UK High Court Throws Out Man's Forged Will Claiming Late Partner's £500,000 Estate

LONDON — A London High Court judge has thrown out a fraudulent will and a fabricated overseas marriage certificate manufactured by a man seeking to strip his deceased partner's £500,000 estate away from her teenage daughter.

Chengiz Arif claimed he had secretly wed cleaning business owner Kassy Sinar on a Mediterranean island nearly two decades ago. He insisted a handwritten deathbed document left every brick and penny to him. The High Court rejected both assertions outright. Chief Master Karen Shuman ruled that Arif forged the paperwork, confirming that Sinar's authentic 2022 will must stand to protect her 14-year-old daughter, Jocey.

Sinar died of breast cancer in October 2023 at the age of 46. Behind her lay two decades of hard enterprise and two residential properties — a house on Kimberley Gardens in Finsbury Park, London, and a second home on Thurston Street in Burnley valued at roughly £58,000. Her total estate was valued in excess of £500,000. Aware of her terminal prognosis a year before her death, Sinar drew up a formal will in 2022, legally placing the entire property portfolio into a trust dedicated exclusively to financing Jocey's upbringing and future.

Then her estranged partner intervened.

The Bogus Cyprus Marriage and Banned Funeral

Sinar’s relationship with Arif, Jocey's father, had fractured repeatedly over two decades. The couple split multiple times between 2011 and 2018 before partially reconciling. Witnesses testified that Sinar had flatly rejected Arif's past marriage proposals, with friends describing a volatile, abusive domestic history marked by emotional and physical mistreatment.

Yet days after Sinar succumbed to cancer, Arif produced a foreign marriage certificate. He claimed they had secretly married in Cyprus on September 19, 2006, without informing relatives, friends, or colleagues. The family knew the claim made no sense.

Sinar's brother, Ernest Sinar, launched an independent inquiry into the paper trail, contacting Turkish authorities to inspect civil registers on the island. The official records delivered a devastating blow to Arif's story. Cypriot authorities confirmed that no marriage between the pair had ever been solemnized or recorded on that date. Worse still for Arif, the official registrar whose signature had been stamped onto the certificate was not even employed in that office at the time.

Bitterness had already spilled into the family's grief. Arif barred Sinar's siblings and relatives from entering her London funeral service, forcing her brother to arrange a separate memorial gathering. Ernest Sinar and his wife, Michelle, subsequently stepped in, took the 14-year-old girl into their home, and secured formal status as her legal guardians.

A Fabricated 2023 Will and Siphoned Rental Income

Undaunted by the unraveling marriage hoax, Arif produced a second instrument to intercept the wealth. Dated May 10, 2023 — just five months before Sinar died — this purported will superseded her 2022 declarations, disinherited young Jocey entirely, and awarded every asset directly to Arif.

Having asserted unilateral control, Arif commandeered the Finsbury Park property and began siphoning tenant payments. Bank records revealed he routed more than £35,000 in rental income directly into an account under his personal control. When the family filed a probate challenge, Arif attacked Sinar's genuine 2022 testament, arguing minor amendments she made to the draft invalidated the trust.

Chief Master Karen Shuman took the bench to assess the competing claims and forensic handwriting analyses. Arif failed to appear in court to defend his narrative. With no credible defense presented and clear proof of forgery on the May 2023 document, Chief Master Shuman struck down Arif's submissions in their entirety and declared the 2022 trust legally binding.

The High Court ruling clears the path for Ernest and Michelle Sinar to assume formal administration of the estate, recover the diverted £35,000 rental proceeds, and manage both properties for Jocey until she reaches adulthood under the terms established by her mother.