Personal belongings

Zandoni

Looking for some ideas, I'm an executor and I'm a little bit stumped on the best way to share out the personal belongings.

There are four of us and about ten items that need dividing up.

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Savvy_Sue

I am sorry for your loss.

• do any of the items have any particular financial value? 
• do the beneficiaries get on well? Are they all adult enough NOT to say "It's not fair!"?
• can you all get to one place to share things out? (probably not right now, I'd imagine.)
• Does the will give any directions? 
• What's your relationship to the beneficiaries? If you are a neutral third party, it's a lot easier to stand on the high ground of "I'm the executor and what I say goes" than if you are one of several siblings ...

See, the BEST way (as advised by my mother's solicitor) is for the deceased to have given particular things to particular people before death, but that rarely happens, and it doesn't necessarily stop the arguments. "She always promised I could have the ..." "Maybe she did but she gave it to me!" 

Given that that hasn't happened, the options include

• Sell the lot and divvy up the money - but this is only going to work if the items have some value. If anyone wants something they can pay for it. 
• Ask everyone to indicate what they would like, in order of priority. If A is the only person who wants the collection of garden gnomes, they can have them. If B and C both want the novelty tea pots, but C also wants the thimbles, maybe C should have the thimbles and B gets the tea pots. If D really doesn't care but just wants some mementoes, there may be something no-one else much cares about. 

Good luck ... 

naedanger

Zandoni said:

Looking for some ideas, I'm an executor and I'm a little bit stumped on the best way to share out the personal belongings.

There are four of us and about ten items that need dividing up.

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Can all four of you meet together at the same time and with all the possessions?

If so then one method would be to have rounds where each person gets to choose one item. The order of who gets to choose first being determined in some random method e.g. by picking pieces of paper from a hat labelled "goes first", "goes second", "goes third", "goes last". Then after the first round put the pieces of paper in the hat and repeat for another round and so on. Once the items run out, part way through the final round, then that is the end of the process. It is just the luck of the draw who gets more items than the others or who gets to choose first in each round.

What is very important is the full process covering every round is agreed before you start the first round, so there can be no arguments that the rules should be different part way through the process. Eveyone has the same chance of being lucky or unlucky.

Zandoni

Savvy_Sue said:

I am sorry for your loss.

• do any of the items have any particular financial value? 
• do the beneficiaries get on well? Are they all adult enough NOT to say "It's not fair!"?
• can you all get to one place to share things out? (probably not right now, I'd imagine.)
• Does the will give any directions? 
• What's your relationship to the beneficiaries? If you are a neutral third party, it's a lot easier to stand on the high ground of "I'm the executor and what I say goes" than if you are one of several siblings ...

See, the BEST way (as advised by my mother's solicitor) is for the deceased to have given particular things to particular people before death, but that rarely happens, and it doesn't necessarily stop the arguments. "She always promised I could have the ..." "Maybe she did but she gave it to me!" 

Given that that hasn't happened, the options include

• Sell the lot and divvy up the money - but this is only going to work if the items have some value. If anyone wants something they can pay for it. 
• Ask everyone to indicate what they would like, in order of priority. If A is the only person who wants the collection of garden gnomes, they can have them. If B and C both want the novelty tea pots, but C also wants the thimbles, maybe C should have the thimbles and B gets the tea pots. If D really doesn't care but just wants some mementoes, there may be something no-one else much cares about. 

Good luck ... 

Hi thanks for your ideas

All the items are similar value, but some were more personal to my deceased father.

There's a pretty good relationship now, brought together by the death

When this is all over we intend to scatter the ashes and get together for a meal.

Nothing said in the will

We are all siblings

I do wish he'd said something when he was alive, we have sold the house and everyone took bits and pieces from the contents but I retained the more valuable and personal items to share out later.

Zandoni

naedanger said:

Zandoni said:

Looking for some ideas, I'm an executor and I'm a little bit stumped on the best way to share out the personal belongings.

There are four of us and about ten items that need dividing up.

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Can all four of you meet together at the same time and with all the possessions?

If so then one method would be to have rounds where each person gets to choose one item. The order of who gets to choose first being determined in some random method e.g. by picking pieces of paper from a hat labelled "goes first", "goes second", "goes third", "goes last". Then after the first round put the pieces of paper in the hat and repeat for another round and so on. Once the items run out, part way through the final round, then that is the end of the process. It is just the luck of the draw who gets more items than the others or who gets to choose first in each round.

What is very important is the full process covering every round is agreed before you start the first round, so there can be no arguments that the rules should be different part way through the process. Eveyone has the same chance of being lucky or unlucky.

Yes we will all get together when we can, I'm just worried it will cause arguements. Thanks for your ideas.

Dazed_and_C0nfused

This may seem OTT to some but if you are concerned about the possibility of arguments you could let each person know what the 10 items are and ask them each to bring a list ranked 1-10 of what they would like.

If you are lucky you will find each person has different preferences and can divvy up 8 items without much problem as you will have the lists to show what everyone's preferences actually are up front.

Then you only have the final 2 to sort.

naedanger

Zandoni said:

naedanger said:

Zandoni said:

Looking for some ideas, I'm an executor and I'm a little bit stumped on the best way to share out the personal belongings.

There are four of us and about ten items that need dividing up.

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

Can all four of you meet together at the same time and with all the possessions?

If so then one method would be to have rounds where each person gets to choose one item. The order of who gets to choose first being determined in some random method e.g. by picking pieces of paper from a hat labelled "goes first", "goes second", "goes third", "goes last". Then after the first round put the pieces of paper in the hat and repeat for another round and so on. Once the items run out, part way through the final round, then that is the end of the process. It is just the luck of the draw who gets more items than the others or who gets to choose first in each round.

What is very important is the full process covering every round is agreed before you start the first round, so there can be no arguments that the rules should be different part way through the process. Eveyone has the same chance of being lucky or unlucky.

Yes we will all get together when we can, I'm just worried it will cause arguements. Thanks for your ideas.

An alternative would be to write four pieces of paper as follows:
1) Goes 1st, 8th, 9th, 16th
2) Goes 2nd, 7th, 10th, 15th
3) Goes 3rd, 6th, 11th, 14th
4) Goes 4th, 5th, 12th, 13th

I have gone up to 16 because you were only approximate in the number of items. Obviously stop the lists at the actual number of items.
Then people select at random one of the bits of paper. Agree a random method in advance - e.g. drawn from a hat etc.
Note if everyone has different preferences they should get to choose the items they want. But if some people have the same preferences each person has the same chance of getting their favourite items. 
Again be clear before you start what constitutes one item if you are grouping any related bits and pieces as one item.

Mickey666

If the beneficiaries cannot agree who gets a particular item then it should be sold and the money distributed instead.
On this basis, some beneficiaries may change their stance if they feel it's important to keep the item within the family, even if not by them.

Zandoni

Thanks for all the ideas everyone, it will be a while before we are together so we will mull it over.

Marcon

You say you wish your father had said something about these while he was still alive, but saying often causes far more problems than silence (only way to be sure is write it into the will).

I'm a great believer in forestalling problems, but are you possibly seeing some where none will in fact exist? Have you asked your siblings for their views? Absolutely nothing wrong in telling them you'd like to ensure the method of division isn't going to cause upsets or arguments and see what they say.

TBagpuss

I'd suggest doing a list of the items with photos if needed and circulate them to all parties. Ask them to let you have a list back of which items they would like, in order of preference.

That way you can narrow down whether, and for which of the items, there is any dispute and use one of the methods above to resolve it.

You might find, for instance, that item A is one person's first choice but another's thirds choice, and be able to give everyone their first choice - once you know what everyone's highest priorities are talk to them to see how strongly they each feel - it may be that you could give one person their second and third choices if they agree to let the other person who wants it have first choice, failing which you can tell them which items more than one wants and suggest drawing straws or some other random allocation.