Case Study 1: Close to Home

Case Study 1-Close to Home
My indoctrination into the estate world came in 2020 when my mother passed
away. I had three siblings and they all lived out of the area and they were in their
seventies with their own issues to deal with. Not that I didn’t have my own issues,
but I was local and the one most familiar with my mom’s world. I was appointed
the executor. This experience is a good case study for discussing the basics of an estate sale and clean out.

She had her will reviewed and updated within the previous year, her house
was paid for and she had no other debt. Her cash assets and her home had already
been divided up between all of the siblings, and she really only had one item of
significant value that had to be decided: a $10,000 custom made diamond ring. Not
only did it have monetary value, but it also had a tremendous amount of
sentimental value. My mom had told us that she only had two things she wanted to
make sure would happen: 1) there would be no fighting over who got the ring and
2) she wanted things to be fair for everyone. Sounds pretty basic, doesn’t it? It is
except for one thing-that dirty four-letter word-fair.
My mother passed away on the morning of May 1, 2020. My wife and I along with
my three siblings were all there by her side. The next morning, we all gathered
together for a somber, but necessary meeting. We were only a month into the Covid
pandemic shutdown. The fact that my siblings all lived at a distance and all of the
uncertainty surrounding how the pandemic was going to affect our situation, we
needed to discuss what needed to happen next.

First, the funeral. She had prepared what her wishes were for the service, she had
taken care of the cemetery plot, and everything else was dictated by the pandemic
situation. We had the option of conducting the service at the time or waiting until
after the pandemic. To have it at the moment meant that there would be no wake
and only 7 people could be present. As the executor, the decision ultimately landed
on me. From the beginning I committed myself to going the extra mile to be fair,
equitable, and as democratic as possible. We were all in agreement that the funeral
would be right away; mom wasn’t big on being the center of attention anyway.

After the service was over, my siblings went back to their homes and we agreed to
talk soon about how we were going to proceed. My wife and I had left our jobs to
pursue doing our own business when things went south for my mother. She of
course, was the priority. After her passing, it was time to start the process of
liquidating her estate, whether we were ready or not. My career was as a Human
Resources Manager. I was the only one with any management experience.

After my siblings left, I took the time to figure out how I was going to move forward. I
decided on taking a project management approach. I created a working manual
laying out how the process was going to go. I had a list of mom’s items and asked
everyone to select items they were interested in. It wasn’t a promise, only a starting
point for getting an idea for what was important to everyone. The manual listed out
the things that needed to be done and acted as a way to document the process and
let everyone know just how much needed to be done. At the time, starting an estate
liquidation business was not on our radar, however the manual ended up being a
great way to journal our adventure and identify everything that would be involved
to close the estate. There were even more things to do than I expected after I did
my own research.

My mom’s house was a very average 1600 square feet house with an unfinished
basement and in good shape. There were 95 years of my family’s belongings going
all the way back to my great grandparents. There was some clutter, but nothing
close to hoarding. Pretty much normal stuff, just many years of accumulation.
There were some interesting items: some old, some decorative, some historic.
Being new to the whole estate thing I really didn’t know much about any of it. My
wife had regularly done garage sales and was somewhat familiar with the basic
tenets of setting up a sale and pricing items. At first, I was shocked with the prices
she was telling me my precious family heirlooms were worth; or I should say what
the items would actually sell for. That is where my education for the art of pricing
began. She showed me how to research and look up prices on items and once we
started to market the items my disbelief was shattered when her pricing was
validated. It was a hard lesson to learn but looking back over the years it has been
accurate despite my efforts to prove her wrong. My experience was also valuable
because when we meet with new clients I can empathize with their shock when
they realize what they can expect to get for their items. It is painful to watch the
look on their faces when their expectation of a five-figure payday for selling all
their family’s possessions turns out to be in the four-figures, some times in the low
four figures. And if the pricing is not done properly because you believe that it is
all worth more, they’ll then be left with their family’s precious heirlooms with
having to find another way to make them go away since they are not precious
enough for them to take the items with them.

Another thing that impacts the amount of money you will get from having a sale, is
how much the family decides to keep reducing the quantity of items available for
sale. In the case of my family, most of the family items were kept by our family.

We were a very sentimental family. I have been quite puzzled at just how many
non-sentimental families there are. Many families don’t want anything; photos or
personal items that were so indicative of the family’s past. It is an important basic
task to address this with the family in the initial planning for liquidating your
estate. Just because you are or are not sentimental don’t ignore the fact that your
siblings may be just the opposite and there is a good chance that it won’t be about
the same items. I was quite surprised when I would put together dispersal sessions
and I asked everyone to submit a list of the items that were most important to them
without being presented to the rest of the group, that more often than not,
everybody got the items they wanted. Be careful though, the one member of the
family that doesn’t want or take anything, all of sudden wants the one thing that
everyone else wants and believes it should be theirs because they haven’t got
anything else, even though the one item they want is worth more than the total
amount that everybody else has combined. That is another place where that dirty
word-fair, rears its ugly head. It’s kind of like when you look up a word in the
dictionary and it has four definitions and you pick out the definition that suits your
purpose best.

Since this article is about basic estate sale planning, it would not be complete if I did
not include one of the most basic, yet most likely situation that will occur: the
disgruntled one. It doesn’t matter if your family makes the Leave it to Beaver
family look like The Charles Manson family, enjoy it while you can because it
won’t look like that when you get to the end of this journey. As a matter of fact,
many times it ends the family completely. It’s sad but in my experience, there
seems to always be at least one member that is involved in the process that can’t
agree to anything and/or seems to be a hired assassin to infiltrate the family unit to
make sure nobody ends up happy or even satisfied. I can attest to that personally.
Maybe knowing this ahead of time can help you minimize the damage, I hope so.
The points made in this article are just a guide that can help you prepare somewhat,
but the last key point I wish to make is that every estate, every family, and every
situation is unique and will have many dimensions, some layers will be good and
others not so much. The best advice I can leave you with is to be patient, listen and
understand that this is going to be a very stressful and emotional time. Everyone
handles stress and anxiety differently. Be aware of that and find tools that can help
you to cope when those moments present themselves. One basic tool is to take a
deep breath and count to 10 (or maybe even 100). And, it helps to make sure
everyone is using the same definition of “fair.”