Widow wins legal battle over home but faces action after admitting faking late husband's will at 'drunken party'

A widow has won a bitter court battle with her stepson over a £450,000 home, despite admitting faking her late husband’s will at a “drunken party”.

Diane De Marzo, 57, used £150,000 of inheritance money from her property investor husband Michael Ball to buy a house in Abbey Wood, Kent, with stepson Sonny Ball.

However the arrangement turned sour when Sonny, 33, and his wife Leahann claimed the money was actually a gift to them and she had no right to a share of the property.

Mrs De Marzo said she was ordered out of the property “like a dog”, sparking a legal battle over ownership and an investigation into the inheritance payment.

Judge Simon Monty found Ms De Marzo had a legitimate stake in the house, but he also reported her to the Attorney General after she admitted forging her husband’s will.

Central London county court heard that Mr Ball owned a large family villa, a rental house and two beachside apartments in southern Spain, plus a flat in Kent, when he died without making a will in 2013.

Mrs De Marzo said she was left with mounting debts and no prospect of releasing the money from her late husband’s property portfolio. The judge said: “Diane took advice from an unidentified financial adviser, who told her that the only thing she could do was to ‘get an English will’. When she said she didn’t have one, the reply was: ‘Well, find one.’ Mrs De Marzo therefore drafted a will in the name of her late husband, using as a precedent her own home-made will, inserting his name in place of hers and naming herself as sole beneficiary.

“At a drunken party … she produced the will and said words to the effect of: ‘Who wants to sign it?’”

The judge said her behaviour was “dishonest”, using the forged will to obtain a grant of probate in her name and then selling the properties in Spain.

He said the case should be referred to the Attorney General “to consider whether any criminal proceedings should be brought against Diane or others; and to consider whether to bring proceedings for contempt of court.” Judge Monty said the forgery issue did not invalidate her claim to a share of the disputed property.

“Sonny and Leahann have wrongly denied the existence of the house purchase agreement,” he said. “I do not think that the agreement between the parties, recorded in the house purchase agreement, should be defeated by Diane’s dishonesty in relation to the will.”

The court heard Mrs De Marzo moved in with Sonny and Leahann after the purchase of the Abbey Wood property in 2015, but she was asked to leave when the house became crowded.

The judge found that a document Sonny and Leahann signed in a pub did represent an agreement over home ownership.

He said the couple were entitled to ask Mrs De Marzo to leave, and the court will now receive more evidence to decide if the house needs to be sold so that she can be paid her share.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT