Not bank stuff, that is all done and easy. Mom's coffee table, dressers, lawn mower, kitchen table, '95 Buick, that kind of stuff? Sis lives in Montana and most of the stuff is just collecting dust down my basement. Sure, I can use the lawn mower and drove the car around for a few years. I had the fun of packing out 80 years worth of accumulated stuff between mom and step-dad 130 miles south of here and getting the house ready to sell. How would you handle it with your sister?

I'd propose that she come and gets what she wants, because by [insert date] the rest of its going to Goodwill.

With my sister, and I, with some difficulty. I hope you do better.

This or a yard sale then goodwill

What he says.

Yup.

+1. I agree. Make sure to document donations so you can take it off your taxes. Also, if any disagreement arises, you have proof.

The hard part for me was figuring out what has worthy of heirloom status. Also, when mom died, I suddenly got back all the gifts given to her over the years.

I would ask her what she wants and tell her she can come get it or arrange for it to be shipped. If she says it's too far or expensive tell her you will sell the items and split the profit with her. If you think it will cause too much stress for you then take the junk to the landfill and donate the rest of it in your name and her name to a non-profit.

Don’t put squat into an estate! Lawyers love ‘em!!

Yep, this

I was lucky when my mother died my brother and I lived close by and for the personal stuff like furniture, kitchen stuff, jewelry and clothes we just had a meeting at the house and came to a consensus that if he took some item then I would take some item, whether we wanted it or not, until most everything was spoken for and ready to move out of the house. What little was left was donated to charity. By doing this no one person was burdened with moving and storing the stuff so we could continue with the sale of the house and we each could later give it away in our own time.

If she doesn't want to come get anything in a timely manner have a yard sale, split the proceeds with her and send what doesn't sell to Goodwill. Pretty simple and it keeps you neutral............Well except for the work but you knew that was going to happen anyways.

I have had the job of dealing with two estates! Both I ask the family to take things they wanted. Sold the rest including houses, and vehicles, and split the money equally among any heirs! Never had any hassles from anyone! Both estates had wills that made the job easy! Good luck with your endeavors!

I don’t think that she is going to nickel and dime it and honestly a couple grand is worth it to me to keep a good relationship with sis. We will face-time this afternoon about it. I did sell the car for $2,500. and I’m using the lawn mower and snowblower. At this point in our lives we are both established and don’t really need any of it. With 2,100 cases of Covid-19 in the county, nobody is coming to look at anything off of Craigslist.

These two....what we all did..

As nicely as possible. Its not the stupid forms that decide whether an estate becomes fubar, its the relationships/attitude.

Idk, my in-laws need to go ahead now and get a 20 yard dumpster brought out now while they’re still alive.

I think it’s extremely selfish of old people to fûck off that last 5-10 years of their life on the internet posting Zamfir questions and playing internet pongo and solitaire.

Leaving all the work to their grown kids(who have families of their own) to clean up their lifetime of hoarding peanut butter jars and People magazines.

Pops lives in same town as me.

Sis lives a few states away. Has nice house, top end stuff.

No way shed want or need the old mans lesser junk.
I dont want it either.

Gonna be a week of hauling chit to a dumpster.

Wil donate boxes of military history books to local library.
Keep the Janes ones though.
Could drag that crap to gunshows and listen to idiots as they rummage through piles, 2 for 10 bucks.

Take forever to move all of that. Hell theres 60 reloading presses in the garage. Cast iron mofos.

Try to make a list of anything that is personal/valuable/sentimental and share it with her. What you don't want is for her to remember something later and want it. And keep good records.
And remember, 10 years from now nobody will care.

Im just gonna let her take whatever, then clear/ clean the house for sale. Split whatever it goes for 50/50.

Call her up and ask her if she still wants any of the stuff.

Set a time for her to get it,then after just give the rest away.

Maybe the old fugger will give it all away to ? in his will. I dunno. Dont care either. Its his chit, not mine.

LOL.....make them do all that cleanup

That's wonderful perspective.
Sadly, a lot of times this isn't always the case.

Do all of your correspondence with her by registered mail with a return receipt, not regular mail or by email.

Doggon. Why cant a iron loading press ever make the yard sales around here

If possible look in every pocket, i find money at goodwill in old suits. Taped money under drawers and behind pictures

I've done a couple estate clean ups, the ones who help clean up can have what they want. The others can delete my number. People piss away their own money and want to fight over other's pennies.

Or a local rescue mission, etc. Many will come with a truck and load up the boxed donations and furniture.

During the lock down we cleaned out and painted 3 large closets, part of the project was to segregate and box up donation items.
Wife and daughters rented a storage unit close by and stored the boxed up stuff in there until the rescue mission staff are off lock down status.

Ideally, the most rational thing to do with personal property is to have a bequest list for specific items BEFOREHAND, signed in ink by the testator, and have a pro deal with the rest. They take a giant bite, but with all the other issues with estates, in the end, I really didn't care about the proceeds from all the "stuff."

Didn't care because my mom, in moments of lucidity, actually made out a list by hand (thank God) and after I had to second-guess the estate lawyer (yep, EYE had to look up the governing statute), I was able to keep the stuff from "my side" that my Mom had brought to her final marriage -- some multigenerational sterling, some nice bronzes, a couple of paintings, the family jewelry, including some from my auntie that was supposed to go to my cousin. The stepsiblings, on the other hand, wanted to cash out her stuff and split it, or I'd have to account for it and I'd pay them for the residual. The picayune penny-ante was just insane.

If you've got space and the patience to pick and sell, fine, but executing a flawed estate is already enough of a nightmare. Have a pro do it, it's over quickly.

If there is enough, have a public auction sale.

My mother passed in January and we had to deal with the same thing. When my sister was ready to sell her house she had an auctioneer come in and sell what they didn't want, so she decided she would handle the stuff in my mothers house the same way. What she over looked is people often have personal family materials and paperwork etc and left that to the auctioneers to figure out. Fortunately they were professional enough to set that stuff aside. Most stuff, but obviously other peoples stuff isn't going to sell for much. A good auctioneer knows who to call that collects (and resells various goods) and has them there to take advantage of the good deals. Wasn't much left and they offered to take what was left to good will. I think my cousin took care of that stuff, don't know what she did, nor do I care. Then my sister didn't want to come and check on the house to see the condition just put it on the market. I said NO WAY. I went down there and having thought about it knew the interior hadn't been painted in over 30 years, and the carpet was filthy, not to mention my mother banged up the interior doors with her electric scooter. I got the house painted on the inside, had the plugs, switches and plates changed from that ugly color they were back in the 50's, to white, and the carpet cleaned for $2500. I interviewed 4 real estate agents, and picked one. House was pending in 3 days, and closed with the pay out in less than 30 days.

That's just how we handled it. Figure out what works for you.

we made a quick and dirty division right after my parents died. it caused hard feelings but oh well. the bandage came off and the scab healed. kinda. don't drag it out. sell everything and split the cash.

My mom’s stuff dwindled as she downsized. Sold it, donated it and gave it away as it went. She’s in a nursing home now. Nothing left.

I was involved when my great aunt passed a few years ago. Nice lady. Childless, husband had passed. Closest relatives were two nephews and two nieces. My mom being a niece. One nephew lives 2 hours away in the same state. He came to the service and left an hour later.
The other two were contacted.

Step daughter charged in with her family searching the home for a will. Don’t think they ever found one.

I tried to help sort and clean up the place. Realized pretty quick their motives were to “inherit” everything. No other direct family ever showed. Really became a mess. I left one afternoon and never returned. Didn’t take a thing. Whatever standing I might have had as a direct descendant wasn’t worth the effort. If I’d have invested the time and effort to chase off the vultures and sell the stuff proceeds would have benefited the nieces and nephews. None of which would or could help. No idea what became of her belongings, properly, or trailer.

Trailer was 30 years old. Belongings and decor matched. Run down garage from the 60’s housed a bunch of old tools and an 2003 Taurus. Property was on the side of a steep hill, guessing an acre.

Within weeks of that experience wife and I updated our wills. I also began and continue to get rid of things that have accumulated at our place over 30 years. Hope to make it much easier on our heirs than that disaster.

We had an estate sale.

Do the same after your sister gets what she wants.

Sell it all, and give your sister her half.

What doesn't sell, give to Goodwill.

We had $15k in sales of just junk nobody in the family wanted in the estate sale.

Someone is ALWAYS gonna be much more "entitled" than the rest of the family. There will always be hard feelings.

Every family has the "one"...

When my father passed my mother put the word out that we could come get what we wanted and anything left after a certain date would either be sold or sent to goodwill. If more than one person wanted something she went with the "first come, first served" concept. My father died of cancer so he took care of things like guns and major sporting good eqpt before he died by gifting them to who he wanted. So we're talking about the little stuff here.She gave a decent amount of time, 3 months, so nobody could claim "they couldn't get there." That system seemed to work pretty good.

I was quite impressed with the way my grandparents estate was handled. They did not have a lot of valuables. Being SDA, there was no jewelry. But after seventy five years of married life there was a lot of memorabilia. Grandma's handmade, by herself, china hutch, her old china, a couple rifles, Grandma's old bolt action .410 which she used to protect her chickens and guinea hens or to catch them for dinner. A few oil paintings on the wall which had been done by shirt tail relations, a Piano, etc, etc.

They also had about $70K left in the bank accounts. So a date was selected, the cash was distributed equally among the six sibling adult children.

Then an auctioneer went through the home with the heirs and sold the contents of the house to the heirs. Whoever wanted something bad enough to outbid his brothers and sisters got it.

Then the proceeds of the auction was again split equally among the siblings. One 65 year old sister was pissed, because she had spent her entire life depending upon the old folks. She lived in a trailer beside their home, and was assured she would gain possession of the house and an acre of ground after Grandpa and Grandma passed. She seemed to think that meant she was entitled to the entire contents of the home as well.

Very true. Seems usually the “one” is the least deserving, gets the lions share, and harbors the hardest feelings.

For my folks. I told them what I want and let the other 2 fight over the rest.

Certain guns I bought for my dad, I want back. Stuff like that.

My kids screwed, I'm leaving her the Bill's and gonna enjoy life....lol

makes the most sense,

now that pictures are free, before the yard sale, take a bunch of pictures and email them, she may actually want a particular piece of furniture, or kitchen gear. (canisters, mixing bowls) you never know what people will care about.

what a great favor she did for you! I hope you and she are at peace.

I would have a huge fire before I had a sale. You can always make a couple grand but burning good stuff is something you don't get to do very often.

This. I told my sister when my mother dies, she can take what she wants, I'd like a few pieces of antiques but if she wants them ok. Then we'll burn the rest. I ain't spending time selling chit.

+3 or 4 ... This is what my wife and her sister did for their uncle who had no children. 70 years of accumulation. Calls to the brothers, nephews and nieces. Other than a few fire arms, nobody wanted or had the room to take any of the other stuff. I made MULTIPLE trips to the dump on free days to clear the house and garage.

I had been executor of my parent's estate up until the time my Dad passed away, then my step-mom made my sister executrix. Prior to her passing my step-mother gave me one of my Dad's diamond rings and told me I could have any of his personal effects that I wanted. After she passed my sister took some items and I took a few agreeing to pay the estate a fair market value for the items. She gave our daughters jewelry that Grandma had promised them, after all that she called an auction company and had the rest of the estate moved to their location for auction. I went to the auction when their car sold and surprisingly it brought more than the auctioneer's estimate. The rest of the estate brought pennies on the dollar as expected ad there wasn't anything very valuable remaining.

Good advice, just had one hauled off; it ain't cheap! Daily rent not so bad, but delivery of container, the haul off fee, plus the disposal fee...adds up to several hundred dollars real quick. But glad I didn't leave it for our sons to have to do. Still have a lot that needs to be gotten rid of while I'm able to do so.

Around here people go bonkers at auctions. Even over mixed boxes of absolute junk. People bidding wars over piece of crap piles of tangled wire, ratty bathroom sink faucets, wooden step ladder, metal coffee cans full of rusty nuts n bolts.
Makes no sense and I do appreciate some things like farm junk but not a dresser full of granny panties.

Alls well that ends well. Sis and I talked at length yesterday afternoon and she was surprised that she got a check for more than she expected from the bank stuff. Right and reasonable is for me to write her another check for half the value of mom's car that I sold and riding lawn mower that I use and she was more than happy with that. I can send her some pictures of stuff that she might still like because she hasn't been back here for a while and forgets what is still here. It is a big load off my mind to have her all good with how everything has gone. Life is too short to be in as pissing match over just stuff with my only sister. Thanks for all the input on this guys.