Advice on how to divide house contents?

sparkiemalarkie

Hi just wondering if anyone had any advice on how best to divide the house contents of a childhood home between 4 sibblings.


Nothing has been sorted yet - I was hoping for some hints and tips to avoid upsets and to keep things fair.


tia


sparkie

Yorkshireman99

sparkiemalarkie wrote: »

Hi just wondering if anyone had any advice on how best to divide the house contents of a childhood home between 4 sibblings.


Nothing has been sorted yet I was hoping for some hints and tips to avoid upsets and to keep things fair.


tia


sparkie

Sell the lot and divide the proceeds.

Linton

What I did was to get all of them together in the house and said they can take anything they want. Anything that was wanted by more than one person was open to discussion and anything not wanted would be sold or given to charity.

There were no arguments and relatively few items were wanted by anyone.

Tom99

Each person chooses something in turn. Straws to sort out the order you go in.

Or if 1st round choice is sibling 1,2,3,4 then 2nd round is 4,3,2,1

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]However there is bound to be some sentimental stuff that requires a more serious discussion.[/FONT]

Savvy_Sue

Realistically, how hard will it be?

There were five of us, and a house full of 'stuff'. We're all still speaking, mostly because very little of it was precious to anyone. I've got a thumb pot I made when I was 11 in pottery, tbh I'd forgotten making it.

If we knew something might be of particular interest to one of us, we offered it: bookends which one of us had as a child; nick-nacks we'd brought back from holidays. If someone wanted something, they asked if they could have it. Yes, technically we should have adjusted the share-out once the house sale had happened, but life's too short.

We did get an auction house in to value / identify anything which might be saleable, and sent off anything they were prepared to sell. After that, it was house clearance, worth every penny.

Sea_Shell

Unless you're talking about any antiques, paintings, jewelry or other valuable stuff, then as said above, just an informal "who wants what" might be best.

buildersdaughter

I agree with the above. We had one potentially valuable piece, and agreed on who would keep it, with the proviso it would not be sold without consultation (but we are talking 3 figures, not 4!)

Where we had a slight disagreement was over some pieces that I knew weren't valuable, but others thought they might be (based on a quick google!). I agreed to a valuation - and it was me (because of time & geography) who had to go to an auction house where the staff were very polite as they declined to handle them! I had realised - and so, now, do my siblings - that just because someone on ebay /abebooks is asking £500 for a particular book, doesn't mean anyone is actually willing to pay it!
However, it was worth the small amount of time and effort for everyone to feel satisfied with the outcome.

Newly_retired

In the case of my parents!!!8217; house, where there was nothing of any real value, it was a case of those who turned up to help most who kept the most.

Clearing was a nightmare job, taking over six months. Beneficiaries of the will were my sister who lived in a Home, so had limited space and no possibility of getting involved, and me. Grandchildren and spouses were helpful. Items of historic or sentimental interest were removed by me for safe keeping, but if anyone spoke up for anything, they could have it. My sister had some pictures. Everyone went away with something and there were no arguments or recriminations.

Then we filled three skips, thanks to my DH and SIL, who took away some tools as a reward, sold some stuff to an antique dealer (value £1200), then house clearance came. They would have charged £100 , but reckoned they could sell on £100 worth of stuff, so it broke even.
Additional point, the executors were my daughter and my husband, but I was actually in charge of who got what.

YoungBlueEyes

This is perhaps a bit specific but I hope it helps.
I am one of four daughters, father recently passed. When the two elder daughters came up for some of dad's stuff/ mementos I told them to take whatever bits and bobs they wanted. They took very little.

The only bone of contention was a set of four drawings. Father worked for the Home Office for many years, and these drawings were of buildings the Home Office had been in since it's creation. They were drawn by a (now very famous) artist but at the time was just a bloke dad knew. Daughter 4 said dad had told her she could have them as she'd always liked them. Even though I liked them too I said fair enough. When D1+D2 realised they were so valuable they wanted them. D4 said ok. I disagreed. The next day I got them scanned and had 3 copies made. D4 will get the originals.

A bit long and specific but you never know what will help someone

pollypenny

I suggested that we take anything that we had bought for our parents.

We then chose things according to our interests.

No one wanted the bags and bags of wool!

Savvy_Sue

pollypenny wrote: »

I suggested that we take anything that we had bought for our parents.

We then chose things according to our interests.

No one wanted the bags and bags of wool!

I carefully didn't mention the wool ...