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Elderly parents
Original poster

Sibling and I have different approaches to clearing our parent's house - difficult!

116 replies

LindorDoubleChoc · 25/10/2023 17:06

My mother has sold her house to pay for care home fees and my one sibling and I have to deal with getting rid of the contents by completion (mid November).

Sibling lives 1.5 hours drive away from this house and I live 2.5 hours drive away.

Sibling is 66, retired and lives alone. I am 61 and work 30 hours pw and have a dh and two adult children although one is only 20 and at University but still requires quite a bit of input in some ways.

Mum's house is small and uncluttered but still filled with most of her possessions including the larger pieces of furniture. Two of these are worth about £300 to £400 each, the rest are just fairly standard items (maybe 10 of them) with a re-sale value of maybe £20 to £50 per item being optimistic.

Sibling wants to hire a van for two days (£126) and for the two of us to clear her house in those two days, including taking things to the dump, taking things to the charity shop, then filling the van with her possessions, bringing them up to the town where we live, hiring a storage facility and selling her furniture from here on EBay or FB Marketplace.

Otoh, I have found an estate valuations company who could do the whole lot for us. They will separate out the valuable things and send them to an auction house locally. They will pack and clear the house and charity/dump/or recycle as appropriate for absolutely everything. I don't know what they will charge and it may not be covered by the value of the auctionable items but I feel it will be worth it for the lack of work involved!

For myself, anything I want to keep could fit in one small box and the back of my estate car.

The trouble is my sibling has done a lot more hours already in selling the house (DIY in getting it up to scratch, a lot more visits to our parent in the last 9 months in the care home, dealing with the sale etc). I really couldn't be more grateful to him for the effort.

But I am just utterly daunted by the prospect of those two days before the sale completes. I have to take 2 days days leave from work as they are mid-week. And then the enormous chore of selling things. He is not on social media or Ebay so expects me to handle all that.

Sorry it's long. What do people think?

OP posts:
SkyePye · 25/10/2023 17:46

Having been through this twice relatively recently with my grandmother and with four of us involved (her three children and me), and then FIL with his father's house (five people doing clearing) I'd say house clearance.

We did I it ourselves and one or two people always end up doing more work than the others and the financial rewards are negligible.

Original poster
LindorDoubleChoc · 25/10/2023 17:45

FiloPasty · 25/10/2023 17:19

Can you go to the house at all evenings or weekends and take photos of items you want to sell and put on FB marketplace? We sold so much like that.

Not easily. He lives 50 miles away. I live 75 miles away ...

OP posts:
Feartraining · 25/10/2023 17:44

It's a horrible job OP, and one I've done twice now. No simple solutions that I know of. Do try and talk to your brother though. DSis and I fell out badly when clearing my DMs house and we have not recovered after more than 10 years. Good luck.

Lizzieregina · 25/10/2023 17:43

I think the auction house route is the way to go, but understand that it could be an issue for your DB.

I just don’t think there’s going to be much money to gain from what could be months of faffing around trying to deal with selling things online. People will be trying to negotiate an ever lower price, not showing up etc etc. Plus the cost of moving and then storage. For sure I’d like to know how the auction house charges. It is a set fee, or a percentage based off what they make? And I imagine if it ends up costing, that that cost would be paid from the proceeds of the sale of the home.

Original poster
LindorDoubleChoc · 25/10/2023 17:42

olderbutwiser · 25/10/2023 17:36

I suspect your brother has no idea what a faff it is selling large items on ebay/marketplace, or how uncertain it is. You are likely to raise the lower end of your estimates, it will take a lot of time (your time, which you haven’t got) and expense (have you costed up storage? The price of selling on ebay?) and even then the £ should go into your mother’s bank account where it will make barely any difference compared to the proceeds of the house. Does he know this?

The auction house route may not make as much money, but the job will be done all at once.

It’s tricky given he’s done the heavy lifting so far, but his plan really is unrealistic. Are there any other ways you can lift the load for him? Who will be living closest to your mum in the future?

Yes, any proceeds will go to our Mum's bank account. He's only trying to make money for her, but I think he hasn't thought about it deeply enough. He is closer to her and probably holds a lot more sentimental attachment to her belongings but, again, whatever he wants to keep from the house could easily be fit in his car or my car.

OP posts:
Original poster
LindorDoubleChoc · 25/10/2023 17:37

Feartraining · 25/10/2023 17:25

Why do the days have to be midweek? Have you factored in the cost of storage? It may be more than the items are worth.

Completion date is set now and I'm not going to get into trying to alter that. Also, one of the days I work is a Saturday.

We're going to the house tomorrow (my one day off this week) and meeting the valuations company there. I'll have a better idea then.

I don't really mind the idea of my sibling and I moving everything from a 2 bedroom house into a van (no "man" included in this van hire) in 2 days (although we're both in our 60s) but then the idea of unloading it at the dump, then the charity shop, then at the other end, paying for storage, and trying to sell it all afterwards! Not to mention packing it all up.

Care is £1700 pw, after van hire and storage, how much are we going to make? 1 week's care if that.

OP posts:
olderbutwiser · 25/10/2023 17:36

I suspect your brother has no idea what a faff it is selling large items on ebay/marketplace, or how uncertain it is. You are likely to raise the lower end of your estimates, it will take a lot of time (your time, which you haven’t got) and expense (have you costed up storage? The price of selling on ebay?) and even then the £ should go into your mother’s bank account where it will make barely any difference compared to the proceeds of the house. Does he know this?

The auction house route may not make as much money, but the job will be done all at once.

It’s tricky given he’s done the heavy lifting so far, but his plan really is unrealistic. Are there any other ways you can lift the load for him? Who will be living closest to your mum in the future?

MagpiePi · 25/10/2023 17:31

Can’t you take the auctionable items directly to the auctioneer, or get them to pick them up?
Your brother could do some of the donkey work for selling the other items by getting them presentable, researching prices, taking photos, writing descriptions, working out postage costs (if needed) etc, then it is easier for you to upload. He could be responsible for dispatching sold items too.

Feartraining · 25/10/2023 17:25

Why do the days have to be midweek? Have you factored in the cost of storage? It may be more than the items are worth.

Lovingitallnow · 25/10/2023 17:21

I think the problem is you don't know what they will charge- can they not tell you in advance?

FiloPasty · 25/10/2023 17:19

Can you go to the house at all evenings or weekends and take photos of items you want to sell and put on FB marketplace? We sold so much like that.

Timeforabiscuit · 25/10/2023 17:16

The best bit of advice I got from Mumsnet when clearing my mum's house with a sibling, when things get conflicted think of the future relationship you want with the sibling, and is this conflict worth jepordising that.

Two days heavy lifting with good Grace, may be cheap in the long term.

Jellycats4life · 25/10/2023 17:15

So your brother expects you do all the selling, but you don’t want to?

Well I wouldn’t want to either, so I think you have the final say here.

Antst · 25/10/2023 17:13

This is something I have dealt with twice very recently. It was awful and I don't blame you for wanting to have as little involvement as possible.

I don't think this is a complicated situation because either way, it sounds like there won't be much money to be made for anyone involved. As you said, who knows how much it would cost to hire a company to take care of everything. Maybe you'd make some money back on selling things, but unless your mother was secretly an aristocrat, it probably wouldn't be much! Maybe enough to pay for the company.

So from your perspective, it doesn't matter whether the company does everything or your brother does. I'd tell him that the bottom line is you don't want to deal with it. Either he can do everything himself (maybe he knows people who can help) and keep any money he makes from selling things or you can all hire a company.

You say that he has already done a lot of work so I think it would be fair that whatever solution you all come up with benefits him financially more than anyone else. Good luck!

Crazycrazylady · 25/10/2023 17:13

Honestly given she did the lions share up to now , I'd suck it up for two days.
It does read a bit like it's fine for her as she has no family but as you have two adult children you think you should get a pass. I mean really it's just one weekend .

LimeCheesecake · 25/10/2023 17:09

Why do you have to do it just before sale? Can you and your sibling go say this weekend and do the charity shop bagging up and tip runs? Take photos for eBay and get ready to go.

I see your siblings point of view - I know two different people who are annoyed after using one of those house clearance companies that valuable items were not properly sold, that items weren’t sorted.