Niece sold family property

You’ve lost touched with your niece and didn’t even know what country she was living in.

yABU to think you have any say in her disposal of her property

Bloody hell your niece is what, 23,24? Just out of education and starting adult life without her mum.

How on earth has it come naturally to you to put 50 year old person emotions on her? It’s so unfair and unkind.

Tbh You should really reflect on the lack of emotional intelligence in your feelings.

I would be livid. You had an emotional connection to the property and she didn’t. She probably saw it as a way to make a good amount of money.

But OP's parents don't live there. They left the family home to their daughter who died and left it to OP's niece. It could be described as OP's former family home but it wasn't still OP's home to any extent once her parents had died and left it to her sister. It belonged completly to her niece who has sold it.

If it was so important how come you hadn’t been there in years or noticed it had been sold until you asked about it?

I would be miffed if my aunt who hadn’t even noticed I had left the country started asking about my property tbh.

You're being deliberately difficult. My family home is where my parents live. I don't live there and I don't own it, but it's still my 'home' to some extent.

You're being deliberately difficult. My family home is where my parents live. I don't live there and I don't own it, but it's still my 'home' to some extent.

It was not ALSO her home.
That property legally belonged to the niece. No-one else.
She wouldn't have been allowed to sell it if it wasn't her home.
The title is very misleading.

Oh dear. It can be the niece's home AND ALSO the OP's family home!

No. That was in the past.
What the niece sold was her own home.
Not anyone's "family home". That had long ceased to be the case.

It was a flat - not an ancestral pile. She is not obligated to keep it. She lost her mother and it seems like you only care about the flat.

It quite clearly was OP's family home. Owned by her parents and generations before.

It's not her family home. It was the niece's home, and she owned it.

Hi, so my parents owned a property that has been in our family for generations. About 15 years ago my parents had to move out as it was a flat in a building which did have a lift but it didn’t go to the top floor and they weren’t mobile enough to use the stairs. My sister was going through a divorce at this time and moved in. When my parents passed away in 2019 and 2020 respectively they left the flat to my sister in its entirety as she was living there. I got the holiday home and some savings they had but ultimately the flat was worth much more (central London location). I didn’t really mind as long as it stayed in the family.
my sister then passed away quite suddenly in 2022. My niece was abroad for university but it was left to her. We stepped in to help with funeral planning etc as my niece was only 21 at the time and an only child. We also helped her organise insurance for the property, and we were the ones who checked in on it regularly while she was abroad.
She moved back to London for her masters in 2023 and moved back in, we lost touch with her despite trying to keep contact, she wasn’t interested.

The property meant a lot to me, I remember my grandparents living there, then in my late teens and uni years I lived there with my parents, then it was my sisters. We no longer live anywhere near London as we moved 2 years ago but I liked knowing it was in the family.

Recently my son asked me what happened to the flat, I asked what he meant and he told me that he had noticed niece had moved back to her country of birth and fathers home country so probably wasn’t using the flat. I reached out to my niece and she told me she had sold it. I got extremely upset, and was probably a bit harsh on her. But if I had known she was wanting to sell I’d have found a way to purchase it myself for my own family. However she gave me no notice she was planning to do this.

She told me she didn’t want to keep it as it reminded her too much of her mums death, which is fair enough. However I think it was extremely insensitive of her to sell a property that had been in the family for so long without checking in with me or my cousins.

My husband thinks I’m being unreasonable as the property wasn’t mine, it was my nieces to do as she wished with and that happened to be selling it. However I’m not disagreeing with her right to sell it just her choice not to check if anyone in the family wanted to buy it before letting strangers have it (and most likely turn it into a rental or AirBnB).

AIBU?

That is such a shock for you, Op.
If you had your time again you might have suggested that you would be interested should niece ever be selling the flat.
However, you didn't and you also, despite being the older adult, lost contact with your niece.
That was unfortunate and sad.

Hopefully your niece has wisely purchased herself a home with the proceeds.

I agree with everyone that it was your nieces and so she has done nothing wrong.

Unless you are a several times millionaire, I don't think you would be able to purchase back a central London flat at short notice.

Possibly you are from a culture (or your niece is, as you mention a second country) where keeping The Family Home is a big deal, I know of many nationalities especially in the Mediterranean, Central and Eastern Europe are all about the family house, but a) these countries have much more land and so having a large family house, often falling down and crumbling is more common and b) times change and mobility changes and most people don't all want to centre their lives around one building. I know of people who are obsessed with preserving their family home, it is not UK culture in the main I would say.

OP - will you consult niece if/when you sell the holiday home you inherited?