Niece sold family property

I am glad you apologised, OP. Your niece will unlikely reply anytime soon, but who knows, years down the line, she may reach out again.

It sounds like she had a tough upbringing with her mother, so it's understandable that she has no sentimental value to the property.

Yes indeed.

You have taken the comments on board and clearly tried to make amends. That takes a big person and a reflective person. Good on you.

Sorry for your multiple losses. That's not easy.

I'm sure she did have an emotional connection to her own mother's home!

Good on you @Sodi 👏

Fair play to you for coming back to the thread, OP. Some of the responses must have been hard to read. I am glad that you have made an overture to your niece. It may be many years before she takes you up on your offer but it’s important for you both to know that it is there.

If your relationship was so poor with your niece that you were not a regular visitor to her home, then in a way, the flat was already lost to you a long time ago. Nothing takes away the memories, though, so try and let any negative feelings around the sale of the flat go, it will only cause you stress.

It’s a shame she didn’t give you first refusal- you could’ve asked I suppose but ultimately it’s too late now and it was hers to with as she pleased.

Didn’t seem a very fair spilt though, but that’s on your DM and too late now.

So she wasn’t as connected to your side of the family as you’d have liked. No-one’s fault, but that’s how it was/is.
It explains why she’d have felt no compulsion to give you first dibs on the flat. She just wanted to get rid of it, and that was her prerogative.
I understand you are upset about it, but she did nothing wrong.

You should try entertaining the idea that you're wrong with your assumption about the OP and then look at why you jump to making nasty comments to someone online who you don't even know

The OP has explained several times that she understands the niece had the right to sell it. That is not what is being disputed. So constant allusions to it are not an argument

The property held sentimental value and she would have preferred first Right of Refusal on the sale for that reason. It doesn't matter if it was a London flat or a country mansion pile, the sentimental attachment is the same for the OP.

Once again... the right to sell is given. But (either deliberately, or out of genuine misunderstanding) the OP's niece did not mention her intentions to sell, thus negating any opportunity for the property to remain in the family.

Families having attachment to homes and/or land and wanting to retain these assets within the family is nothing unusual, so I am surprised at the dismissal of the OPs disappointment and the notion that she could be rightfully upset.

OP hasn’t stated that she or any family member was at fault in any way in the death of her nieces mother
First refusal is a simple courtesy

It was her property to do with as she wanted, but yes, she could have given you the option. That said, would she have felt like she would be pressured into keeping it?

Apologies I've quoted wrong post! Oops but my view applies.

Should have quoted @BadDinner

I'm struggling to see why people find the OP's devastation difficult to understand

Because "devastation" is completely over the top!

The generations thing is just an abstract notion. It doesn't actually impact her in any way at all. The building still exists. She hasn't set foot inside for several years already. If her parents had felt it was important to keep in the family they would have put it in a family trust rather than bequeath to OP,'s sister. They didn't. They equated it with the 'holiday house' bequeathed to OP.

It's easy to see she might feel sad, just as many do when their old family home is sold, but they don't feel "devastated".

Because a mansion with historical relevance and a London flat ARE different. You can’t expect people to view them in the same way.

Ultimately though, if this hypothetical mansion ended up being owned outright by one member of the family, with other family members having inherited other property instead, the owner would still have the right to sell it as they chose.

I totally get where you are coming from. Something similar happened in my family - won't go into details as it's long - but the house had been in the family for nearly a century. We were not given the heads up to the sale or given a first chance to buy it and we were all devastated as it meant as much as any cherished family heirloom, more even. It was a horrible shock.

I now avoid the street where the house is if I can, as It's horrible to see other people living there.

I'm struggling to see why people find the OP's devastation difficult to understand. If it were a huge mansion pile with historical relevance that had been in the family for generations, I think no one would be surprised at her reaction. But because it's a London flat, it seems people see it differently.

It's also possible that if DN did consider doing this, she'd have worried about what might happen if multiple relatives want to buy it. OP said family members plural, rather than just OP herself, which suggests the existence of others who could also have been interested.

You and a handful of other posters are saying this like it’s an obvious thing to do; even a breach of some unwritten rule when you inherit a property. I really don’t think it is. Why would the niece think her aunt who already has a home elsewhere AND a holiday home might want to buy this property too?

It sounds like your niece has not had the easiest of lives, and unfortunately much of that was down to her mother. She is likely feeling highly conflicted over your sister’s death. Is her father still around? Is he a more reliable presence in her life?

I think you’re expecting a hell of a lot from a bereaved 21 year-old who a) doesn’t have a great deal of support and b) had a difficult relationship with the parent she lost. Would “Ooh, I’d better check Auntie Kate who I barely see doesn’t want to buy the flat before I sell up” really be most people’s first thought in these circumstances? You seem to expect her to know a lot by instinct; not only the fact that you’d want to buy, but that you’d be prepared to sell other assets in order to do so. That’s before you even consider whether it’s reasonable to expect her to wait to do a deal that’s dependent on the sale of another property.

You still haven’t said why you want it - which is obviously your right, because it’s nothing to do with anyone on Mumsnet. But it might help explain why you’re expecting your niece to guess that you’d not only want to buy, but would be prepared to sell other assets to do so.

There was literally no reason for OP to mention it the way she did unless she was thinking about the £££

It's pretty obvious from the way OP mentions in the opening post that the flat was if significantly more monetary value than the holiday home and money she was left...

Poor girl.

And that all makes it even less surprising that she didn’t think about the ‘heirloom ‘ status of the flat in your mind.

If she didn’t grow up close to the family with a sense of consistency and knowledge of who had lived there, listened to family stories of generations in the flat, she just wouldn’t know.

It isn’t her fault.

OP, you have lost your parents and sister in a short space of time. Family falling away. It is understandable that the same if the flat, with no time to think about it, has become a focus. But what would you have done with it? It is a huge financial investment, for somewhere you don’t live?

A photo album is one thing, a property that you don’t live in, another. A big commitment for what in the end is sentimental value.

I think you're expecting your niece to have done a lot of mental gymnastics to have guessed this would upset you so much. I would have thought a holiday home would also hold plenty of fond memories (possibly more as holidays tend to be high points in life), yet you would sell that to buy the flat?

its was your niece's flat. she doesn't need it and sold it. you have no say and no right to have an opinion. The fact that you have memories of your grandparents living there doesn't change that. What an unhinged post.

I just want to say, I was never disagreeing with her right to sell, considering the circumstances around my sisters death I’m not surprised she wanted to sell. We would have been able to buy it for market rate if she had given us time to sell the holiday home (which she never holidayed in as she always spent holidays with her father).

This would really be a lot to expect.

You're saying she should've hung around for what could've been an open ended period of time. It also raises the possibility that anyone else in the family with a sentimental attachment to the holiday home might want to be given time to realise other assets in order to buy that, and that you wouldn't want that air b and b'd either