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.

Reverse?

I don't know why everyone is so convinced that a will would be hard to forge. It would be astonishingly easy. Literally just print out the document, put fake signatures on the document, copied from the original.

Yes, you run the risk that the witnesses could find out, but it's very unlikely they would ever know, or could even be dead themselves.

This is just ridiculous. Why on earth would she tell you?

Agree with @Figment1982 everyone on MN thinks a will needs a solicitor and witness, it doesn't. Any written will signed by the person in question can be regarded as a legal will even written on the back of a fag packet!
You can even download wills for £90 , sign , done .

My uncle did this and it had long term repercussions on family relationships and caused so much pain. He is an absolute shit of a man.

I couldn’t see past this in a friend and I wouldn’t want someone in my life with such utter disregard for ethical behaviour or morals. To the point where they even admit it! Goodness

Nah, half term isn’t it.

Does she have siblings she managed to disinherit or are you talking wider family like cousins who have their own parents to inherit from?
That being said-neither is something I would look for in character of a friend but they are slightly different in essence (best positive spin I can think of)

This kind of thing does happen…only you can decide what to do but who wants a relationship with someone you know you cannot trust.

the law on wills needs changing, should be much more in place to protect families and older people.

My family has had similar recently with a situation where my cousin and aunt got my grandma at 86 to change her will to heavily favour their part of the family without telling anyone…and lied about it all when challenged after it was discovered.

Some people would as the saying goes sell their own grandma. Are those people worthy of your time or friendship?

I’d be more interested in why she was telling me.

This thread has at least reminded me that I've been meaning to update my will as it's way out of date, and DH still doesn't have one at all.. another task to add to this weekend's to do list!

Also OP what was her relationship with her mum like? Was she abused growing up, did her mum allow her to be abused etc. I think if any of that happened to me I would be fighting over my share of the estate.

I know someone who did this, under what most people would consider extremely mitigating circumstances, he was still convicted and received a sentence though.

But why would you want to move past this? I could never be friends with someone who did this, taking advantage of a dying person?! It’s unforgivable. I would question your sense of decency that you would even want to move past this and be friends with such an awful person.

If it did it's a criminal offence, not a wedding planning issue ....

How do you know OP?

It’s surprisingly easy to do this sort of thing.

i had a friend who didn’t forge the will, they simply got the executor - her dad, to renounce, saying he didn’t need the stress, she’s do it for him. Then never applied for probate and just kept all the money. It also meant no one else could see the accounts and bank accounts, so the fact she’d emptied her mums account of thousands before her death also went unreported.

to challenge it you need £££££££ for legal fees. So easy to get away with. To get it investigated you need to show proof or some sort of evidence, and if there’s no probate you can’t apply to probate court, the will is private, the accounts are private, you can’t even show who the beneficiary is to show the money has been stolen from them.

it’s a shit show.

You first @Beautynamechange ... say more 🕵

Really?? 😂you base your whole moral compass on The Law?!?

I would need to know more about the circumstances and what the old Will said.

On the back of this. I used to work as a legal PA/sec in a small high street law firm.

We only really had some beneficiaries of a will contest it. It was a single man who’d died but with a big and extensive estate (lots of different accounts, swings, investments and pension(s). It was lengthy and expensive to process this but the beneficiaries insisted they wanted to do this and I’d joined whilst the case was in full swing.

We also had a charming older man, I think Jamaican who used to bring us chocolates and had a small property portfolio in London. When he suddenly died his son who he was estranged from was straight in our offices with his partner saying he was entitled to everything! Pity that the old man had remarried having no more DC but the son insisted he was entitled to it all and stuff her! Luckily we found the will (the old man had come in regularly to see to this will, made codicils and ensured his properties were in both him and his DW’s name) and to also purchase a new property. We took almost slight pleasure in politely booting the son out of our offices!

I personally would advise a professional looking will be drawn up, any changes to be reflected by a codicil during your lifetime and do not if you have assets to leave not make a will. Even as pp said a diy will or a note preferably signed and witnessed of your wishes and kept in a safe place will suffice. Just ensure there are no duplicates lying around.

It is also very expensive and time consuming and stressful to make a claim on a will And there’s a limit if you’re a beneficiary but left out eg a child of a will and want to challenge it.

The obvious answer is you wouldn't be wring to cut ties with this person.

However, do you trust your source of information?

Has your friend been charged and proven guilty? Or, has she admitted it to you?

Before writing off a 20-year friendship, I would be careful not to fall for what could end up to be nothing but malicious lies from vindictive relatives.

If this was during Covid then it really wouldn’t surprise me that it didn’t get picked up by probate.

Lots of systems and checks went to ratshit.

If the end result was that your friend benefitted from the will to others detriment then I’d be making a quiet exit from the friendship.

How on earth did this even happen ? Dont wills need to be countersigned by a witness ? So someone else was in this fraud with her ?

I have a “friend” who’ll do anything for money. Borrows and never repays. Her late mother didn’t have anything of value to leave her so she treated her badly. No morals. Greedy. Not a nice person. Is now in a marriage for the house and couldn’t give a toss about the bloke. I’m fully aware of her character.

Did other family members specifically lose out ? Why did they not realise ?

personally yes I would end the friendship if that’s the case because it’s dishonest and stealing and disrespectful .