Featured Upcoming Auction...

The bidding can get quite "spirited" at times, but there is not much choice when the will specifically states that this is the way it has to be.

The real problem comes when the family or person is there & the stuff does not bring what they think it should. We actually had a woman stand up in the middle of a sale & blurt out that she could not believe we were selling her Mother's dolls for so little.

The thing is the auctioneer kept telling this woman that her doll collection was not really anything special & gave her examples of what the dolls would likely bring. She was having none of it & insisted that he have a special Saturday sale to get all the doll collectors together.

When she said what she did, Bill very calmly thanked everyone for coming, then said he was sorry but the auction was over. He then took off his microphone & walked off his podium.

Needless to say all of the auction workers were stunned as were most of the audience.

 

That does sound dramatic all the way around.

I wonder why someone would set their will up that way?

 

Possibly to get back at a bunch of greedy relatives who were "fighting" over who would get what.

 

Reminds me of the behavior of some younger cousins. No fighting, but underhanded actions to set themselves up to get more than their share of the estate of an elderly relative with dementia. I thought it was awful and never wanted to have anything to do with them after that.

 

I was more than a little surprised when I saw that Mom's will said that "half" of her personal property (the house and the majority of her monetary estate were already in a trust) was to be sold after her death - and there was no provision for specific items to be given to any of us, so which "half" did she mean? Fortunately I didn't have to figure that out later because we had to move her into assisted living and deal with it while she was still alive (so the will didn't control it after all.)

 

The cynic in me is wondering if lawyers somehow benefit from setting up a will this way? Probably not, but the thought did enter my head.

Bakers, I'm glad it worked itself out... sounds like it would have been a problem otherwise.

 

You can be sure my will doesn't say any such thing! Of course my situation is a lot simpler, but still....

I do believe that the lawyer came up with that part and it never occurred to Mom that it might create any kind of issue.

 

We had a rather famous local artist with a significant number of family members - children, cousins, nephews, etc. Her will said all her art work would be sold at auction including baskets and other items used in the pictures. Well, most of the relatives showed up and bid the art work very high.

Wonder how they are feeling about it now?
Patd

 

That'll depend on how well it appreciates in the future. I've done my fair share of slinging paint around, watercolor, etc. It'll probably all appreciate into the dumpster eventually.

 

My wife was raised Catholic, and is one of nine children. When her Mom died, they did a similar thing, with an auction for the children only. They had an appraiser come in to give things realistic values and took pics to Xerox into a catalogue, and ran it like a normal estate auction. It was successful in distributing almost everything her Mom had in her house (she wasn't a hoarder). Some things went for less than they were worth, some things went for more (especially her Mom's jewelry with four sisters bidding). A good way to prevent future resentment, I think.

A much lower cost solution was used by one of her cousin's families. Another large Catholic family, but in this one there was more disparity in wealth, and it didn't seem fair to let the richest sibling outbid everybody else. So they opened the house to the children, and they went in order through the kids by age, with each one picking one item in each round, until they got to the point that no one wanted anything more. I thought this was another great solution to prevent future resentment. Both require a fair executor to set such a thing up. And a fair group of siblings who don't hide or take away items unfairly before the start.

 

People do WEIRD things with their wills!!!!! Where there's a Will, there's frequently a War!!!!! Sadly!!!

 

I like that approach... sounds very fair.

 

My college roommate and her siblings did exactly this after their parents were gone. She said that they did it over the course of a couple of weekends, and it was an incredible bonding experience for all 5 of them, as it brought much discussion and laughter as they unearthed various "things" they hadn't seen in years - and lots of memories associated with them.

 

I have also heard of families who draw numbers for each round.

However, it is the person's prerogative to do with their stuff what they want to in their will. There are a great many families who could not be this civilized.

I also come from a large family but we all knew who would end up with what, not that there was anything there to fight over. Besides, our Mother told us if there was any fighting she was coming back with paddle & we all believed she would without doubt.

 

When one of my Grandmas passed away, the children and grands were trying to decide what to do with all her treasures. Many she had left on the farm so that daughter did not get anything more.
However, as we started looking at items and turning them over, lo and behold, there were names on the bottoms of about 95% of things. She had solved the problem for us - including the tables, chairs, secretary, beds, sets of china, crystal, sterling, silver plate, even Grandpa's favorite rocker that walked across the room with excessive rocking (my Sister) etc.
There was some trading going on but everyone seemed satisfied knowing Grandma had them in mind for some of her special treasures.
Patd

 

Any thoughts on what to do in one's will if you don't have children and there aren't any other relatives who would want what you have? Not for little decorative or household things, but for genuine antiques and artwork that have some value.

 

My father was an only child, which made life easy on that side. My mother is one of two, and neither she nor my aunt wanted a ton of what was still in the house. Grandma left instructions about the furniture and her engagement ring (my cousin's wife has worn it since the 80s as her engagement ring) but let the grandkids duke it out over the knicknacks. The only battle was over some Libby glasses because they'd all used them as kids. Even the jewelry didn't attract that attention.

As to what to do when there's nobody - I'd send it to auction, whatever with the proceeds going to a local charity. The charity being left up to the person leaving the goodies. Or just leave it all to a charity and let them worry about it.

 

Are all charities willing to accept items from an estate? I haven't looked into it... we don't have wills and really should.

I suppose we could leave items to museums that have related collections. Though if it means they'd just be stored somewhere indefinitely, that doesn't feel very satisfying.

 

That's one reason I'd leave it to another charity. A museum might dump the lot in a storeroom until kingdom come.

 

Mine too. I have no idea what to do with a ton of my old artwork!

I plan to proceed to divest myself of stuff, as I have thus far: slowly.