The “stuff” of an estate – Part 2
- Sharing reader solutions for how to allocate items of sentimental value
- Cautioning against allocating items that are not of sentimental
Welcome to the 2nd of a growing series of columns about “the stuff” of your estate.
I started down this path because of a reader question about whether items of sentimental value should be allocated to beneficiaries while you’re alive, and whether those allocations should be set out in a codicil to your will.
In my view, the allocation of items of no sentimental value isn’t important, even if they’re high value.
An expensive piece of original art that nobody has a personal attachment to can be sold with the proceeds added to the residue of the estate to be divided equally among your children.
But the watercolours painted by your mother are different. They have zero market value, but each of your children might feel a strong attachment to them. Allocating these types of items in advance will save your executor that difficult task and could keep hard feelings to a minimum.
How to best allocate items of sentimental value?
I have no experience doing this myself. In my last column I proposed a negotiation that:
- takes into account the likelihood that each child feels differently about each item, and
- explores creative solutions such as alternating possession.
I asked readers for allocation solutions. They delivered.
Barb shared that when her mother was in her late 60s, she privately took each of her children around her home, making a list of items each child felt sentimental attachment to.
Smart! I’m not saying that adult children would ever behave this way (dripping with sarcasm), but there’s nothing more enticing to a child than something they know their sibling wants!
Remarkably, her mother’s list had no overlap. She did have a simple plan in case that occurred – those items would be written on a folded slip of paper and put in a bowl to be drawn from.
The solution Robert and his wife have implemented has been as follows:
- They made a list of everything any of their children might want. The list included but was not limited to items of sentimental value. The list excluded vehicles and real estate which after death would be offered to the children at fair market value before liquidation.
- Each of the three children was randomly given a number: 1, 2 and 3,
- Each of the children then picked from the list of items in a repeating order: 1,2,3 then 3,2,1, repeating until all items were picked.
When sharing his method with me, Robert suggested a potential refinement: items could be first separated into three categories – items of sentimental value, items of high value and items of low value.
For items of sentimental value, I really like Elizabeth’s approach of privately identifying which children have sentimental connections to which items.
Conflict is completely avoided where there’s no overlap. For items that more than one child feels connected to, that private discussion can be used to gauge the level of connection which can inform a meaningful and potentially creative solution.
Robert and his wife included anything their children might want, not just the sentimental items.
It would certainly make it easy for the executor when dealing with household contents! But only if all of the chosen contents still exist at the time the last of Robert and his wife pass away. More likely, many of the chosen items will have been replaced or discarded leaving an even more complicated quagmire.
I’ve spent two columns focussed on the first part of the reader’s question, with my opinion that items of sentimental value should indeed be allocated between children before death. I’ve still not answered the second part of the question, whether those allocations should be put into a codicil.
Stay tuned for part 3!
Another sub-topic you can look forward to is addressing Peter’s note to me: “My mother, 83 years young, has a massive collection of commemorative plates, dolls, etc., that my wife is absolutely dreading having to deal with. I suspect this is a common problem!”
Please provide your input about how those items should be dealt with. These are items of high sentimental value to the deceased, but of no value to the beneficiaries!
