ENJOYING a budget break in a caravan, hard-up mum Lisa was suddenlybombarded by a string of calls from ‘heir hunters’ informing her that she was in line to inherit her late aunt Christine’s house in an exclusive road in leafy Wimbledon, worth a million pounds.
“I thought it was a scam at first, but after about 10 or 12 different heir hunters called I realised it was true, even though it was hard to believe,”; Lisa tells .
“It felt like I had won the lottery.”;
But just as Lisa and her younger sister Nicole excitedly discussed what they might do with this unexpected windfall, their dreams were shattered when a mysterious man named Tamas Szvercsok produced a from Christine Harverson, in which she described him as her “dear friend”;.
It named him sole executor and beneficiary of her entire estate.
Despite clear signs that the will, which contained glaring mistakes and misspellings, , the probate service and police informed Lisa and Nicole that there would be no investigation.
The inheritance has been frozen ever since – which will be two years in August.
An investigation by BBC journalist Sue Mitchell in Radio 4 podcast Shadow World: The Grave Robbers reveals that what happened to Lisa and Nicole was part of a massive operation by a Hungarian , taking advantage of an archaic legal system, racing to beat respectable heir hunting teams by producing fake wills to steal people’s inheritance.
And it could be happening to you.
“It’s a story of criminals who have found a way to steal other people’s inheritance,”; says Sue.
“To steal the homes of the dead. Robbing them and their rightful heirs.
“It relies on fake wills filed really quickly before the rightful heirs can get a chance, and you won’t believe how simple it is. It’s going on right now and no one is stopping these thieves.”;
Family row
“We never had much, growing up,”; says Lisa. “The house in Russell Road, belonged to my grandparents.
“My mum and her sister Christine were brought up there. It was their family home.
“Mum died from when I was five, and my sister was one, and my aunt moved in with us for a while to help my dad bring us up.
It’s a story of criminals who have found a way to steal other people’s inheritance. To steal the homes of the dead. Robbing them and their rightful heirs
Sue Mitchell
“But there was a family argument. I don’t really know what it was about, because dad didn’t talk about it, but it may be that Christine didn’t think he was bringing us up properly.
“She left us after about a year and we never heard from her again. It was very sad because she and my mum were very close and she was also close to dad, who passed away about nine weeks ago.
“When my mum died my dad had a bit of a breakdown because he had lost the love of his life and was left to bring us up on his own. But he did a really good job of doing that.
“When we grew up and had families of our own, my sister went to the house to offer Christine an olive branch, posting a letter to say we hoped she was alright and to get in contact, but we never heard from her.”;
Probate problem
Christine continued to live in the house after her parents died and, as she got older, became ill and bed-ridden.
She was looked after by her devoted husband until he died in 2020.
A year later Christine moved to a care home, and she died soon afterwards.
Because of the estrangement, Lisa and Nicole didn’t know that at the time, and it wasn’t until heir hunting company Anglia Research Services made contact with the sisters that they knew she had passed away.
Christine had no children of her own, so the process of passing the estate onto her nieces should have been relatively simple. Instead it has caused heartache and stress.
If you die intestate (without a valid will) and with no known relatives, your estate and everything you own eventually passes to the government.
Before that happens, your name and some of your details go on what is called the Bona Vacantia list, a Latin term meaning ownerless property.
The most alarming thing was his age. Christine died at a very good age, so to have her living in an extremely affluent area in Wimbledon and having a ‘dear friend Tamas Szvercsok’ in his early thirties does make you want to investigate a little further
Matt Boardman
“This list was set up over 50 years ago,”; says Sue. “It’s an old-fashioned system now available online and has formed the basis for TV shows like Heir Hunters, who use genealogy and detective work to in exchange for a small share of the estate.”;
Lisa and Nicole were happy to let Anglia Research Services apply for a grant of – the legal will to deal with the deceased’s estate – on their behalf.
But when they did so, they found that the claim could not proceed.
Without anyone knowing, Tamas Szvercsok, in his thirties, had beaten them to it and had registered a will he said was written in 2016, five years before Christine died, leaving him everything.
Former turned heir hunter Matt Boardman, who had contacted Lisa, managed to get a hold of a copy of the will, and what he saw made him feel uneasy.
“It said, ‘To my dear friend, Tamas Szvercsok,’”; he says. “It’s quite easy to run a check to see who this person is.
“The most alarming thing was his age. Christine died at a very good age, so to have her living in an extremely affluent area in Wimbledon and having a ‘dear friend Tamas Szvercsok’ in his early thirties does make you want to investigate a little further.”;
‘Crook’s charter’
To Matt’s surprise, when he rang the telephone number he found for Tamas Szvercsok, he picked up.
“He answered and I explained what the matter was about,”; Matt recalls.
“When I mentioned it was to do with the estate of Christine, he didn’t know what I was talking about at first.
“If somebody is your “dear friend”; and they have passed away and you don’t immediately recognise their name, it is very fishy.
“He then went on the back foot and said I would have to speak to his lawyer. Later Mr Szvercsok emailed me to say he is sole executor of ‘Mary’s’ will and had never heard of any family of hers. He spelt Russell Road with one ‘l’.”;
Sue points out: “Mary is Christine’s middle name and she never used it. I think he called her that because Hungarians write their surname followed by their first name.”;
Matt explains how an executor of a will used to have to attend their local probate registry to swear an oath and sign that document in person, which allowed the registrar who was dealing with the matter to evaluate every single case on its own merit.
But when the system went online in 2017, it removed that ‘over-the-counter’ service, effectively eliminating the chance to talk to someone about their knowledge of the deceased and to question their demeanour or behaviour.
If somebody is your “dear friend”; and they have passed away and you don’t immediately recognise their name, it is very fishy
Matt Boardman
The current system is what Sue describes as “a crooks’ charter.”;
“All they need to do is to look at the Bona Vacantia list online and come up with a will and no one is checking it,”; she says.
“The crooks simply tick a box on the form saying there is no inheritance tax to be paid because the property is worth under £325,000, without providing any proof.
“Those applications tend to go through more quickly. It’s what Tamas Szvercsok did on the million pound Wimbledon home. Since going online it’s become a free for all.”;
Lisa, Nicole and the heir hunting team have been frustrated that neither the probate service nor police have been willing to investigate.
“The probate office says that we have to prove who we are in a civil court case, but that would take years and thousands of pounds, and we don’t have that money,”; says Lisa.
“When we reported it to – which they forwarded to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau – we received an email saying there was no line of enquiry that they could pursue.
“I might have to get a no-win, no-fee solicitor or someone else to help. I don’t know. I hope it doesn’t come to that.”;
Fake signatures
During her investigation Sue spoke to Christine’s neighbour, a retired head teacher also named Sue, who was confident that her friend Christine had never written that will.
“She was disabled and reclusive at that time in 2016 and cared for by her husband, to whom she was devoted,”; Sue says.
“Also, she could not disinherit her husband from the real estate because they were married and joint tenants of the property.
“For the two witnesses to have signed it would have meant her husband opening the door to them and leading them upstairs to where she was in the bedroom, and then him having to stay out of the room while she asked them to sign the will in which she disinherited him.”;
Sue Mitchell tracked down the son of one of the signed witnesses. His mother has since died, but he is sure it is not her signature and that she did not know Tamas Szvercsok.
The will also misspelt Russell Road with one ‘l’, as it did in Tamas’s email.
Handwriting expert Christina Strang confirmed that the witness signatures were fake and had likely been copied from the internet by the same man.
Christine’s neighbour Sue turned detective herself to discover that the address given for Szvercsok on the will was a block of flats that was not built until 2021 – five years after the alleged date of the will.
I think in any other area, you steal a million pounds, someone will be doing something. But this is punishment-free. They have no intention of going after these people. No one takes it seriously
Sue Mitchell
With all this seemingly overwhelming evidence of forgery, Sue Mitchell presented it to the probate service.
“Weeks later a reply comes back,”; she says. “It’s three short sentences. It looks computer generated. The probate service just repeats the initial advice that Lisa should challenge the will through the civil court.
“I feel so frustrated when we have demonstrated how a serious crime has been perpetrated. No one wants to investigate.
“I think in any other area, you steal a million pounds, someone will be doing something. But this is punishment-free. They have no intention of going after these people. No one takes it seriously.”;
‘Tip of the iceberg’
During the course of her investigation Sue, along with the heir hunting team, discovered many other fraudulent wills benefiting various young Hungarian men.
When contacted, like Tamas Szvercsok, they are initially uncertain as to whose will is being questioned – suggesting that they are conducting multiple frauds.
“What we’ve exposed is the tip of the iceberg,”; says Sue. “We’re getting more and more cases coming in.
“It looks like one big criminal network, based in Hungary, who appear to have been snatching people’s inheritances dating back to at least 2019.
“That is a lot of people. They have also created hundreds of bogus companies across the country to launder the money, and I think it is linked to other crime including farms and ID .”;
We’re getting more and more cases coming in. It looks like one big criminal network, based in Hungary, who appear to have been snatching people’s inheritances dating back to at least 2019. That is a lot of people
Sue Mitchell
Meanwhile the long frustrating wait for their inheritance continues for Lisa and Nicole, and others.
But there are signs that, at last, the legal system is being tightened up.
The publicity that Sue’s investigation has attracted has prompted the Ministry of Justice to remove the Bona Vacantia list online earlier this month.
“I welcome that, but there needs to be a proper system put in place,”; says Sue.
“You should have to provide ID when you take probate and have checks on whether inheritance tax is due or not.
“Insurance companies, for example, have systems to flag up things such as whiplash claims, and they can cross reference claimants.
“The probate service needs to be modernised. It’s an awful thing losing relatives without having to go through all this stress.”;
Lisa admits that the whole experience has brought her down, but she is feeling more optimistic since Sue got involved.
“She’s worked really hard and made a hell of a difference for us,”; she says.
“I was feeling quite low about it because you can’t talk to anyone. Nobody seems to want to really sit down and help, apart from Sue and Anglia Research.
“It’s just so frustrating. But I really do hope we will get there in the end.”;
