Family win £700,000 estate fight with mum’s ‘abusive’ partner over fake will

The family of a mum who died of breast cancer have won a £700,000 court battle with her ‘abusive’ boyfriend after he used a forged will and fake wedding to try and get his hands on her fortune.

Kassy Sinar was only 46 when she died in October 2023 and left the whole of her £500,000 estate in trust for the benefit of her 16-year-old daughter Jocey in a will she made in 2022.

But her partner – Jocey’s dad Cengiz Arif – tried to claim the teenager’s inheritance for himself by producing a document he claimed was Kassy’s true last will, dated 10 May 2023, under which everything went to him.

He also claimed he and Kassy had been secretly married in Cyprus on 19 September 2006 without her close family knowing and went on to ban her relatives from attending Kassy’s funeral in London.

But Kassy’s brother Ernest Sinar sued on the family’s behalf – and a High Court judge has now ruled that both the marriage certificate and the 2023 will put forward as evidence by Cengiz were ‘forged’.

Chief Master Karen Shuman upheld the 2022 will leaving all of Kassy’s money in trust for her daughter, and Cengiz with nothing.

She also ordered him to pay the estimated £206,000 costs run up by Ernest fighting the case.

The judge also stripped Cengiz – who didn’t show up at court to defend the case – of his roles as executor of the 2022 will and trustee of the trust fund.

She further made an injunction banning him from dealing with or dissipating any of the properties or money in Kassy’s estate.

The court heard that Kassy, who ran her own cleaning business, was originally from Manchester but moved down to London, buying a property in Finsbury Park and starting an on-off relationship with Cengiz Arif.

Jocey was born in 2009, but the couple then split between 2011 and 2018, with Kassy telling friends that she had refused his proposal of marriage and reporting that the relationship was ‘abusive and toxic’.

The couple got back together, but Kassy was diagnosed with breast cancer and died in October 2023 in a hospice.

A bitter fall-out followed her death, with close relatives holding their own memorial service for Kassy after Cengiz banned them from her cremation in London.

Cengiz then came forward with the supposed 2023 will, leaving all Kassy’s estate including her London home and a bolt hole house she had bought in Burnley, worth £58,000, to him.

His claim that she had self-drafted and signed a secret new will without informing her family or daughter was backed by another shock claim that the pair had secretly married in 2006 without her brother or any other of her friends or family having known.

But the judge pointed out the fact that it was only after Kassy’s death that Cengiz claimed he was her husband.

The court heard a suspicious Ernest contacted Turkish authorities questioning the validity of the marriage certificate Cengiz produced, only to be told that no wedding had taken place on the date claimed and that the registrar he named had not been working.

They told him ‘the marriage is not legally valid’, the judge said.

‘Nobody was aware that Kassy was allegedly married.

‘I’m satisfied on the evidence that I have heard that this was an unhappy, toxic and abusive relationship.

‘There is evidence of physical and emotional abuse.

‘In her last weeks of life, he left her to travel to Cyprus for at least two weeks.

‘She was never married to Cengiz, therefore he has adduced to the court a forged document.

‘Cengiz produced in these proceedings a false document. He was never married to Kassy.

 ‘I’m satisfied that the marriage certificate is a forged document.’

Moving on the to the wills, the judge said that Cengiz had claimed the 2022 will was not valid due to amendments Kassy had made to it after it was initially drawn up and signed.

But the judge ruled that alterations had not made it void.

‘There is nothing before me to impugn the behaviour of Ernest or his solicitors. I’m satisfied that the 2022 will was duly executed,’ she said.

But she went on to find that the 2023 will produced by Cengiz was a fake.

‘The explanation Cengiz gave of how the 2023 will came to be prepared is preposterous. It is indeed incredible,’ she said, adding that the signature was clearly not Kassy’s.

‘It is inherently implausible that Cengiz’s case is correct. Had Kassy made the 2023 will, she would have told Ernest.

‘I’m satisfied on the basis of the evidence that has been presented to me that the 2023 will was forged.

‘The will relied on by Cengiz was not the last will of Kassy. I also find that the marriage certificate was a forged document.

‘The 2023 will is a forgery. I’m satisfied that there has been fraud in this case.

‘This is an estate that Kassy wanted to go to her daughter not her sometime partner and the father of her child.’

The judge went on to order Cengiz to pay Ernest’s costs of the case, which his barrister Sarah Harrison said came to around £206,000.

Verity Hudson, from Ernest’s solicitors Rothley Law said after the case: ‘This was a complex and emotional case that required careful investigation.

‘Having worked closely with the family since 2023, we’re so pleased to have helped secure the right outcome for them.’

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