My sister threw a fit because she was not permitted to take a lot of my mother's things out of the house after mom went to Assisted Living. The attorney explained that anything that she wants to keep needs to be appraised and put in storage, and the value will be a deducted from her inheritance. My sister is refusing to speak to me and we need to do a clearing of the house. I am scheduling an appraiser next week. She has blocked me on her phone so I cannot even text her with the details. The longer this nonsense goes on the more it's going to cost us in attorneys fees. What do you suggest? I need to move forward with an estate sale. The house has been sitting unoccupied since October 2019.
I am so sorry your sister is not talking to you. Sadly, this happens so often. Everyone has a different response to death. I always thought families come together in love and support. In realty some do but many do not. Good luck wrapping this up so you can move on.
How does the POA read?
My brother and I are dual POA , and it reads one OR the other.
Meaning that we can do things independently of each other. I don't need his cooperation to proceed with my Aunts buisness.
Fortunately for me, my brother has been completely hands off.
I suggest you do exactly what you're attorney tells you to do, but it may be that you can keep moving forward without your sisters input.
Best wishes
Maybe it would help both of you to write down what you would have texted or said to her as you go in hopes that she will eventually read it.
Since everything is to be shared between you, the best bet is to have everything evaluated by appraiser. Make a list of all items in the home and an estimate from a realtor about the house's proposed sale price. Then, let your sister know how much "value" she can expect to receive. Send her a second list of all the items you would like to have. She should do the same. It would be easier if she would agree to arbitration for any items that both of you want but can't agree upon. Otherwise, the items in contention should be sold. Another option is to "buy out" the other sister's share of the item since it appears that resale value may be a motivation here.
I would suggest selling the house rather than living in it. Your sister may demand rent from you since you are delaying her getting her share of the house's value.
Your sister may claim that you should pay her rent if you don't sell the house to cover her portion of the value she won't get for awhile.
My understanding is their mother is still alive, living in some kind of AL.
Until their mother passes away, NEITHER should be getting a dime from the sale of the home. Living in it would solve the insurance issue, but if mom needs the assets for her facility, it should be sold and the net set aside in a trust or account for MOM. Until mom passes, technically she still owns EVERYTHING, house, and contents. Bickering over items before mom has even died seems incredibly petty.
It's more of an NLP approach. You begin with the premise: "all behaviour has a positive good intention." Sometimes this can be challenging to accept: e.g. my sister thinks what ours is hers, and what's hers is nailed down, and what could possibly be her positive good intention in this?
Her positive good intention is multiple. E.g.
Mother's possessions go to the most deserving person, who appreciates them properly and has the taste to give them the home they deserve.
If everybody claims what they want, like her, it makes settling the house clearance straightforward. She takes what she wants, that's fine, all done. How could the process be any simpler?
It is a point of principle, to be upheld at all costs.
She is to be proved to be in the right. Again. As always.
And so on - you can add your own, I'm sure you'll do a much better job of it than my guesses.
But your positive good intention is to get the house contents out of there so that you can get the house prepared for sale and sold. Anything that gets in the way of that you want to go round, and not allow it to divert you unprofitably. So she's being a **** about the ornaments? She couldn't bring herself to share a single bauble? Fine! Not worth ten seconds of your time.
Alice's helpful correction below about the household possessions' being exempt items for Medicaid assessment purposes applies, does it? - that's so where you live? In that case, WHY oppose your sister? What do you stand to gain? If you'd set your heart on owning these objects before, or if your mother had expressed specific wishes, it would be different, you might well need to take a stand; but as it is - you don't.
In opposing her, your positive good intention has changed. You're now not trying to get the house cleared, you're attempting to correct your sister's bratty behaviour and make her be less awful. You have allowed yourself to be distracted from what is actually important to YOU. Why even bother to notice her grasping if it isn't necessary for you to do so?
She is running around shouting "MINE! MINE! MINE!" You aren't doing that; but in blocking her and saying "no not yours put it back and don't be so unbelievably selfish" you are nonetheless joining in her Competitive Siblings game, and that is stopping you getting on with the useful purpose you want to accomplish.
Refocus. What gets the house cleared quickest and with least trouble?
*Really*? Christmas decorations?
I'm sure they are lovely. I'm sure that, for Christmas decorations, they cost an arm and a leg when your mother bought them. I'm sure they are very precious to both you and your sister, for all sorts of aesthetic and sentimental reasons.
But, but, but...
Worth all this? Are they?
Of course your family won't be alone in this difficulty. Thinking back through the root causes of dramatic family feuds I personally have witnessed, often involving very substantial estates indeed, they include:
a Spode Italian Garden butter dish with a blue (not black) maker's mark, which made all the difference;
a small accounting error and dispute about whether to bother correcting same;
a beaten-up old kitchen table.
In each case, both sides had merit to their opposing arguments. With the butter dish, one person already had one, while the other didn't, but the dish already owned was of more recent manufacture and therefore less prized than the mother's; both parties were Spode collectors in a humdrum domestic way but one was the testatrix's daughter and the other only a daughter-in-law, and mother had said (informally, not part of the will) that daughter was to have the Spode. This raged on for MONTHS, if not years. Immoderate things were said on each side about the other. I don't remember what happened in the end - it would have served them both right if somebody had dropped it. I do know I got very tired of hearing about it, and felt disappointed in my friend when somebody else later gave her a whole collection of Spode and she stated she'd rather have it smashed than let her SIL get hold of a single saucer. Nope, still not over it, then.
So - so what?
The trouble with estates (or potential estates) is that they mix quantifiable and unquantifiable values inseparably, in the shape of pre-loved objects, just at a time when people are looking for a fair division of property, AND at a time when people are under very painful emotional pressure to begin with, AND at a time when historical differences and disagreements and grievances tend to get dredged up. It can become a terrible, damaging mess.
Can anybody in the family ask your sister what it would take to smoothe her feathers and allow her to carry out those tasks she agreed to perform? What does she want *now*? If you can find that out, at least you'll know what shape of obstacle you have to get round to fulfil your POA responsibilities without more of this palaver.
The thing that you could do is practice being patient and kind.
Since you are able to see the bigger picture aside from the emotional perspective, initiate a personal conversation with your sister.
We are both in the same situation, and I cannot do anything since I am the youngest of six and all my sister's doesn't even want to talk about it. But, one by one I try to explain to my eldest sister that the longer the delay the more expensive the cost will have to bear.
So far, the only answer I got is silence.
So good luck to you and wish you the best!
Then hire a house cleaner to clean windows, etc. so the realtor can take pictures and have potential buyers see the house. And, have gardener clean up the yard. Whoever is buying the house can decide what to do with the remaining items in the house. And, the house can be put up for sale sooner since you don't need to take the time to get rid of everything.
TELL YOUR SISTER THINGS SHE TAKES WILL NOT BE DEDUCTED FROM HER INHERITANCE. The inheritance deduction and keeping track of what she's taking is ridiculous in my opinion. DO NOT TAKE HER OR THREATEN TO TAKE HER OFF POA. Your mom wanted dual POA, so leave it that way. I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY AN ATTORNEY IS INVOLVED. Shouldn't this be between you and your sister?
The only time an attorney was involved in our case was the elder law attorney. He never mentioned tallying what we were taking and deducting from inheritance. I guess if I couldn't get a hold of my sister, then the attorney or realtor would be the go between. Is that what's happening? In that case, tell the attorney and/or realtor to tell your sister anything you need to tell her, like,
THINGS YOU TAKE/KEEP WILL NOT BE DEDUCTED FROM YOUR INHERITANCE. SORRY, THAT WAS SILLY! WHEN WOULD YOU LIKE TO COME BY MOM'S PLACE TO SEE WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO KEEP OR GIVE TO YOUR KIDS? SOUNDS GREAT! IF ANYTHING IS OF VALUE, WE SHOULD SELL IT AND USE FOR MOM'S CARE.
WE NEED TO SELL THE HOME BECAUSE MOM DOESN'T LIVE THERE AND I NEED YOU TO SIGN THE PAPERS SO WE CAN GET IT DONE. PAPERS WILL BE COMING FOR YOU TO DOCUSIGN IN YOUR EMAIL. THANK YOU!
More than likely she will be taking things of sentimental value, like pictures. And, if you're there first, you can see what is of value first and leave that aside to sell.
If you decide not to sell "as is," do the following:
1. You go first and clean it for a couple of weeks while she's not there, and then she does it a couple of weeks while you're not there.
2. Anything that can be sold (furniture, etc) should be sold and the money used for her care. Email her pics of anything that she might want to keep.
3. Things like dishes and jewelry can be passed down to grandkids. What can't be sold gets hauled away by a junk hauler or a needy family. In our case, I put anything to get rid of in the garage and back patio, and hired a junk hauler to haul it away and clean up the garage and patio when done. A needy family hauled what was left in the house away for free (mostly furniture).
4. #2-4 do not need to be done if you're selling "as is". Make sure the realtor knows exactly what you mean by this and that you are not going to be cleaning out the house.
5. If you do #2-4, hire a housekeeper to clean the windows, floors, baseboards, etc. after cleaning the house out.
6. Contact realtor to take pics of house to sell.
7. Important papers, pictures, etc. taken from mom's home are in my small waterproof storage shed with a lock on the door in my backyard. I'm going to go through it over vacation. Hope this helped! Good luck!
The idea of deducting anything from an inheritance which is necessarily hypothetical seems a bit nebulous to me. Unless your mother is so very well off that not even medical and ALF bills can ever make a dent in her finances - but in that case, can the chattels matter so much?
What's the rush with the sale? I mean, I agree it's not good for houses to be unoccupied (things fall apart, waste of good tax money, etc.); and I can understand that you would very much like to get things tidied up; but if push comes to shove is there anything forcing the pace, such as your mother's needing the funds for her ALF?
Only it strikes me that a period of diplomatic silence from you while the attorney gently reminds sister of the responsibilities she accepted with dual POA, and your mother's best interests, and all that, might give her time to collect herself and start behaving. Can you afford to give her that space?
If you can't (or can't be bothered, which would be fair enough too), you could print the appraiser's appointment details on a piece of paper and post it to her. Put "in haste, with compliments" and your initials if you don't feel it should be as blank as that, but don't add another word.
You can't win, you see - if you're conciliatory, she'll either sneer or try to take advantage and then have another fit when she doesn't get it; if you're jolly or humorous, she'll think you're taking the mickey; and if you're business-like she'll accuse you of being insensitive and having no concept of sentimental value. So don't say anything.
I was toying with putting "FYI" - but DON'T. Sarcastic.
Type the envelope. Then she won't bin it unopened.
Or you could email the appraiser to - hem-hem - "confirm" the appointment and cc your sister in on it.
If you are acting in good faith and doing what needs to be done properly and legally it will hold up in court if it comes to that.
I would send her notification in writing Certified with confirmation of delivery, giving her the date and time the appraisal is going to take place.
If you move anything to storage document every item (might even be best if you took photos of everything going into storage.) If items are to be sold notify her of what is going to be sold and when and how. Again certified letters for all communication.
(and I would deduct excess attorney fees from her portion of the estate. But that is if there is anything left since the money raised will be used for mom's care)
https://www.mediate.com/
If your sister will agree to this, you might at least get some movement towards your goal of having the estate sale.
(When my grandmother died we were all invited to attend her estate sale and bid on any keepsakes we wanted)