<p>My SIL, single/no kids, died last month. She has three remaining siblings, including my dh. She was a packrat, and now there is some disagreement about what to do with all her stuff.</p>
<p>My dh and his brother, both of whom live hours away, woud like to take a few mementos and give the rest to Goodwill or some other person/cause. Unfortunately, their sister also is a packrat/control freak and has other ideas, like their still-surviving 82yo mother. For instance, the sister has one boy who would like stuff for his apartment, etc. All that is fine, but she’s trying to drag the rest of us along with her plan to hang on to a lot of this stuff and on her timeline.</p>
<p>Dh’s plan now: Offer to spend the weekend after T’giving up there, including our two strong boys, boxing stuff up. If someone wants to go through it all once it’s in boxes, fine. And if she wants our help moving big stuff to her ds’s apt that weekend, also fine. But we can’t spend weekend after weekend going up there to meticulously go over every book and piece of jewelry and dish. If she wants to, then that’s on her. But know that she’s not in the best health either, so my dh feels guilty that he wouldn’t be helping enable her need for control, lol!</p>
<p>Any other ideas? Dh is afraid that she’s going to want to keep paying on her apt and that this will never get done. A compromise I could live with is to box it all up and move it to a storage unit that she pays for, if she really wants to keep it all.</p>
<p>Who is the personal representative for the estate? That person has a fiduciary responsibility to wind up your SIL’s affairs in an orderly way. Family usually helps with dispensing of the possessions, but that person really “owns” the process. If the apartment rent has to be paid (or storage fees or something that are the estate’s responsibility), that is the person who does it.</p>
<p>When my brother died, we had a period of about 10 days when we went through the things in his house and inventoried the signficant stuff (sorry, but it really did take that long… we were also pulling paperwork and computer files to run his business during that time, though). I was one of the personal representatives. Family members couldn’t just “take” expensive items (eg, guns) unless specified in the will or by state law. Otherwise the contents of the house should be appraised, and people should pay that amount for them if they want them. I supposed if all the heirs agreed, something could be given to a family member (but we had one heir who was not present, so we followed the rules). If you have an estate appraiser come in, be sure to tell them items you want specifically appraised (a lot of times they will give you a bulk number unless you tell them about the specific items you want split out).</p>
<p>We then had a weekend when we sold the stuff the family did not want via Craigslist listings, and boxed up and donated (or chucked) the rest of the stuff.</p>
<p>If not through a personal representative (i.e. if the estate does not need probate), then I’m not sure I see the problem. Your DH and his brother go and get their mementos. She gets the rest. They don’t have to keep going up there “every weekend” to go through anything. She calls and says, "What about . . . " and he says, “It’s yours.” Then if SIL wants to keep paying rent on the apartment to keep all the stuff there, she can. Or she can move it into storage. Or do whatever she wants with it. But once your DH and his brother are done, they’re done.</p>
<p>Gosh, intparent, that sounds complicated. I think their mom is the executor, but, trust me, the woman who died didn’t have much, and she had significant debt. No one has co-signed on her credit cards, so my understanding is that creditors can’t go after anyone.</p>
<p>The only big thing of any value is her used car, I guess. The rest is clothes and books and household goods. And lots of junk. She didn’t own this home; she was renting a duplex.</p>
<p>Chedva, the problem is that she will expect financial help to keep this apartment going and going while she slowly makes her way through this stuff. We don’t want to be on the financial hook, and dh is too nice to just say no. That’s where I come in. I’m not nearly as nice as he is …</p>
<p>I’d give her the limits of my involvement, “Hey Sis, I can give you this weekend to do whatever needs to be done with the boys, after that I am done financially and physically; you decide”</p>
<p>Softened to match her ability to hear your words!</p>
<p>YDS, what type of lease did she have? Can you talk the other relatives into giving the landlord written notice of lease termination, maybe as of year end? That would give them a deadline.</p>
<p>Is there anything that could be sold on eBay, or does no one even want to bother with that?</p>
<p>Understood, YDS. Then your problem is with your DH, not with your SIL. I think some sort of limit, as missypie suggested, is necessary. He can even say, “I can pay for 2 months of rent (or help you with 2 months of rent)” or however much, and then, that’s it. She’s an adult; perhaps it’s time to treat her like one?</p>
<p>Sometimes there is just no getting around hard feelings. My brother died last year. His daughter (21 at the time), who lives across the country near me & a couple other brothers, wanted to be able to go through his things & decide what she wanted to keep. Because the death was sudden & another brother lived with him, we left the things in his apartment for several months. A brother who did not live there paid half the rent until he could get out there to bring everything back in a U Haul. Once back, he contacted my niece & said he would keep the things in his garage until she could go through to decide what she wants. Flash forward a year … niece hasn’t bothered to go through things, but she has emphatically stated that no one is to touch anything until she does. The estate was finally settled last month, and my niece was livid because my brother requested reimbursement for the apartment rent, U Haul, and other costs associated with taking care of everything. She said he was taking “her” money.</p>
<p>We have decided that some people just don’t see beyond themselves and their own wants/needs. I say tell the woman how you want things to happen, and let her know she is welcome to do whatever she wants but will have to foot the bill that comes along with it.</p>
<p>If this furniture is worth taking for the SIL’s kid, then it may have some value in an estate sale/garage sale/Craigslist. Or the mom should sell the car and pay the rent if she needs to (if she is responsible for the estate). I agree with those who say set a hard deadline (max end of the year). Someone needs to review the lease and work with the landlord regarding a date for moving out, too. Hopefully an estate attorney will not be needed, but there can be complex issues surrounding an estate. Do you know if she had a will?</p>
<p>Here is a link on the probate process. No one should be distributing assets from the estate (even furniture) without understanding the legal implications and who has the legal right to any assets. There is an order in which creditors must be paid, for example.</p>
<p>My very good friend has been dealing with this same issue for 2 years now. That’s right–2 years! She and her husband (his Mom’s estate) finally set a date and told the rest of the family that everything in the house must to be cleared by such-and-such a date. If they wanted anything in the house, they needed to come and pick it up by “insert date”. Anything not removed from the house would be sold at an estate sale and the money from the sale will be split among the siblings. </p>
<p>She hired a guy who specializes in pricing and organizing estate/yard sales. He came in and went through the stuff. He brought in a crew and they priced and organized the junk (yes, mostly junk). The guy and his crew ran a viewing/sale on a Friday evening. On Sat. and Sun. they ran an all day sale. Anything left over went into a big dumpster. He took his cut (I think it was 10% of the total sales). </p>
<p>Had my friend and her husband not set a deadline, the junk would have sat around for another 2 years waiting for everyone to get around to going through it. It was a mess. No one wanted to go through the stuff yet they didn’t want the stuff to be thrown out. They’re a family of pack rats and believe every little thing has a sentimental value.</p>
<p>Definitely set a specific deadline for the apartment to be cleared out. Be firm because family members will try to guilt you into holding on to the stuff longer. There are some people who just can’t let go of things. When the deadline passes, throw the stuff lying behind into a big dumpster and get rid of it.</p>
<p>Chedva, yeah, dh is a hindrance rather than a help in this because he doesn’t want to hurt sister’s feelings. Again, I don’t have that problem, lol ;)</p>
<p>My husband’s family still hasn’t divvied up their stuff. Basically what happened was his sister put all the nice things in storage (art and good furniture) and they had a tag sale for the rest. They three siblings met one weekend and everyone sort of took what they wanted. My husband came home with several bureaus, a wonderful coffee table, and a fair amount of art from their travels. The California brother took almost nothing. His sister has some, but a tiny apartment. There’s still a lot left in storage that no one wants, but they don’t know what to do with it. (Yugoslavian primitive art anyone?) His parents passed away **six **years ago!</p>
<p>My mother and her sister took turns picking things from their parent’s house until they ran out of stuff they wanted. A childless great aunt of mine had a family silent auction. I think everyone got a certain amount to spend and then got to spend it and they had an appraiser go and put it in lots. I’m not sure exactly how it worked, but I’m told it was a lot of fun. I wasn’t able to be there, but someone got me a pair of silver salt shakers.</p>
<p>I know someone who died in 1995 but the family left the house vacant for 5 years because no one wanted to go thru the stuff. FINALLY cleaned it up enough to rent, but there are still a lot of things under the house & in the attic & in relatives’ garages aging–15 years after the death! Yes, it can drag a long time & is a difficult situation.</p>
<p>My parents live in FL & the rest of us live in MI. When my mom passed away this year, my dad asked my brothers & me to clean out my mom’s stuff before we left. We actually had a wonderful time as we went through her things, reminiscing. We kept a few things, took her beautiful clothes to a resale shop, and donated the rest. We left a few things in various places for my dad to find as he goes through his lonely days. I am so thankful that my brothers & I agree on so many things. My dad has already told us how to handle disposing of the rest of his possessions & the house when his time comes. We are a dysfunctional family in many ways, but we are doing some things right, I guess.</p>
<p>Just talked to the packrat/control freak sister. This is going to be so difficult. Yes, she said, “And if we have to keep the apt another month, we can just do that.” Admittedly, everyone’s holiday schedule is crazy so that wouldn’t be the end of the world. She talked about how going through everything slowly and deliberately was “therapeutic” and how we should all take our time and reflect while there. And that if we come in and start boxing things up it will be chaotic. I can see now that part of the issue is that she doesn’t want some family heirloom-type things to not be taken, but she doesn’t have room, so she wants all of us to take some. Didn’t say that, of course, but that’s what’s going on. She says she’s already gone through lots and sorted out the “valuable” stuff for possible sale on ebay or something. All that is fine/great, I said, but we have limited opportunities to come up and help and while we’re there we want to do the most we can to help, especially with our two strong boys in tow, and that dh has a bad knee and bad back and just can’t do all the stuff he used to (Dh is baby of the family and by far the strongest of the lot, but, hey, he’s 48 now and can’t throw furniture around by himself anymore). Left it at we’ll be there T’giving weekend to do what can be done.</p>