A woman's family have succeeded in their challenge to a will purporting to leave her £500,000 estate to her partner after a judge ruled that the will was a forgery.

The woman had made a will in 2022 leaving her estate in trust to her daughter. After she died of breast cancer in October 2023, at the age of 46, her partner produced a will supposedly made five months before her death which left her entire estate to him. He also claimed that they had secretly married in Cyprus in 2006. The woman's brother and his wife brought a challenge to the 2023 will.

Evidence was obtained from a handwriting expert that the signature on the 2023 will was not the woman's, and that it bore all the hallmarks of someone trying to copy her signature. The authorities in Cyprus confirmed that, on the date the woman and her partner had supposedly married, no marriage had taken place and the registrar named on the purported marriage certificate had not been working.

The judge was satisfied that both the 2023 will and the marriage certificate were forgeries, and pronounced in favour of the 2022 will. She removed the woman's partner as executor of his estate and restrained him from dealing with any of the estate assets. He was also ordered to pay the brother's and his wife's costs of about £206,000.