Years ago I attended the funeral of a dear friend who died much too early. His memorial service was both solemn and awkward. Seated in the front row of the church were his estranged wife, his current common law wife and his paramour. As you can imagine, the complexity of his personal life caused difficulties in settling his estate.
British real estate tycoon Chris John 47, died suddenly without a will, until two wills surfaced.
One of the immediate problems was that Mr. John believed he and his wife, Helen John, were divorced, but upon his early demise it was discovered that the final divorce order had never been pronounced, albeit they had separated seven years earlier.
As a legal spouse, with entitlement to his $6 million estate, the battle lines were drawn between Mr. John’s wife and his mistress, Gillian Clemo, against a backdrop of not one, but two wills.
John’s mistress miraculously located a will three days after hearing that her boyfriend was still married to his wife. Witnesses testified that Ms. Clemo collapsed on the floor when she learned that her boyfriend and his wife were not divorced.
Mrs. John also discovered a will, but when questioned by police readily admitted she had forged the will to ensure their 15-year-old daughter received her share of the estate. She also advised the investigators she was certain that Gillian Clemo had forged the will produced by her, as the signature on the will was not her husband’s.
Ms. Clemo’s “will” named her as the primary beneficiary of her lover’s estate and permitted her to reside in his luxury home in Cardiff, Wales. She swore an affidavit that stated the will was genuine and she had witnessed Mr. John’s signature on the will.
Unfortunately for Ms. Clemo, the will was riddled with errors including the misspelling of Mr. John’s daughter’s name.
A forensic document examiner testified at Clemo’s trial that the signature was not Mr. John’s and a Welsh jury convicted Ms. Clemo on charges of forgery last week. She awaits her sentencing but is not expected to receive jail time.
With no will, the estate will be divided between Mrs. John and her daughter.
As American writer Ambrose Bierce observed: “Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate.”
Lawdiva aka Georgialee Lang
Lawdiva's Blog 
Not really related but there was a messy one in Hong Kong where one of the richest women in Hong Kong (and not playing with a full deck besides, a real eccentric) supposedly left most of her multi-million dollar fortune to her fortuneteller much to the amazement of her grown children. She died a couple of years ago and I think the courts ruled his claim on the estate was not valid. Forget the guys name but he owns pretty much all of Macao, a couple of casinos, and his family is squabbling over his fortune, has something like 3 or 4 wives and a dozen kids in his company working for him.
Paul Yes, I read about Nina Wang and the battle over her money. I was thinking of doing a story on Ms. Wang. She certainly was a character!
Hi, very good website on this niche. I found it on Google. I will surely save it and come back to read it. 🙂
http://www.stepjournal.org/news/news/secondary_news/allegedly_forged_will_is_decla.aspx
John Thank you for the update on this story. Lawdiva