Mystery donors leave millions in property to Brisbane hospital
Millions of dollars’ worth of Brisbane property will be auctioned for charity after mystery donors left them to a hospital.
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Millions of dollars’ worth of inner Brisbane property will be auctioned off for charity after mystery donors left the prime real estate to the city’s biggest hospital in their wills.
The anonymous benefactor, who has since passed away, has given eight properties to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital Foundation — all in some of the city’s most expensive suburbs.
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Place Estate Agents managing director Sarah Hackett and agent Alex Rutherford are marketing the properties, which are scheduled to go under the hammer at one big auction event on December 10.
The properties, worth about $5 million in total, range from units in Wilston, Lutwyche and Clayfield to houses in Newmarket — inner north suburbs where house prices have risen up to 40 per cent in the past 12 months in some cases.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Mrs Hackett said. “We’re also going to be donating a significant amount of our fees back to the hospital.”
Mrs Hackett said the properties were tenanted, so could be bought as an investment, or for an owner-occupier to renovate.
“These are life-changing funds, so it’s really exciting to be able to help and do this.”
RBWH Foundation CEO Simone Garske said the benefactors did not specify where the proceeds of the sale of the properties should go, but they would be distributed to those with the ”greatest and most strategic need”.
“These particular properties were donated by a wonderful couple, who had no children of their
own, and who were treated at RBWH and felt very connected and grateful to the hospital,” Ms Garske said.
“The couple wished to remain anonymous and while I never had the opportunity to meet them, RBWH Foundation respects their wish to remain anonymous and more importantly, we respect their real interest and desire to make a difference to the lives of others by supporting the RBWH Foundation in this way.”
Such donations can be of huge benefit to couples like Anna Jowitt and Michael Waggitt, whose son, Hamish, was born premature at 41 weeks.
He was born not breathing and needed CPR for five minutes.
Due to the lack of oxygen to the brain during that time, Hamish needed to undergo specialist cooling therapy for 72 hours and so was urgently transferred to the RBWH’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
A week after Hamish was born, an MRI cleared him of brain damage and he was transferred back to Tweed Hospital.
Ms Garske said it was becoming increasingly popular for individuals to donate assets to charitable foundations.
“Organisations, such as ours, are then able to convert those assets in a manner which ensures the funds are applied and distributed to the donor’s wishes and intent,” she said.
THE PROPERTIES TO BE AUCTIONED FOR CHARITY:
1-4/66 Fifth Ave, Wilston
389 Newmarket Rd, Newmarket
360 Newmarket Rd, Newmarket
1/17 Trundle St, Enoggera
2/17 Trundle St, Enoggera
2/19 East St, Lutwyche
4/22 Reeve St, Clayfield
5/22 Reeve St, Clayfield
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