Friend forged her mother's will

[Beautynamechange]

I have recently learnt that my friend who I have known since forever forged her late mother's will.

I don't want to go into too much detail about how I learnt this as it will be too outing.

It was nearly 4 years ago when her mother was most vulnerable on her death bed little over a week before she passed. There was another will put in place for around 20 years before this new will and that previous will was destroyed by my friend. Both wills were made at home.

It has nothing to do with me, but my friend took advantage of her dying mother, and now I feel different towards her because of this. I am supposed to be her bridesmaid at her wedding in a few months and I cannot get past how someone could do that for her own advantage. I have known this friend since nursery. We are both late 20's now.

Is it wrong of me to feel different about my friend? I understand this has nothing to do with me but it's the fact she has done it. How cruel towards her other family members.

I’m sorry to say that probably many a Will has been changed and re written near to someone dying and some not for the right reasons. If Ops friend got the Will changed to benefit herself more than others, I certainly wouldn’t be happy, but we need more details as to why the Will was changed from the last one.

Before you do anything, how certain are you of the source of this information? Surely it's not something that your friend is telling every Tom, dick and Harry ? Is it a theory someone has or is it cold hard fact ?

I'm assuming she doesn't know you know?

Oh my gosh. How was she able to get the solicitor to witness it and all? Are you sure she didn't just help her mother sign with feeble hands a Will that Mother had composed herself and had had drawn up at her Solicitors?

Was the Will different to the original one? Did she make a copy due to the paper being water stained? Did any of her family lose out in favour of your friend?

This is too much for you to keep secret.

Tell your friend that she needs to make ammends and give her family what should be rightfully theirs before the wedding.
If she doesn't set right her fraudulent deed then you should tell her you can't be her bridesmaid and you will report it to the Police. A honymoon or a gaol cell?

This.
If you know it’s fraud eg she has forged witnesses signatures, surely that would be extremely easy to prove.
Take it to the police and let them ask the supposed witnesses.

You don't need a solicitor to witness it, any two people who are not beneficiaries will do.

Did she totally screw over the rest of her family? Other siblings?

It sounds awful but I think it would depend on how much she gained versus the previous will.

Was it loads of money 💰💰💰 or did she engineer that she got her favourite painting from her mum's lounge?

It all sounds pretty grotesque TBH

No I could not move past that. And if she can do that she can defraud you or anyone else as well.

I'd tell everything you know to the family members who missed out and I would act as a witness in any results in court.

Depends on context but a game changers for me.

It seems strange to be outing her on mumsnet - plenty of info here about the circumstances for anyone who know her to put two
and two together. Maybe it’s a story.
I suggest you ask for the post to be deleted snd than decide if you don’t want to report to the police and have her prosecuted.
This is much bigger than should you be her friend or attend her wedding.

I did know someone like this, I think, although she was never presented with the opportunity to forge anybody’s will.
But she borrowed large sums of money from friends and never repaid any of it.
She borrowed cars, wrecked them, and walked away without so much as a fare thee well to the owners. Twice.
She took one person’s £60,000 sports car without asking, locked the keys in the car when she left with the car running and destroyed the engine.
She ditched me in Mexico and I had to hitchhike 85 miles back to San Diego with complete strangers.
She died at 50 from breast cancer, friendless.
I think she was a “genuine” narcissist.

I reckon this is the OP looking for a strategy as she's planning to fake a will herself.

I would want to know the context. What was the original will vs the one she changed.
I think people come from complex families. If I had a very wealthy parent who was abusive gave me hell throughout my life, I would go to court for my fair share. I also just read a thread about parents wanting 80k gifted deposit for a house back because the son married a woman with a child from a previous relationship and they don't want the stepchild to benefit from that money - the house was purchased 15 years ago and now they want to move the parents was the gift back + profit gained over the years. This is despite the fact that he also has children with the wife and his siblings are not being asked to return the money. I bet he has also been removed from the will.

I think a bit of context as to why your friend thought she had to do this is needed. Perhaps she knew her mum's wishes but she never got to change the will before she was unwell?

Firstly I do feel for u as your relationship is now tainted. For most of us a mother is the closest person to us and if she can do this to her then to u and the rest of the world including soon to be husband it’s only a matter of time and what’s worse, it could be anything. I would cut the relationship and I would tell her the reason. The trust is broken, imagine u yourself have a family, would u trust her with your kids, husband or leave her in yr home? Anything really. She is not a good person and this is an elderly mother who was vulnerable. She is scum

It does depend on how you found out. If she let slip herself, it would change my view of her. My take on it would be if she could screw over her dying, vulnerable mother she could do pretty much anything to anybody. If a sibling had told me, I'd be wary that the sibling was making stuff up to discredit her. But if I knew for sure that someone had fraudulently altered a will, then I would be putting a lot of distance between us. And yes, it was one of the things that alerted relatives of Shipman's victims to what he'd been up to.

How do you know all this? Surely if someone did this they’d keep quiet about it? If there were family members who should have got something surely they would have questioned it? If my sister suddenly got everything and me and our other sibling got nothing we would know something was amiss. It would certainly change the way I viewed someone, I couldn’t really look at them the same again.

Horrible woman with no morals. I couldn't be friends with her. Imagine what she'd do to friends, if she can do that to her own mother?

I never knew anyone who changed their will but my grandad aged 94 who had a lot of antiques including a Queen Anne chair and several antiques which were valued and worth money or not worth the money., made a deathbed will on pressure from his DD’s (my DM and auntie, her sister). Didn’t take into account the estranged other sister and her bonkers and unpleasant husband who caused a scene at the hospice and funeral and after the death…

Took the next year or so plus death threats and court action which he won (by evil uncle) as my nana (grandad’s first wife and mother of my DM) was sole executor of the will. Can’t even recall why there was a court case exactly! Plus my step grandmother was removed by evil
uncle and aunt from her flat she’d lived in for years, she went into a nursing home with Alzheimer’s but they then moved her twice to where they lived in Suffolk which was a horrendous journey for my other auntie and my DM. Total fallout, back and forth solicitors letters and even my normally sane and calm and rational nana who was in her 80s got so angry with evil uncle that she asked her close friend who was a very minor criminal, a woman, if she knew anyone who’d knock off evil uncle and she’d pay them! I was sitting there with friend, DM and nana when this happened and our jaws all dropped open in shock! Luckily the friend suggested strongly this wasn’t a good idea and the matter was dropped but my nana was furious!

All the above is true, sadly… so stressful plus I was dealing with an emotionally abusive and bullying and controlling jealous DP at the time too!

So yeah, if her story (friend is true) I’d have to cut her off and the friendship if so. I’d either say nothing to her as she should know or I’d give it to her full barrels or explain your situation over a coffee at an outside cafe (eg not in your or her home). As PP’s say, this is far more common than most of MN seem to believe but where there’s a will there’s a way is an apt saying.

How did she do it?
How do you find out about it?

Knowing how siblings work re wills and such, it seems a few of them don’t give a shit about altering wills whether legal or not. And people bear grudges for years. See my evil aunt uncle story which originated originally from when my own DM was left a life changing sum of money,,family antiques and trust funds set up fir me and DB by her very wealthy uncle whom she’d helped nurse of cancer and was living in Cornwall, I was 8, DB was 6 and she was divorced and living with our stepdad then in London. Plus she had a full time job as a teacher. The abuse whether spoken or not and after we got from evil uncle and aunt and my grandad was unreal. Grandad was left a nice sum of money too but sadly not his DB’s luxury cottage in Cornwall which he’d presumed was coming his way, despite rarely seeing his DB.

That’s terrible, I cut someone out of my life that didn’t fully fulfill their executors duties by following the exact terms of a will, in which they gained financial advantage over other beneficiaries. We sought legal advice but decided it wasn’t in anyone’s best interests to make a claim. The executor will have to live with the decision they made.

People can still be quite lucid a week before dying, are you sure the will change was instigated by your friend and not at the request of her Mother ?
A lot of things can happen over the course of 20 years and when well, people might assume they have a lot of time to make a change to a will or just be busy with life.

Yeah. And is her name Agatha Christie.

I wish I knew it was so easy 🙄. Just spent 6 months and £500 getting ours sorted.

@Beautynamechange

i don’t have three sorts of people anywhere near me

1. homophobes / sexists.
2. brexiteers
3. people I know who broke the law.

why would you be around a person that broke the law

Op, you do know it’s almost impossible to get a forged will through probate? However, you can check for the will online now. Have a look for yourself.