settling an estate

[user 26]

this is so far off topic i hesitate to post it here. but i am going a little crazy. no, actually, i am trying NOT to go a little crazy.
my dad died about a year ago. my mom 7 years ago. the house has stayed as it was when my mom was still with us. my dad was comfortable that way.
very complicated family dynamic here but my eldest sister is executor ... yet she could not bring herself to handle the personal effects. my brothers were so frustrated by nothing happening they were planning to go to court to ask that she be removed as executor. so i stepped in and pushed my sister into making some decisions. with her permission, i went to the house. most of the food had to be disposed of as it had expired and food pantries wouldn't take that. most of the clothing was donated to charity.
we had a family meeting and the house is being sold to one of the grandchildren. furnishings and all personal effects remain to be distributed.
one of my sisters lives 11 hours away. so i went to the house (with executor/sister's permission - yeesh) and took pictures of all the rooms, contents of drawers, embroidery my mother did ... all of it ... and created a family website. then i contacted each of my brothers and sisters and told them to please email a list of what they want. each of them is responsible for their own children and grandchildren ... so if my daughter wants a table, it's up to me to put in a request for it. after all requests were in, any duplicate requests - names were drawn from a hat (literally) to say who would get those items. so far, almost so good. one of my nephews totally went off on me that he only just learned about all this .... but i sorted that out.
anyway
i went to the house the other day to label things and some had already been removed. little things ... and of course the house is FULL of little things. but little things that only one person had requested are gone and the family members who asked for them have not been to the house yet.
this is such a mess. i am right smack in the middle of it and am trying to keep my family from fracturing but it's not working. i am the youngest and actually get along with all siblings - not everyone gets along (surprise)
my sister/executor is away and not well, so she sent out an email saying if you took something you didn't request, bring it back and then put in a request for it. i know people are not going to bring things back. at least i would be very surprised if they did. and the house is full of lots of little stuff. everything you would expect in a house that was lived in for 60+ years and built by the folks who lived there. this is not going to work well for my far away sister unless my executor sister takes a phone request from her .. i guess that would work.
has anyone dealt with this situation? i have heard of squabbling over things and thought 'not my family' ... i am still hoping that the little things that went missing were taken because others didn't realize they were spoken for.

okay ... this has turned into a vent/cry session.
your suggestions are welcome.

 

[Morticia]

All I have are hugs. I told my mother if she wants certain people to have certain things to be sure she puts it in her will. Plain and simple, do NOT leave it to me and my brother to sort out. She's told me a few things and who she wants to have them. She asks me, 'Do you want this?' and if I tell her no, then she tells me who should get it.
But, geez, I'm not going to remember that stuff when I'm stressed.

 

[Tony]

Best of luck with this whole situation. Kudos to you for taking over the leadership role. Hopefully your siblings are mature about it and not resort to petty squabling.
My parents don't have a will and don't plan on making one. They just expect their estate to be split 50/50 to my sister and me.

 

[Morticia]

Best of luck with this whole situation. Kudos to you for taking over the leadership role. Hopefully your siblings are mature about it and not resort to petty squabling.
My parents don't have a will and don't plan on making one. They just expect their estate to be split 50/50 to my sister and me..

My parents don't have a will and don't plan on making one. They just expect their estate to be split 50/50 to my sister and me.

You may want to do some research on this for them...some states won't be as generous with your parents' estate as they would like. And the state may take a big chunk.

 

[gillumhouse]

SS, you have my total sympathies. Is there any way anyone OTHER than a sib could have gone into the house? A cousin? An aunt or Uncle? It sounds as if you are going to have to ask the person whose requests are missing to be understanding that things were removed and you cannot tell by whom. The sad thing is that sometimes it is those "little things" that no one thinks about that turn out to be the things of value beyond sentiment.
We would ALL like to know what happened to my Mom's Indian bookends - for sentiment actually. I am betting on our wicked step-brother.
We had a situation with my Mom of steps. The oldest step-brother was the Exec (on both wills actually) if Mom was unwilling or unable when my step-Dad died. We breathed a sigh of relief when she told him to do it (she was already in Alzheimers and we did not want to have to declare her). He never gave anyone an accounting so we have no idea of what he did other than accuse me and my sibs of being money-hungry people (we asked how much she had so we would know if we were going to have to take care of her).
I had no doubts about my sibs, but did not know what would be with the spouses. Since Mom died in Florida we were able to "cuff" the step. There were no signatures or initials on any of the 3 pages except the final. Step was informed he would probate the will through my brother's lawyer in Florida - and by the way Florida does not recognize steps. Otherwise we would challenge the will. We had no idea what we were dealing with but found out later that I could have paid cash for ANY brand new high end car with my 1/8th share (I put it into the B & B - all gone!). When Daddy died we were all surprised to get anything - and that was only because I was able to transfer ownership of his house to a niece (no cash, she took it off our hands) - quickly with divine intervention - as his POA.
I understand the sibs not speaking - I am the one they all talk to in our family and it is hard trying to keep the peace to hope for a thaw. Obnoxious brother actually went to my B-i-L's funeral last week and he and my sister had not spoken civilly to each other for years. THAW!! Fortunately the gesture was not messed up by them having a chance to actually talk to each other before he had to leave.
Having seen how my kids handled the dividing of their Mother's stuff (we held it until all of them were old enough and settled enough to know what they wanted) I am confident that there will not be a problem with our 6 - not much to leave anyway other than debt.
You are in my prayers.

 

[user 26]

thank you, kathleen. having dealt with my own late husband's 'leavings', i hope i bring enough understanding about sentimental wants and material wants to the table.
i can't be at the house supervising this although i've been going a few times a week. i'm an hour's drive away when lucky since i have to go through boston, mass. it's not so bad, just a hassle. there is no internet or cable or tv, it's quite boring to just hang there in case someone comes by. i guess i'm surprised that supervision is apparently necessary.
i've asked my family to be calm and thoughtful about this situation. i think what has happened is that, more than once, someone went to the house to pick up something 'assigned' to them and saw some little thing they forgot existed and ... away it went ... without them stopping to check that someone had already been told they could have it since no one else requested it. also, my furthest away sister is very unpopular so there is some deep seated resentment about repeated financial rescues and why should she get more .... ah, me. what's done is done ... i'm just so sad ... i'll get over it.
i thank you again for your kind words.

 

[swirt]

Sorry you are caught up in this SS. It gives me an idea for some web service that helps with this...list every item and let people in the family request claim, then has a variety of ways to settle it (electronically pulls names out of hats for contested items or assigns some approximate monetary value and helps decide the fairness of the split).
My brother went through this a few years back with his in-laws. It was a mess. I feel for you.

 

[YellowSocks]

my dad died about a year ago. my mom 7 years ago. the house has stayed as it was when my mom was still with us. my dad was comfortable that way.

First, my utmost sympathy. My dad died the week after my kids were born (5 years ago), and my mom died a year and a half later... it takes three years to grieve a parent, and I'm finally coming out from under it.

very complicated family dynamic here but my eldest sister is executor ...

Isn't it always complicated? In our family dynamic it should have been me as executor, but as I lived out of state I wasn't allowed.

yet she could not bring herself to handle the personal effects. my brothers were so frustrated by nothing happening they were planning to go to court to ask that she be removed as executor. so i stepped in and pushed my sister into making some decisions. with her permission, i went to the house. most of the food had to be disposed of as it had expired and food pantries wouldn't take that. most of the clothing was donated to charity.

Good for you!! It was the right thing to do.

we had a family meeting and the house is being sold to one of the grandchildren. furnishings and all personal effects remain to be distributed.

The family meeting was a good thing, too. Too bad you couldn't divy stuff up then.

one of my sisters lives 11 hours away. so i went to the house (with executor/sister's permission - yeesh) and took pictures of all the rooms, contents of drawers, embroidery my mother did ... all of it ... and created a family website. then i contacted each of my brothers and sisters and told them to please email a list of what they want. each of them is responsible for their own children and grandchildren ... so if my daughter wants a table, it's up to me to put in a request for it. after all requests were in, any duplicate requests - names were drawn from a hat (literally) to say who would get those items. so far, almost so good. one of my nephews totally went off on me that he only just learned about all this .... but i sorted that out.

That sounds like a very, very reasonable way to go about it. In our case we got the three of us, no kids and no spouses (that was key!), the day after the funeral with handwritten short lists. In our case it was helped by the fact that my brother was planning to move to Nepal and didn't want a lot of big stuff and my sister already had what she'd wanted since she lived next door, and I was happy to take the rest of the "stuff." We each got things that had sentimental value, with only a little bit of finangling here and there... But I'm giving you the sanitized version.

i went to the house the other day to label things and some had already been removed. little things ... and of course the house is FULL of little things. but little things that only one person had requested are gone and the family members who asked for them have not been to the house yet.

Do you mean that all of the things that are missing were wanted by the same person?

this is such a mess. i am right smack in the middle of it and am trying to keep my family from fracturing but it's not working. i am the youngest and actually get along with all siblings - not everyone gets along (surprise)

That stinks and you have my total sympathy.

my sister/executor is away and not well, so she sent out an email saying if you took something you didn't request, bring it back and then put in a request for it. i know people are not going to bring things back. at least i would be very surprised if they did.

But at least she tried...

and the house is full of lots of little stuff. everything you would expect in a house that was lived in for 60+ years and built by the folks who lived there. this is not going to work well for my far away sister unless my executor sister takes a phone request from her .. i guess that would work.

You do not say how many siblings you have, but I guess you have to be one of at least five. And you do not say how many little things are missing, but by your description there have to be a LOT of things in that house. There are two issues here. One is that all of your siblings want, and rightly so, mementos and meaningful items from your parents. And it should be abundantly clear that everything needs to be split up and spread out amoung the family so that everyone has something to remember your parents by. In my personal opinion, that distribution does not necessarily need to be "even," meaning that everyone gets an exact percentage, so much as it's even in that everyone gets something special, something they requested, something meaningful to each one. So, my first question is whether, even though things are missing, there are still ample requested items left that everyone can have many things to remember your parents by.
The second issue is the family dynamic of who took what and where is it now? This is not something that either you nor your executor-sister (assuming she's not the one who took the stuff) have much control over. There's going to be finger-pointing and surmising, but it's not your fault, it's not in your control, and there's very little (beyond the email already sent) that you're going to be able to do about it. Which, naturally, totally stinks. And seven years from now you'll be at someone's house and you'll see one of the items and then you'll know where that one ended up, but what can you do about it?
So, my only suggestion isn't much use, as I'm sure it's what you're already doing. That is, to do what you can but understand there's only so much you can do. It's hard watching a tense or difficult or complicated family dynamic deteriorate, but you can only do so much, after which the responsibility lies with others and their choices, good or bad. It's sad, though, and a hard thing to have to go through.

has anyone dealt with this situation? i have heard of squabbling over things and thought 'not my family' ... i am still hoping that the little things that went missing were taken because others didn't realize they were spoken for.

I, too, always thought, "not my family." And when my mom died someone at her viewing told me that I would see my family through new eyes in the next few days. Actually, I'd already been dealing with a lot of crap by the time we got to the viewing, and seeing us in a new light. There's only three of us, which helps, and we're all generally willing to be reasonable, which was also a BIG help. But then two factors made things really tough. First was that we all three, in our individual ways, are control freaks. I mean, I knew I'm a bit forceful at times, but when I arrived in Ohio after my mom died I saw the three of us in a new way... all three of us are absolutely, positively controlling in three very different ways. The other factor is our spouses, each of whom is difficult and/or bizarre in their own unique way. (Gotta love 'em though, since we're stuck with 'em!) My dh handled himself the best of the three, if I say so myself, but then, that wasn't difficult considering the others' behavior...
I'm afraid of giving too much information, but you can email me offline if you want details. We started out rough, but I made peace, and made peace, and moderated discussions, and was incredibly stressed, and got us through the first three or four days OK. We had our meeting (sans kids and spouses), worked things out sufficiently if not perfectly, and I left to go back to Maryland. After I left things deteriorated to the point where my sister has seen my brother exactly once since, and my bil swears he'll never see or speak to them again. And understandably so, given my brother and his wife's behavior at the time. Then, to top it all off, my brother left and took ALL of the photo albumns with him back to Maryland. Then moved to Nepal. I finally got the albumns back from him this past November and am now going to be stuck divying them up.

okay ... this has turned into a vent/cry session.

:hugs:
That's what we're here for, right?
You have my total sympathy, and you're in my prayers.
=/
Kk.

 

[Morticia]

my dad died about a year ago. my mom 7 years ago. the house has stayed as it was when my mom was still with us. my dad was comfortable that way.

First, my utmost sympathy. My dad died the week after my kids were born (5 years ago), and my mom died a year and a half later... it takes three years to grieve a parent, and I'm finally coming out from under it.

very complicated family dynamic here but my eldest sister is executor ...

Isn't it always complicated? In our family dynamic it should have been me as executor, but as I lived out of state I wasn't allowed.

yet she could not bring herself to handle the personal effects. my brothers were so frustrated by nothing happening they were planning to go to court to ask that she be removed as executor. so i stepped in and pushed my sister into making some decisions. with her permission, i went to the house. most of the food had to be disposed of as it had expired and food pantries wouldn't take that. most of the clothing was donated to charity.

Good for you!! It was the right thing to do.

we had a family meeting and the house is being sold to one of the grandchildren. furnishings and all personal effects remain to be distributed.

The family meeting was a good thing, too. Too bad you couldn't divy stuff up then.

one of my sisters lives 11 hours away. so i went to the house (with executor/sister's permission - yeesh) and took pictures of all the rooms, contents of drawers, embroidery my mother did ... all of it ... and created a family website. then i contacted each of my brothers and sisters and told them to please email a list of what they want. each of them is responsible for their own children and grandchildren ... so if my daughter wants a table, it's up to me to put in a request for it. after all requests were in, any duplicate requests - names were drawn from a hat (literally) to say who would get those items. so far, almost so good. one of my nephews totally went off on me that he only just learned about all this .... but i sorted that out.

That sounds like a very, very reasonable way to go about it. In our case we got the three of us, no kids and no spouses (that was key!), the day after the funeral with handwritten short lists. In our case it was helped by the fact that my brother was planning to move to Nepal and didn't want a lot of big stuff and my sister already had what she'd wanted since she lived next door, and I was happy to take the rest of the "stuff." We each got things that had sentimental value, with only a little bit of finangling here and there... But I'm giving you the sanitized version.

i went to the house the other day to label things and some had already been removed. little things ... and of course the house is FULL of little things. but little things that only one person had requested are gone and the family members who asked for them have not been to the house yet.

Do you mean that all of the things that are missing were wanted by the same person?

this is such a mess. i am right smack in the middle of it and am trying to keep my family from fracturing but it's not working. i am the youngest and actually get along with all siblings - not everyone gets along (surprise)

That stinks and you have my total sympathy.

my sister/executor is away and not well, so she sent out an email saying if you took something you didn't request, bring it back and then put in a request for it. i know people are not going to bring things back. at least i would be very surprised if they did.

But at least she tried...

and the house is full of lots of little stuff. everything you would expect in a house that was lived in for 60+ years and built by the folks who lived there. this is not going to work well for my far away sister unless my executor sister takes a phone request from her .. i guess that would work.

You do not say how many siblings you have, but I guess you have to be one of at least five. And you do not say how many little things are missing, but by your description there have to be a LOT of things in that house. There are two issues here. One is that all of your siblings want, and rightly so, mementos and meaningful items from your parents. And it should be abundantly clear that everything needs to be split up and spread out amoung the family so that everyone has something to remember your parents by. In my personal opinion, that distribution does not necessarily need to be "even," meaning that everyone gets an exact percentage, so much as it's even in that everyone gets something special, something they requested, something meaningful to each one. So, my first question is whether, even though things are missing, there are still ample requested items left that everyone can have many things to remember your parents by.
The second issue is the family dynamic of who took what and where is it now? This is not something that either you nor your executor-sister (assuming she's not the one who took the stuff) have much control over. There's going to be finger-pointing and surmising, but it's not your fault, it's not in your control, and there's very little (beyond the email already sent) that you're going to be able to do about it. Which, naturally, totally stinks. And seven years from now you'll be at someone's house and you'll see one of the items and then you'll know where that one ended up, but what can you do about it?
So, my only suggestion isn't much use, as I'm sure it's what you're already doing. That is, to do what you can but understand there's only so much you can do. It's hard watching a tense or difficult or complicated family dynamic deteriorate, but you can only do so much, after which the responsibility lies with others and their choices, good or bad. It's sad, though, and a hard thing to have to go through.

has anyone dealt with this situation? i have heard of squabbling over things and thought 'not my family' ... i am still hoping that the little things that went missing were taken because others didn't realize they were spoken for.

I, too, always thought, "not my family." And when my mom died someone at her viewing told me that I would see my family through new eyes in the next few days. Actually, I'd already been dealing with a lot of crap by the time we got to the viewing, and seeing us in a new light. There's only three of us, which helps, and we're all generally willing to be reasonable, which was also a BIG help. But then two factors made things really tough. First was that we all three, in our individual ways, are control freaks. I mean, I knew I'm a bit forceful at times, but when I arrived in Ohio after my mom died I saw the three of us in a new way... all three of us are absolutely, positively controlling in three very different ways. The other factor is our spouses, each of whom is difficult and/or bizarre in their own unique way. (Gotta love 'em though, since we're stuck with 'em!) My dh handled himself the best of the three, if I say so myself, but then, that wasn't difficult considering the others' behavior...
I'm afraid of giving too much information, but you can email me offline if you want details. We started out rough, but I made peace, and made peace, and moderated discussions, and was incredibly stressed, and got us through the first three or four days OK. We had our meeting (sans kids and spouses), worked things out sufficiently if not perfectly, and I left to go back to Maryland. After I left things deteriorated to the point where my sister has seen my brother exactly once since, and my bil swears he'll never see or speak to them again. And understandably so, given my brother and his wife's behavior at the time. Then, to top it all off, my brother left and took ALL of the photo albumns with him back to Maryland. Then moved to Nepal. I finally got the albumns back from him this past November and am now going to be stuck divying them up.

okay ... this has turned into a vent/cry session.

:hugs:
That's what we're here for, right?
You have my total sympathy, and you're in my prayers.
=/
Kk..

Interesting. My parents wanted me as executor/rix but their lawyer told them no. Mostly, I think, because he didn't want to deal with someone out of state.

 

[hawley]

Since some things have disappeared, I would have all the locks changed. Then you deal with what was asked for.

 

[Samster]

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
We all have these family things that we go through. I feel for you!
I was the Personal Representative for my Mom's estate 5 years ago & I am the youngest of 4 and the only daughter. Luckily, I had no issues with things walking away from her house. But I did have to get after my eldest brother to pick up his things, which he never did. One of my nephews was kind enough to put it in his trailer & then eventually took it to him. My eldest brother is now administering my Aunt's estate & he's had some real issues. Everything was to be divided between her 10 nieces/nephews (they didn't have kids of their own) and right after her death, some of my cousins started badgering my brother for money. Then, they descended on her house like locusts, even after he had sent out a spreadsheet with an inventory for folks to pick what they wanted. He was going to flip a coin or whatever if more than one person wanted the same item. Welllllllllllll....it was similar to your situation with a few people getting in there with keys. Fortunately, he was able to nip it in the bud by telling people that money would be deducted from their share for items that they took that should actually go to someone else. (I don't know how he was going to figure this out, but the threat apparently worked!) They are more interested in cashola!!! I told him that those cousins could have what they wanted, I wasn't getting into it with them but there are a few things that they didn't want that are coming to me.
He also had all of us sign a document agreeing to letting him sell her house, dispose of the contents as agreed (which each person responsible for picking up & transporting said items at their own expense), and donate any remaining items to Catholic charities. I reminded him that I had to arrange to get his things from my Mom's house, so he's helping me out on that part. haha!
For the probate court requirements for reporting, I tried to keep it simple. In my Mom's County & State, they will let the Personal Representative assign a value to everything on an inventory if the other inheritors agree to that. So, I just did my best & then reported that the dollar amount was split evenly 4 ways. That was a huge help and it didn't get into the minutiae of every little knick knack being on a list. For example, contents of house value = $40K, split 4 ways for $10K. All that reporting can just get to be a big PITA.
My brother is finding out that there is just no telling about some people.....
Change the locks!!

 

[user 26]

it's all very distressing. yes, there is plenty of stuff for all to have some.
my sister does not want to change the locks .... and i have no authority to do that. i told her to CALL people, not email, because i think the emails are being ignored. it is small, small things that went away ... handmade one-of-a-kind things ... to me, obviously someone wanted them so much they did not want to risk 'losing' in the ''names out of a hat'' thing.
blech!

i really don't like this little sick guy, but it fits!
a friend was just telling me how her mother had asked her and her sister to come to the house and tell her what each would like to have when she and the dad pass away. she was stunned that her sister 'scurried' through the house, making a list. i told my friend, it is SO much better that way! there are only two 'children' and you might think there would be no problem. but you just never know. especially if both have an attachment to something.

 

[Penelope]

it's all very distressing. yes, there is plenty of stuff for all to have some.
my sister does not want to change the locks .... and i have no authority to do that. i told her to CALL people, not email, because i think the emails are being ignored. it is small, small things that went away ... handmade one-of-a-kind things ... to me, obviously someone wanted them so much they did not want to risk 'losing' in the ''names out of a hat'' thing.
blech!

i really don't like this little sick guy, but it fits!
a friend was just telling me how her mother had asked her and her sister to come to the house and tell her what each would like to have when she and the dad pass away. she was stunned that her sister 'scurried' through the house, making a list. i told my friend, it is SO much better that way! there are only two 'children' and you might think there would be no problem. but you just never know. especially if both have an attachment to something..

My grandmother did something similiar, only it was with a yellow legal pad and round sticky notes. She told us all to come down to Myrtle Beach, SC over the course of 2 years and tell her what we wanted. You had to look at the bottom of what you thought you might want to see if anyone had dibbed it first. It was a very practical way to do it...not a very pleasant thing to think about, but she was 85 years old. It was going to happen. I think the events after she passed were a lot more manageable due to the fact that we weren't going to be bickering over who did what when with whom and why.
SS, my heart goes out to you during this trying time. You are in my prayers.

 

[Morticia]

it's all very distressing. yes, there is plenty of stuff for all to have some.
my sister does not want to change the locks .... and i have no authority to do that. i told her to CALL people, not email, because i think the emails are being ignored. it is small, small things that went away ... handmade one-of-a-kind things ... to me, obviously someone wanted them so much they did not want to risk 'losing' in the ''names out of a hat'' thing.
blech!

i really don't like this little sick guy, but it fits!
a friend was just telling me how her mother had asked her and her sister to come to the house and tell her what each would like to have when she and the dad pass away. she was stunned that her sister 'scurried' through the house, making a list. i told my friend, it is SO much better that way! there are only two 'children' and you might think there would be no problem. but you just never know. especially if both have an attachment to something..

My grandmother did something similiar, only it was with a yellow legal pad and round sticky notes. She told us all to come down to Myrtle Beach, SC over the course of 2 years and tell her what we wanted. You had to look at the bottom of what you thought you might want to see if anyone had dibbed it first. It was a very practical way to do it...not a very pleasant thing to think about, but she was 85 years old. It was going to happen. I think the events after she passed were a lot more manageable due to the fact that we weren't going to be bickering over who did what when with whom and why.
SS, my heart goes out to you during this trying time. You are in my prayers.
.

My grandmother gave me everything she wanted me to have. (I think she did the same with the other grandkids.) She was worried her new 'step kids' would take it all.

 

[Samster]

it's all very distressing. yes, there is plenty of stuff for all to have some.
my sister does not want to change the locks .... and i have no authority to do that. i told her to CALL people, not email, because i think the emails are being ignored. it is small, small things that went away ... handmade one-of-a-kind things ... to me, obviously someone wanted them so much they did not want to risk 'losing' in the ''names out of a hat'' thing.
blech!

i really don't like this little sick guy, but it fits!
a friend was just telling me how her mother had asked her and her sister to come to the house and tell her what each would like to have when she and the dad pass away. she was stunned that her sister 'scurried' through the house, making a list. i told my friend, it is SO much better that way! there are only two 'children' and you might think there would be no problem. but you just never know. especially if both have an attachment to something..

Yes, it's a shame that there are some folks with sticky fingers in your situation.

It is kind of sad if you "claim" stuff while someone is still living but I guess that way, they also feel like their treasures will get to the person(s) that will really love them.
I'm lucky that I have some really nice guys for brothers. This isn't necessarily the case with all these cousins, though. Makes me sick that they are being so grabby.

My poor brother is the one that has to deal with them though.
Hang in there!

 

[Copperhead]

SS I truely feel for you.. as this is a tough time for your family. I think replacing the locks is the best idea, too bad your Sis doesn't want to do that.
My Grand broke up housekeeping several years before she departed us. She labeled everything as to whom it wat to go to and had a mover ship the items to each family member. She had sent each of us a list of what we were getting. One glitch was that my Aunt lived close by while my family lived 800 miles away. My Aunt made some swaps on furniture my Mom was to get. Then when my Grand moved in with my Aunt, she found those items and thought the movers had made the error. NOT...The movers told each of us the story.. All I can say is she is the one that has to live with this. She felt she was intitled.
Not looking forward to the day we (2 sis & I) have to deal with my parents home. Mom passed away just over a year ago and Dad has not departed with anything. (Both were packrats). I do know there will be problems. I can only think of a few things I want, but once we start digging I am sure we will have items we all will what to fight over. I like your idea about the request and name drawing.
Best of luck to you and one thing I think is the most important to remember and that is the memories you have that no one can take away.