This is going to sound radical, but it will make your life a lot easier if you do this: tell your family that you will pay for the units for 60 more days. During that time, they are free to retrieve whatever they like.
After that, simply stop making payments. You don’t have to make any decisions. The owner of the storage facility can claim ownership after a certain period, and then sell the goods. Your family members, who love these goods so much but neglected to obtain them while they could, can then buy them from the facility owner if they still love them.
This frees you from being the bad guy and making the decision to sell, and it prevents family members from claiming that you profited from the sale of your mom’s goods. You don’t have to make any painful decisions, or spend your time sorting through things. You don’t have to find places to store things that others think they might want, but can’t yet retrieve. Retrieve what you know you want (if anything) and give others 60 days to do the same. Then walk away. Someone will benefit, and there is no harm done.
Absolutely it will cause credit problems. Don’t just dump the problem on the storage company. They can’t just cut the lock off, they have to go get a court order and that all costs money. They will come after you for the back rent and the extra charges.
If you have 3 units, you must have some furniture and other household goods. If any of it is usable, contact a women’s shelter group and see if anyone is setting up a household and needs the basics - sheets, towels, furniture, kitchen stuff. Arrange for Good Will to do a pick up
I asked the storage unit manager if they worked with any charities. They told me who, I cleared out personal stuff and junk, left all the usable household items for pick up. I hope it landed in the right hands; as long as someone could use it and I wasn’t paying monthly fees, it was a win-win.
If you have an elderly relative with lots of stuff make them tell you now what is the treasure. It’ll save a lot of sorting.
Especially someone with collections. Either write down the information, put it on the back of the item or get a tape recorder while they stand in front of the collection and tell you what they have and any special pieces.
I did this with my mom and so very glad I did. She had a china cabinet full–some items were things she bought, some gifts and others were really family heirlooms and very old with lots of stories. I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t asked.
But when the old people tell you how extremely valuable their stuff is, don’t mentally spend that money. For the majority of stuff, even good stuff, quality stuff, there are not buyers- not for china, not for crystal (including antique cut glass), not for lithographs, not for furs, not for jewelry, not for most art, not for the good furniture, not for dolls. People today are not collecting the same things our parents collected and all the people our parents age are dying and flooding the market with their collections.
My S (long story) had a temporary assignment with his job and moved his things into a storage unit. It sat there for 3 or 4 years, can’t remember which. Anyways, he flew down there had a couple of boxes to ship and like someone else said, the storage company arranged for the rest to be donated.
My mil works for company that does estate sales. I know how her stuff is going to go! And like others have said, the collectible market is way down.
So sorry you are going through this, @montegut. I agree with all the suggestions to send a registered letter to both siblings, tell them you plan to dispose of all the items on/by a specific date, and that if they would like any of the items, they must come to get them at their expense. If you are willing to send photos for this party, tell the person requesting the photos that you will do this one task for them but they must arrange for shipping and send you a prepaid shipping label in advance of your going to the storage unit by XYZ date. You can tell them you will send the photo albums and they can select the photos they want. Period. You are not their personal servant. And when you donate the furnishings, keep the receipts for yourself. You have paid for the storage- you deserve the credit on your taxes for the donations.
I have been in a situation recently where someone has continued to ask favors and take advantage of me/my time. I gave them free information/assistance for a while, but the minute I finally told them that for any continued requests (which they made) I would need to charge for my time, the requests stopped. At least for now.
I wouldn’t send a registered letter to family. The stuff has been sitting there for years so I assume the estate has been disbursed from a legal standpoint. Yes, pick a date and notify your siblings of the date and your intentions but “registered letter” sets a tone that I don’t think is needed and might escalate bad feelings. Just MHO.
Much of this depends on your family dynamics. I wouldn’t send a registered letter because that would cause offense but if you thought someone would jump up and down about “not being notified” then maybe so. Sigh…
You never know what’s in those old boxes of ‘trash’ that some elderly relative has been hoarding for years. I saw a show last night on Fox Business called “Strange Inheritances”. A niece and nephew inherited thousands of boxes of ‘junk’ from an aunt. It took them two years just to go through it all. But they found historic letters from Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe and James Madison, valuable books and other items. Long story short, it was auctioned for $600,000.
Sadly this won’t be the case for the ‘collectibles’ most of us inherit.
Gosh darn my parents who put their money into mutual funds instead of collectibles . That did make it easier when my brother and I had to go through our Mom’s condo last year. We did discover a pair of lamps that the family had forever were actually signed by the designer and possibly worth several hundred dollars. Brother and I had agreed long ago that he could have them before we knew the history and it wasn’t an issue for me. Other than that there were no surprises.
We were able to divide up the family “heirlooms” relatively politely. We used a service to help clear out and donate the furniture and household items that we didn’t want and got a little money from some of it, but mostly it got donated. Then we split the donated value 50/50 for our taxes.
I stayed in the condo for several days and went through all the papers, setting aside anything pertinent and boxing the rest for shredding. Brother and I split the family stuff. There were a lot of papers and photos neither of us really wanted but he wasn’t ready to just toss so he took several boxes; ditto on some objects. He’s interested in family history; I was more interested in sentimental items. So I have everything I want, or at least copies if not originals, and he can do what he likes with the rest after he retires and has time to look through it all in more detail. I kind of pushed him to go through everything while I was in town because I knew it would be much more difficult to do it long distance.
Now DH, on the other hand, has boxes and boxes of stuff from his parents’ house. He brought it all from Connecticut to Illinois, then it moved with us (mostly unopened) on to California last year. I already know our son isn’t interested so most of it will eventually get tossed, most likely without anyone ever looking at it again. But he needed to keep it and we have room in the garage, so OK with me. That experience helped me be more “ruthless” when going through Mom’s stuff. At most I have a couple of boxes of my family’s stuff.
Slight update. It was my birthday, and my brother’s birthday, last week. His wife decided to do a video montage as a surprise. He was turning 50. Once again, the “where are the boys’ baby pictures” question came up. I simply responded, “I don’t have them.” Wife’s response, “Where do you think they are?” Gee, maybe they’re in those storage units nobody has bothered to come clear out!
. That did make it easier when my brother and I had to go through our Mom’s condo last year. We did discover a pair of lamps that the family had forever were actually signed by the designer and possibly worth several hundred dollars. Brother and I had agreed long ago that he could have them before we knew the history and it wasn’t an issue for me. Other than that there were no surprises.