History Main / ForgingTheWill

A common plotline during a SuccessionCrisis or inheritance squabbles involves someone altering the contents of the deceased's will. Whether by forgery, magic or other shenanigans, the individual will tamper with the document or replace it with a new one, leaving the succession to himself or his heirs. The rightful heir will be stunned, and his suspicions will eventually lead him to pursue the truth. Often, the perpetrator will be an aunt, uncle or a GoldDigger spouse. In real life, a will that is found to have been forged or unduly influenced by another party will be found invalid by a probate court, which generally results in the estate being distributed by intestate succession statutes instead.

->'''Great Aunt Gladys''': Now, let's get down to business.\\
'''Lionel Hutz''': (on tape, with no attempt to hide the fact it's dubbed) To my executor, Lionel Hutz, I leave $50,000.\\
'''Marge''': ''Mr. Hutz!''\\
'''Lionel Hutz''': (in real life) You'd be surprised how often that works, you really would.

* In ''Literature/{{Deryni}}'', Cinhil's will is tampered with, to allow one faction amongst the regents to seize power. His son Rhys Michael alters his will to give legal cover to a move against the evil regents.

* In ''Five-Minute Mini-Mysteries'' by Stan Smith, one story involves the will of a dead tycoon who planned to leave his fortune to charity. A fake will turns up which divides his money between three relatives (presumably the forger included the other two to avoid standing out as the obvious culprit). The protagonists deduce the culprit due to the order of the numbers in the fake will's date suggesting an American civilian wrote it. Of the other suspects, one is British and the other is a soldier.

* Since one way of imperial succession in XVIII century Russia was a will written by a reigning emperor, pretenders were known to show up with documents like these. Princess Tarakanova is the most well-known one, claiming to be an illegitimate daughter of the late Empress Elizabeth and sporting a convincing enough will that supposedly legitimized her birth.

* In the ''ComicBook/RobinSeries'' Tim thoroughly edits his parents' wills, not to get more money since they left him everything that wasn't left to his stepmother Dana anyway, but to put in sections on his guardianship in order to avoid becoming a ward of the state. He creates a fictional brother for his father and even leaves the man (a hired actor) a portion of his father's estate in order to have control over who he lives with and where.

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons, [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E13SelmasChoice Selma's Choice]]''

* In the ''ComicBook/RobinSeries'' Tim thoroughly edits his parents' wills, not to get more money since they left him everything that wasn't left to Dana anyway, but to put in sections on his guardianship in order to avoid becoming a ward of the state. He creates a fictional brother for his father and even leaves the man (a hired actor) a portion of his father's estate in order to have control over who he lives with and where.

* In the Literature/HerculePoirot book Literature/PerilAtEndHouse the will of Magdala "Nick" Buckley is forged by the [[spoiler: Crofts]].

* Lampshaded in ''Discworld/WitchesAbroad.'' When being told the story of how the old Baron of Genua died, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg both make the assumption that the one now in control, the Duc, has control because of a will discovered shortly after the Baron's death with the ink still wet. [[spoiler: They're not far off the mark, but the Duc is actually a PuppetKing being controlled by someone else entirely.]]

A common plotline during a SuccessionCrisis or inheritance squabbles involves someone altering the contents of the deceased's will. Whether by forgery, magic or other shenaningans, the individual will tamper with the document or replace it with a new one, leaving the succession to himself or his heirs. The rightful heir will be stunned, and his suspicions will eventually lead him to pursue the truth. Often, the perpetrator will be an aunt, uncle or a GoldDigger spouse. In real life, a will that is found to have been forged or unduly influenced by another party will be found invalid by a probate court, which generally results in the estate being distributed by intestate succession statutes instead.

** In another Christie story, the dying rich woman had made a will in favor of her relatives, but since then had fallen under the influence of a pair of scammers, with the new will eing massively in their favor. Everyone- her friends, her relatives, her servants- could see they were up to no good, but could do nothing against the will. After her death, the will was removed from its sealed envelope... and contained nothing but blank paper, meaning the previous will was considered the right one, leaving the scammers with nothing. [[spoiler:The new will was written in slow-acting InvisibleInk that would eventually become transparent.]]

* Since one way of imperial succession in XVIII century Russia was a will written by a reigning emperor, pretenders were known to show up with documents like these. Princess Tarakanova is the most well known one, claiming to be an illegitimate daughter of the late Empress Elizabeth and sporting a convincing enough will that supposedly legitimized her birth.

* ''Series/{{Rome}}''. The following scene implies that this is happening after Julius Caesar's assassination.

* In ''VideoGame/ProfessorLaytonAndTheLastSpecter'', Chief Constable Levin 'Third Eye' Jakes changes Mr Barde's, the primary landowner of the town, will to leave the majority of Misthallery to Mayor Triton, Barde's only friend, as part of Jakes' plan with Descole to become Mayor and find the [[LandmarkOfLore Golden Garden]].

* Variation in the 1989 ''Film/{{Batman}}'' movie, where following the death of Carl Grissom, boss of Gotham City's extensive underworld, the cover story is that he's disappeared somewhere else, and one of his old underlings tries to publicly claim that Grissom left him in charge of all his businesses until he comes back. A gathering of reporters are, collectively, skeptical of this, while supporting character Knox starts to ask if they can prove it all, but rolls his eyes almost as he says it and is already sure they have that arranged. As a representative starts to go through the motions, claiming that they have witnesses to the signing, ''that's'' when the Joker (who, in fact, saw Grissom die because he's the one who pulled the trigger) turns up with a point-sharp feather pen...

'''[[AmoralAttorney Lionel Hutz]]''': ([[VideoWill on tape]], with no attempt to hide the fact it's dubbed) To my executor, Lionel Hutz, I leave $50,000.\\