testified recalled Posa saying "he was looking for a caretaker or someone he could marry".
His friend Mirko Ujdur told the court Posa wanted help at home to avoid being sent to a rest home. The women held no romantic interest for Posa, he said. They were a foil to convince the state that he could live independently.
And the carrot on that stick was always the house. Jenny Bae took over the work from Trinidad and again Posa "told her he would give her his house if she became his girlfriend". Don't worry about the cleaning, he said, because Nelson could do it.
There were others who came and went until Ortencia Tenchavez arrived from the Philippines in late 2015. Codilla had introduced the pair and they had spoken by phone for 18 months.
Tenchavez moved into Posa's home a day after arriving in New Zealand. After considering and discarding marriage as a viable way to keep her in New Zealand, Posa put up $11,500 in fees after she secured a student visa and enrolled on a health and therapy course.
In May 2016 - about six months after she arrived in New Zealand - he had Codilla and Tenchavez take him to a lawyer's office where he wrote a new will, leaving everything to her.
It left nothing for Nelson, who moved back in with Posa (and Tenchavez) later that year. Nelson slept in the spare room, ran errands and fetched and carried whatever the demanding old man needed, assuming he had, as he had said in the past, left everything to her.
Posa died in October 2018. Nelson's final burden of duty was organising his funeral. She had Posa fitted for a casket and suit then paid for a plot of earth to put him to rest. Then, after that was done, she set out to put his affairs in order.
It was then she found he had changed lawyers, changed his will and left nothing to her. Everything had been left to Tenchavez with Codilla as the executor. That was when it went to court.
Posa lived three years beyond his death in affidavits and evidence, his character and quirks analysed to find who was entitled to the house promised to so many.
Nelson claimed an ongoing de facto relationship with Posa, saying the 2016 will that left everything to Tenchavez was invalid. It was, she claimed, a will created by Codilla's influence over a man not in sufficient control of his own mind.
Further, she said, there was a shared life of promises. For almost half a century, she had cared and cleaned, fetched and carried, shared a bed and raised a child and through it all Posa said he would leave "everything" to her.
Nelson came away with 65 per cent of the estate, Tenchavez with 35 per cent. Justice Gordon found the relationship ended in 2005, that Posa was of sound mind and Codilla didn't exert influence. Really, asked witnesses, could anyone make the old man do anything he didn't want?
Instead, what Nelson and Tenchavez left court with was the worth of Posa's promises. Nelson's relationship might have finished in 2005, the court said, but that's not where his obligation ended.
Instead, it endured in the years that followed as Nelson continued to do more than "what might be expected of a friend". She was, evidence had shown, "always there for him". In balance, he had promised his house would be hers.
Of course, Nelson wasn't the only one collecting promises. Tenchavez didn't respond to Herald requests for an interview. Codilla says neither he nor his parishioner is happy with the outcome, simply because it was contrary to Posa's will, although he's pleased the claim of influence failed.
His role now, as executor, is to sell the house and distribute the proceeds. "[Posa] trusted me very much. Although he doesn't agree with me when it comes to God, he trusted me. I honour him with his wishes."
Rodney Nelson couldn't ever figure out the connection between Codilla and Posa. "He's an atheist," he says of Posa. "Go figure."
There's a great sadness about Rodney Nelson over the case. He's also not happy with the outcome. Posa was the father he knew growing up, his mother's husband in deed if not law. It's a tough contrast with court documents recording Posa's claim he had no children, that the relationship was 13 years cold when he died.
Rodney Nelson's affection for Posa comes codified through a tour of the house. As a young man, he sank days and months into helping build it. Throughout, he never saw Posa use a skill saw, drop saw or table saw. Every angle and edge was cut by hand.
The house is a monumental curiosity of craftsmanship with lino on the walls, soup bowls for light fittings and cupboards as high as Posa was short. He built the house to suit himself, like he did everything.
Posa is buried in Waikumete Cemetery. Together in life, parted by the court, they will be together in death. Nelson bought Posa's plot after he died. A few months ago, she went and turned it into a twin plot.
Rodney Nelson heaves a sigh. "Mum's going in on top of him."
