Forged Wills

Will forgery and falsification

A forged Will differs from the other types of invalid Will in that the deceased is generally not involved in its creation at all. However, a forged signature on a Will obviously still invalidates it, even if for some reason the deceased did write the Will in question but never signed it.

Forged Wills can arise from family problems, as do the other kinds of disputed Wills. However, there have also been cases where fraudsters have targeted isolated elderly people with no close relatives or friends in order to gather the knowledge required to falsify a Will in their name. In these situations there may be nobody to challenge the Will or make a claim regarding the true wishes of the deceased.

Forgery of a Will is notoriously hard to prove in court, and is usually combined with an allegation of no knowledge or approval. Generally those cases which are won rely on the testimony of a handwriting expert who has found discrepancies between the signature on the Will and the actual signature of the deceased. As ever, though, showing that the Will contradicts wishes expressed by the deceased elsewhere may come into play.

An unfortunate side-effect of proving a forged Will is that the fraudsters may still receive a share of the estate if they are related to the deceased. This is because in many cases the invalidation of a Will which is proven to be forged leads to the deceased being declared intestate, meaning that the default inheritance rules apply.

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When someone dies leaving a will, their estate will be dealt with by the people named as executors in that will. Otherwise intestacy rules apply.

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Writing a will is something that everyone should do at some point in their lives, even people who have no valuable earthly possessions to speak of.