Nurse bequeaths $800,000 house to charity

Knipe-Ackermann, who died in January on her 73rd birthday after a battle with bowel cancer, gifted her Ponsonby home to Oxfam. The house was sold for $800,000, making it the biggest bequest in the history of the New Zealand arm of the charity.

According to The New Zealand Herald, the sale was settled Friday and her friend Wayne Knight joked that she would have tried to drive a harder bargain for the charity. "She ... would have said she thought the house was worth more."

After finishing her training in Auckland she worked in Europe with friends before living on a First Nations reservation in Canada. Knipe-Ackermann had married and divorced but did not have any children.

Knipe-Ackermann's niece, Norma Bott, said her aunt was a no-nonsense woman who lived life with gusto and had a huge circle of friends. Oxfam executive director Barry Coates said bequests were extremely rare. In his seven years at the organisation it had received only one other, worth just over $100,000.

"It's an absolutely lovely thing to do and we're touched. We'll use it to contribute to a number of projects in our own Pacific neighbourhood." The money would be spent over several years, Coates said, potentially helping thousands of people.