How do you divide up belongings that will be inherited amonst the children?

I think I’m going to go start tagging my art for the kids. I never want to put them in this position. I guess I better make a list for my jewelry too. I’m so sorry you have to go through this. There are really no good answers.

My one grandmother has been giving things away slowly for some time now so that this isn’t going to be a problem when the estate needs to get liquidated, I think that is so wise. My other grandmother hung onto everything and when she passed away this fall, there was some unhappiness amongst siblings as things got divided. One thing they did was if a sibling gave the artwork in the first place, then they had the right to claim it first or say they didn’t want it. Sometimes it came down to drawing a name out of a hat because no one could decide. This is such a tough situation.

I saw my mother and her sisters go through my grandmother’s things….and she didn’t have a lot, but it was very difficult for them to do. As it was for my MIL and her sister when their Mom passed away. There were a lot of hard feelings in the end in that situation and now they don’t even speak. Terribly sad.

I think giving things away while you are stil alive is a great idea! You can’t take it with you, but if you leave it behind, it can end up causing a lot of resentment.

You have all the siblings get together and discuss what to do. The goal is to reach consensus—a decision that everyone can live with. And don’t focus on consensus about exactly what goes to whom—focus on consensus about a fair method to decide.

Because, really, the problem is not finding a solution that everyone on Fluther thinks is fair. The problem is finding a solution that your relatives think is fair.

My mother asked us each to go around and make notes about the things that meant the most to us. She said her mother made her and her sisters do this, and she hated it, but then she did it to us. So we all made lists. She thought that if more than one of us named a certain thing, we would negotiate and trade off. But everything she left is with her husband now anyway, and I doubt that I will ever see a thing. A little memento would be nice.

Many a family has been divided by questions like this. Sometimes it is best to involve an impartial arbiter.

@Jeruba: do you know whether arbitrators with this kind of expertise even exist?

@Daloon, I imagine that legal professionals who serve as executors must either have it or know people who do.

I’ll bet there are plenty of people who work with divorces and have pertinent experience.

Cwilbur seems right to me – before the loaded questions about actual articles even arise, slow way down and decide on a process.

Maybe a mediation session or two or three ? These are cheap if you have a conflict-resolution center available; maybe do it via Skype since the sibs are physically distant.
Mediators’ job is to collect each person’s wishes and make sure all of them are addressed. Nice to have someone outside the family do this.
Formal arbitration is intrinsically more adversarial. It would be an ideal next step if a mediated discussion failed.
Here’s an example of a process that worked. My stepfather’s house would have been pretty bare if we’d taken away all my mother’s furniture after she died. We had current market value determined by an auction house we agreed to trust, and then he bought all that stuff from me and my brother, except for pieces we each claimed. We “loaned” him those things for his lifetime. No problems. it helped that we didn’t need any of it

Is the parent that is in the nursing home able to have a discussion? What to do depends on the yes or no answer for daloon’s particular situation. It makes sense that if someone gave something, than that something should return to that person. If someone has a particular fondness for whatever reason for something, than it should be taken into consideration. A mediator is a good idea.

I can’t even believe you’re asking this, dad!

When my Dad had to distribute his folks’ things among him and his 4 siblings, he inventoried everything in a list and had all the siblings mark down what they wanted in order of priority (a draft, essentially). Anything unwanted was sold or donated. His rationale was that the value of the different items was subjective. Interestingly, all of the siblings chose differently among the big ticket items, so there wasn’t much of a conflict.

I think this was also balanced against what the siblings had already received. For example, my aunt had received a good bit of assistance over the years, and the accounting for those “loans” was deducted from her cash disbursement.

If the person is alive and needing care, it’s probably best to sell it all, with siblings getting first right to purchase at a discounted rate. The money and the items are still the parent’s, and the proceeds should go for their care and expenses. It would not make sense for a child to get an expensive piece of artwork, and the parent not have income to cover all of their expenses.

Thats a really good question. I think I would want my kids to divide my stuff by emotional worth, not monetary. I would want my daughter to want mygreat grandmothers china because it reminded her of thanksgiving dinners with the family, not because she could sell it and buy a new car or
something like that. So if these
kids don’t want things for the
emotional value, then the only
fair thing to do would be
inventory everything, assign
value, and split it up so each
kid makes the same amount
of money. Then they can all pay equal amounts towards the parents care.
What a sad situation :-(

It is sad, but also common. Emotional value is an issue. What weight does it have compared to financial value?

In theory, if the mother needs more money for her care after the art and furniture have been distributed, then the value of that is for her care, although it gets tricky when calculating the spend-down for Medicaid eligibility.

No one expected that she would need more than three years worth of long term care (which is what she insured for).

Besides emotional value and financial value, it also seems to me there is a priority value that will be different for each child, but will also help establish which items are wanted more by the most people. I’ve suggested a scoring system that gives each item points that include all those types of values, and then distribution according to a draft, where, at the end, they must each get equal value scores. But that’s probably too complicated and unworkable for them. It’s possible that one of the items is worth more than all the rest combined.

Really what it gets down to is, you own the things in your home. There is no obligation to pass things on. It’s nice if you can, but it should never be expected by children that they’re entitled to their parent’s possessions.

Have an auction sale, if one wants it bad enough they will buy it, the price is actually inflated because they are buying from themselves. The money generated from the auction will be split, everyone gets what they want and the stuff nobody wanted generates cash money.

Does anyone remember how it worked for the Waterhouse family in Cryptonomicon? Something about placing all the household goods in a parking lot and taking turns moving the things you really wanted off to separate corners, trading as necessary to keep things fair?

Oh, yes. I think that’s where I got the idea of the auction technique that I suggested to my wife. It was a cool idea to put everything in the parking lot. I’d like to see someone do that here in the Northeast, snow and all.