To be suspicious about the validity of this Will?

[Blueberryhill123]

I probably should've posted in Legal but posted here for traffic.
My Mum and I were discussing Wills recently, when the subject of my Grandfather's Will came up. (My GF passed away in 2000, and my Mum was excluded from his Will). She'd never received a copy of the Will and only briefly glanced at a typed copy of GF's Will just after his funeral, when my Aunt quickly showed it to her.
Out of curiosity I recently decided to download a copy of my GF's Will, but now I've done so it's playing on mind that something doesn't seem right with it.
GF's Will is home made and handwritten (done in 1987) and the Executor and sole Beneficiary (apart from us six Grandchildren) was my Aunt, which we already knew. I was, however, surprised to learn there was no mention at all of my mum in the Will, not even to say why she'd been excluded.

Long story short, there'd been a family rift where mum didn't see her dad for a few years prior to and after the Will was written, although in the last few years of GF's life the rift was healed. My mum never spoke of Wills with my GF (her mum had passed away years before) and accepted the terms of the Will when my GF passed away. After all, the Will had been done and not altered.

Six of us Grandchildren (my sis and I and my Aunt's four dc's) each received £2,000 from our GF's Will. My Aunt was bequeathed GF's house, boat, caravan, car and 'all the rest of the property he owned'.
The Will may very well be perfectly legal, but, I'm suspicious that the witness signature's look extremely similar by the style of writing, punctuations, same pen pressure, slant etc.
The witnesses are also my Aunt"s friends.

I showed a copy of the Will to my Mum, who recognised the wording of the Will as my Aunt's, which I'm presuming is allowed, as long as my Grandfather signed it. My mum is also quite suspicious of the witness signature's. Mum also couldn't imagine my GF wanting to have my Aunt's friends as witnesses.
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but my Aunt has benefited hugely (I believe my GF also had a substantial amount of money in his accounts from receiving a great pension and never really going anywhere to spend it, which my Aunt also had) and I can't help wondering if something is amiss. Mum is equally suspicious.
Any advice appreciated.

It also crossed my mind that could it be there's a possibility that maybe my Aunt never changed ownership of my GF's house, as IF she did forge his will then she'd be worried about gaining all the proceeds from selling it, on top of the money she's already obviously had from his bank accounts, sale of his car etc.

Blueberry - the situation is weird and the dates are weird too.

The fact that the net estate was said not to exceed £70k is odd. If the house was worth, say, £220k and other assets were £10k so the whole estate was just under the tax bracket, it would mean that he had debts of £160k to bring the net value down to £70k. If he did have that amount of debt then the house would have had to be sold to pay. Or your aunt would have had to pay the debt out of her own resources if she wanted to keep the house.

The house being in your grandfather's name is not as odd as may first appear. Getting probate does not automatically do anything to the assets in the estate. The grant of probate proves your aunt's authority to deal with the house, nothing more. It is a simple procedure to get the house into her name, so given that solicitors were involved it seems odd that they did not do the paperwork to transfer it, but it's not unheard of. It could be done at the time of sale if your aunt ever does sell it.

It is entirely possible that he made a will later than the 1987 will. If he kept it at home then your aunt could easily have destroyed it. If it is with a totally different solicitor then I am sure the matter could be re-opened but you would have to find the later will first. The fact that solicitors extracted this grant does not necessarily mean that the will was stored with them, though. Your aunt could have instructed them and brought along the will.

ChocOrCheese
Thanks for your input, what's wierder is that there is no actual date written on the Will, it's all hand written but the day has been left blank and only the year has been written in.
Surely anyone writing a genuine Will would have no reason to leave the day and the month out.
I think my Mum and I will have to also try and contact Solicitors my GF may have used and something might turn up.

As for any debt, GF wouldn't have been in any as he never went anywhere really or bought anything to spend his money, he also received a very good pension.