A horrible inheritance one

Does your husband want his daughter to get his share? Or does he agree that she is evil and has disinherited her?
You may be the higher earner but sounds like he still earns and has a share of the assets. Why should his daughter get that share?

What has your husband's daughter done to you?

If they change the law then I'm making sure everything is already in my sole name so my evil SD gets none of my estate. I'm the wealthier of the two of us anyway and stand to inherit but if it's jointly owned she'd be entitled to a share of it and I can't have that.

@MyrtlethePurpleTurtle
"No - executors are obliged to realise the estate and distribute the estate. Their role is not one of a mere valuation channel!

Whether the deceased's principal beneficiary should morally gift items or money from the estate is a different matter"

Executors can dispose of property, but they are not obliged to sell everything in order to distribute cash as you seem to be implying.

My father in law left his residual estate to his 2nd wife as he was legally entitled to do. This included all family photos of his parents and close relatives, family furniture etc. The wife has cut the entire family off and offered nothing in the way of mementos. We’ve asked if we can have the family photos, photos of people she never even met and who mean nothing to her, but we’re still waiting on an answer. I’m sure my father in law would have expected her to hand over things like family photos to his sons but because he didn’t explicitly write it in his Will legally we have no right to them. These items mean nothing to her and because of the way she is acting my husband doesn’t have one single item of his father to remember him by.

I agree that the law should be changed so that children are entitled to a share of the moveable estate.

A beneficiary can say, so the value of the table is £20, I would like to take the table so deduct £20 from my cash inheritance.

Yes, in Scotland any child (whether biological or adopted) is entitled to a share of one third of the moveable estate. That law has been in place since the 1960s.

That's exactly the situation that my husband was in - the furniture that he had to buy back was made by his grandfather, a master carpenter.

Of course, we don't know their specific circumstances, but a lot of people do react that way when there's an inheritance: they see it as free money that could be theirs if they can only engineer taking it, and they get irrationally offended at the idea that other members of the family might end up with a share of it too, even when they have the exact same relationship to the deceased.

There are also some people - again, not levelling this at OP's SM - who will deliberately seek out a widow(er) who is many years, even decades, older than them and see it pretty much as a long 'job contract' for them to give up a number of years of their life and stay married to somebody they probably don't find as attractive or see as much as a life companion as they would a person much closer to their own age.

To them, eventually getting everything that their spouse leaves is nothing but their 'wages' - and having to share it with anybody else, even if expressly willed by their late spouse, feels to them like a great betrayal and being robbed of what was rightfully theirs.

What’s your relationship been like with your stepmother since your father died? My sister was a stepmum and when her husband died she just got Christmas cards from his daughter and nothing else.

You sound like you don’t like her much. And as others have said, there is a bit of a difference in handing over a sentimental piece of furniture rather than a chippendale - she might want to just know what she is dealing with before making and promises

The step mother does sound like she resents the cash the OP got and feels hard done by.

I hope, if you do end up paying her for some items, that you will enjoy the past memories and forget the estate related ones. and can let it go. Mine still hurts and it's been almost 20 years.

Personally, I would just pay up as the lesser of the two evils, rather than lose the precious items. However, that does very much spoil the sentiment and the memories.

It's a special comfort to use and enjoy items that used to be used and enjoyed by your loved ones. It's not a case of 'getting freebies', but the knowledge that something your parent loved has now been taken over, and is now still loved, by you. Having to buy that item, rather than being able to continue the family ownership seamlessly does rather wreck that comfort.

Something that your beloved Dad enjoyed in his life, and he would be happy to know that you now enjoyed it, wasn't just passed straight down to you, because he would have specifically wanted you (or another loved one) to have it and that's what families do. The fact that any stranger could have had it instead, had they been in the right place at the right time or outbid you on eBay, severs that bond, I believe.

I've got a lot of my DP's stuff that I treasure - most of it would be worthless on the open market, and not very expensive to replace with brand new stuff. I don't care; its great value to me is because it was theirs and reminds me of them - not because of any inherent monetary value.

Write an Op-Ed piece omitting names but detailing the situation and the awfulness of having to buy back family pieces from a step mother.

Submit it to the local newspaper. Make sure it's really really good and make sure it's clear that your SM doesn't need the money.

Write it like a 'cautionary tale'

I totally get why you're upset, OP, and I agree with the others I think it's likely your father didn't feel he'd have to spell it out to his wife that if one of his kids wanted something sentimental, she should agree to that and not charge them for it!

Initially I was curious if the furniture we are talking about is stuff that is currently in use by her. Because also - I can imagine he wouldn't have felt he had to spell it out to his kids that stripping his wife's home of furnishings when she's in grief is also not ideal. But it sounds like she's having a free-for-all and just selling.

I'd be so sad.

What she is doing is totally horrible but she doesn't have the connection with these items that you and your cousins clearly do.

Ask for the valuation document and then say you'll have to see if you can afford these pieces.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if she tries to flog these things somewhere and they just don't attract the attention she is looking for, so I would also do a regular drive by of her house to see if she decides to dump these things in a skip. Once it's in the skip, ANYONE can take them out.

He may not have wanted the stepmother to have the disruption of having to deal with sorting out furniture while she was still using it in her lifetime, so just left it to her outright. He may have asked her to pass on family furniture to his kids or left a letter to that effect but neither of those are legally binding so she has the right to be able to sell it as she wants as she is the legal owner.

What is morally right is another matter......

Is the furniture valuable ?
My father in law died last summer he had been estranged from my dh,for many years ,but my dh was his next of kin so we had to sort through his belongings ,he had quite a lot of art work that he thought was valuable when we had then valued it turned out they were not worth much at all ,my point is she might think she can make some money off them but might be surprised to find they are worthless other than sentimental value?

Exactly this. Also remind her she's inherited a fair bit by the sound of it and to give you one or two pieces or items is more then fair.

He made a will. In that will he decided to leave OP a cash sum. Surely he would also have left her the furniture too if he wanted a specific person to have it. That's how wills work.

Someone I knew who worked with one of the partners of a local solicitors told me many years ago, anything involving a will and beneficiaries became like a battleground as families fell out and argued over who was left what.

Some of the nicest people they dealt with became money grabbing, vicious horrors and family fall outs were often the end result.

If you're going to make a will, make sure it's very detailed and watertight over how you want possessions and money distributed.

Quite.

Shocked that there are posters calling the OP's father names for neglecting to allocate every single item that may or may not have either emotional or monetary value. If he even thought about maybe he didn't want his daughter coming in and taking the dining room table from under his widow's lonely plate of beans on toast? Perhaps he hoped that they would sort it out like adults it isn't his fault he was wrong.

This is 100% on the step mother. Hope she see's sense

Shes awful, but this is is your Dads decision to have let her do what she wishes.

It's vile behaviour

That is awful, your Dad wouldn’t be happy with a decision like that, I am sure he assumed these sentimental items of furniture would be passed on with in the family. I am so sorry, this must have upset you so much OP. Unfortunately, money can get the better of people, similar situation when DH lovely mum died, all DH sisters in it for themselves and the reason I won’t have anything to do with them, her will was not followed correctly, it’s disgusts me.