High Court Ruling in Will Forgery Case

An allegation that a will is a forgery can be hard to prove. However, such an allegation was successfully made out in a High Court case concerning an elderly man who died during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The man had passed away in February 2021. A firm of genealogists identified four cousins as his surviving relatives and was appointed to deal with matters relating to the estate. When the firm applied to register the death, it was discovered that probate had already been granted in favour of a man who was said to be the attorney of the beneficiary under a will the deceased had apparently made in 2016. The High Court was asked to declare the will invalid, on the grounds that the signature on it was a forgery, and an order revoking the grant of probate was sought.

Expert evidence indicated that the signature on the will was very unlikely to be that of the deceased. The Court noted that the will gave his address as a property in Buckingham, although he had been living in Ilford in 2016 and had not moved to the Buckingham property until around 2020. Although the will was supposedly professionally drafted, it contained a number of errors. The solicitors the deceased had retained during his lifetime had no record of his having made a will.

There was a lack of evidence that either the beneficiary of the will or the witnesses to it existed. The Court also observed that the man acting as attorney had stated on the probate application form that the value of the deceased's estate was £305,000, but had attempted to market the Buckingham property for £600,000 a month later.

The Court was satisfied that the will did not meet the requirements for signing and attestation of wills contained in Section 9 of the Wills Act 1837 and was invalid. Concluding that the signature was not that of the deceased, the Court considered that the will had been drafted in an attempt to commit a fraud and obtain the estate by deception. The matter was referred to the police.