Will fraud

Fraud, owing to its potentially criminal consequences, is a serious allegation to make. Sadly, however, fraud surrounding wills is more common than we would like to think.

The most common concern raised in respect of wills and alleging fraud is that a signature is a forgery. Because of the nature of the allegation of fraud, the Court requires strong evidence to find that a will is invalid because a signature has been forged. This includes reports from experts who examine the signature and witness evidence from those that are purported to have witnessed the will.

Other reasons that may render a will invalid owing to fraud include:

• the person ‘making’ the will being deceived into signing the will believing that they were signing something else
• the last will being destroyed by somebody benefitting from a previous will
• the witness(es) attesting the will and signing it to confirm they were in the presence of the person making the will, but in fact were not
• fraudulent calumny

Specialist wills solicitors

The Court will expect strong evidence to find that a will has been procured by fraud and therefore, collating and obtaining evidence is critical before issuing a claim on the ground of fraud.

Naturally, the best witness to this fact would have been the deceased, but those that are purported to have witnessed the will should be interviewed as well as those with knowledge surrounding the facts. This is something we can assist with.

In cases of forgery, we often assist clients in instructing a handwriting expert, who will examine the signature on the will against specimen signatures (examples) and make a determination as to whether the signature is likely to be genuine or forged.

Once evidence has been collated, we can re-assess the position and if appropriate, assist in preparing a claim.

We also act for clients defending accusations of fraud, and can assist in the collating or obtaining of evidence in this regard too.