Fact Check: Posts claim 92-year-old Scottish woman refused to sell her property to Donald Trump. Here’s the truth

Claim:

Posts on social media accurately reported the story of Molly Forbes, who at age 92 refused to sell her farmhouse in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, to now-U.S. President Donald Trump so he could build a golf course.

Rating:

What’s True:

In 2006, Donald Trump purchased the Menie Estate north of Aberdeen, Scotland. His plans to develop the area involved buying the land of nearby residents, including Molly Forbes and her son Michael Forbes. The Forbeses and others refused to sell their property and fought the Trump Organization in several legal disputes. In 2010, Trump’s workers cut off water to the Forbeses’ property by fracturing a pipe leading to their house, and avoided fully repairing it. In 2016, after living without a reliable source of water for six years, Michael Forbes repaired the pipe, which was located on Trump’s property. Molly Forbes died in 2021 at age 96.

 

What’s False:

The Forbeses’ story is well documented in the British press through a pair of documentaries directed by journalist Anthony Baxter, but those documentaries do not contain footage showing the Trump organization placing 24/7 floodlights around the house or cutting power to the Forbeses’ property. In addition, Molly Forbes’ obituary in the BBC notes that Michael Forbes, not Molly Forbes, owned the property.

 

What’s Undetermined:

It’s unclear just how loud and frequent the surrounding construction work was — the documentaries contain a lot of construction footage, but it’s not clear whether the machinery was truly working “through the day and night and weekends.”

 

In 2006, much to the chagrin of some nearby residents, business mogul and future U.S. President Donald Trump bought the Menie Estate a few miles north of Aberdeen, Scotland. Trump planned to develop the estate, part of which sits on sand dunes overlooking the North Sea, by building two golf courses, a hotel and other luxury amenities.

In 2025, posts appeared on Facebook pages around the same time that Trump returned to his Aberdeenshire resort to open the second of those two golf courses. The posts supposedly tell the story of Molly Forbes, a “little frail 92-year-old Scottish widow” who refused to sell her neighboring farmhouse to Trump, who purportedly retaliated by ordering “loud machinery to work through the day and night and weekends,” shining floodlights onto her property at all hours of the day and cutting both power and water to the Forbes residence. But despite the retaliatory measures, according to the posts, Forbes never sold, “right up to her death four years later, aged 96.”

https://www.facebook.com/TheOther98/posts/pfbid025uDsLvDfPWUH68zvwk1ruciqaUpmRBZtUdYXbHAbzxcgVVYEhBDs4sDPMcZM85R4l

Snopes found that the story was a mixture of true and false information. The British press widely reported the events, and journalist Anthony Baxter created multiple documentaries detailing the situation. However, while the posts were based on real events, there was no evidence supporting some of their claims.

When Trump bought the estate in 2006, his plans involved buying out some of the neighboring residents, including Michael Forbes. (Forbes’ mother, Molly Forbes, lived on his property). But the Forbeses and several other neighbors refused to sell. Among other things, they were concerned that the golf course would damage the ecosystem of the sand dunes, which are deemed a Site of Special Scientific Interest by the Scottish government.

An Aberdeenshire council committee initially denied Trump’s golf course plan, but the Scottish government intervened and approved it in 2008 on the grounds that the economic benefits outweighed the environmental harm. Trump’s team then intensified its attempts to get neighbors to sell.

Trump reportedly asked the Aberdeenshire Council to consider a “compulsory purchase” of the land, which allows some entities to buy land without the owner agreeing to sell, as long as the purchase is considered within the public interest. According to the BBC, Molly Forbes brought legal action against Trump to stop such a purchase, which led the future president to call the property “slumlike” and “a pigsty.” (The Guardian reported that, in the end, no compulsory purchase orders were ever issued).

In 2010, Michael and Molly Forbes’ water was shut off after workers building a road on the golf course broke a pipe. Baxter, who was working on his first film about the situation, went to the golf course and informed a groundskeeper, who admitted the workers had broken a pipe. Later that day, Baxter and his producer were arrested on charges of “breach of peace.” (The footage caused an outcry and the charges were dropped.)

However, the Forbeses’ water problems continued because the broken pipe was on Trump’s land and the resort never completely repaired it. According to The Guardian, Molly Forbes was without a reliable source of water for more than five years, during which time she relied on buckets from a nearby well and bottled water. In 2016, Michael Forbes repaired the pipe himself.

The first of the two golf course opened in 2012, and the second is scheduled to open in August 2025, according to The New York Times. The Scottish government delisted the dunes as a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 2020 because of the construction. Michael Forbes has no intention to sell his farmhouse, and Molly Forbes died at the age of 96 in 2021.

In sum, the story about Molly Forbes is true, albeit exaggerated.

Molly Forbes did not own the farmhouse — that was her son — but the Forbeses did refuse to sell the property to Trump. In 2010, workers did break the Forbeses’ water pipe, which remained broken for more than five years.

However, the other aspects of the stories were not true. Snopes reviewed both of Baxter’s documentaries on the topic, “You’ve Been Trumped” and “You’ve Been Trumped Too.” Neither contained footage showing 24/7 floodlights or neighbors having their power cut. (The earliest reference to floodlights Snopes could find was from a 2016 article in The Telegraph.)

Finally, it’s not clear how intrusive the construction schedule was. The documentaries do show significant construction work (in fact, one scene shows Trump’s workers constructing earthen mounds to block the view of nearby houses from the golf course). However, whether that construction ran “through the day and night and weekends” as claimed by the social media posts is unknown.

Sources:

Baxter, Anthony. “Donald Trump Has Battled to Block My Film’s Release for Years. Now He Has Failed.” The Guardian, 16 Jul. 2020. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/16/donald-trump-youve-been-trumped-too.

—. “Molly Forbes Obituary.” The Guardian, 5 May 2021. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/may/05/molly-forbes-obituary.

BBC. “Trump Golf Course Dunes Lose Special Environmental Status.” BBC, 9 Dec. 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-55244660.

BBC Audio | Trumped | Episode 8 – Epilogue. https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/p0hmls55. Accessed 31 Jul. 2025.

Carrell, Severin, and Scotland correspondent. “Donald Trump Issues Abusive Statement against Golf Course Opponent.” The Guardian, 24 Nov. 2009. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/24/donald-trump-golf-course-opponent.

—. “Donald Trump’s Golf Resort Plans Hit the Rough after Mass Purchase of Land.” The Guardian, 26 May 2010. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/26/donald-trump-golf-resort-scotland.

—. “Film-Maker Investigating Donald Trump Resort Wins Apology for Arrest.” The Guardian, 13 Dec. 2011. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/13/filmmaker-apology-arrest-trump-resort.

—. “Film-Makers Arrested on Site of Donald Trump’s Scottish Golf Resort.” The Guardian, 12 Sep. 2010. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/12/film-makers-arrested-donald-trump-scottish-golf-resort.

Compulsory Purchase Orders: Introduction. 21 Jul. 2025, https://www.gov.scot/publications/compulsory-purchase-orders-introduction/.

Donald Trump: Molly Forbes Who Stood up to Golf Plans Dies at 96. 22 Apr. 2021. www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-56837442.

Esposito, Joey. “Trump’s Scottish Golf Course Didn’t Increase Security Due to Men Defecating in Holes.” Snopes, 14 May 2025, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/trump-security-golf-course-scotland/.

Horton, Helena. “The 92-Year-Old Scottish Widow Taking on Donald Trump.” The Telegraph, 27 Oct. 2016, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/27/the-92-year-old-scottish-widow-taking-on-donald-trump/.

Scotland Was “hoodwinked” by Donald Trump, Says Former Aide. 29 Mar. 2024. www.bbc.com, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-68069245.

“Trump Wins Approval for Controversial $2.4b Golf Course Plans.” The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 Nov. 2008, https://www.smh.com.au/world/trump-wins-approval-for-controversial-2-4b-golf-course-plans-20081104-gdt1hq.html.

Yamamoto, Jen. “Meet a 92-Year-Old Woman Whose Life Was Ruined by Donald Trump.” The Daily Beast, 26 Oct. 2016, https://www.thedailybeast.com/meet-a-92-year-old-woman-whose-life-was-ruined-by-donald-trump/.