Lindsay’s Will Intentions Told : Estate: Document shows the former councilman wanted his property to go to his family, not his ex-girlfriend, attorney says.

A will that Los Angeles City Councilman Gilbert Lindsay signed 17 months before he died shows that he intended his property to go to his relatives rather than to a former girlfriend who now controls several of his properties, according to a lawyer for Lindsay’s estate.

The will also shows that Lindsay thought he was still the owner of the property at the time of the signing and that he did not want the girlfriend, Juanda Chauncie, 39, to benefit from his estate, said Dion-Cherie Raymond.

“Notice that the will was signed after (Lindsay and Chauncie) had begun their relationship, yet nowhere is she mentioned,” Raymond said Friday. “To me that means, in spite of the relationship, Mr. Lindsay intended for his family to inherit his property.”

Chauncie, who was Lindsay’s girlfriend for two or three years until last summer, said Friday that she could not respond to the will until after she has talked to her lawyer. The lawyer, John Clark Brown Jr., could not be reached for comment.

Lindsay’s will was signed July 22, 1989. It has been filed for probate in Los Angeles Superior Court and leaves his entire estate to family members, including his stepson, Herbert A. Howard of Altadena, to whom Lindsay bequeathed his place of residence in South Los Angeles, a house next door, his late wife’s jewelry and other personal effects.

Howard was named Lindsay’s conservator in the last days of the 90-year-old councilman’s life after it became clear that he could not conduct his own affairs. Lindsay had been hospitalized for three months before his death last December.

Howard, after being made Lindsay’s conservator, filed a lawsuit against Chauncie alleging that she manipulated Lindsay’s “failing health, old age and senility” and used trickery and fraud to coerce him into making her co-owner of two commercial lots he owned and signing over to her a house in South Los Angeles.

Another house--one of the two Lindsay’s will bequeaths to Howard--was sold six months after the will was signed in a transaction that the buyer says was negotiated by Chauncie.

Chauncie became co-owner of the commercial lots three months before the will was signed. Five months after the signing of the will, the house in South Los Angeles was signed over to her.

The lawsuit seeks to prevent Chauncie from evicting from that house an elderly couple who were friends of Lindsay’s and who had been his tenants for 20 years.

It also alleges that Chauncie improperly obtained $65,000 from one of Lindsay’s bank accounts.

When the lawsuit was filed, real estate records showed that Lindsay owned only one piece of property in Los Angeles, rather than the five mentioned in the will.

He also owned, according to the will, one-eighth interest in a plantation in Jasper, Miss., and a share of an apartment complex in Oxnard.

The rest of Lindsay’s estate consists of unspecified amounts of cash in bank accounts, an unspecified number of shares in Wilshire State Bank in Los Angeles, insurance policies, death and retirement benefits from the city, personal jewelry and household furnishings.

A hearing on Lindsay’s estate is scheduled March 18.