When your parents died, what surprised you about what your siblings wanted from the estate?

[Weenurse]

My Mum passed away recently.
Long way from sorting out her things, but she does have some lovely family pieces and furniture that I thought my siblings would want.
The thing we are light heartedly fighting about, are her recipe books. One book in particular that has all of her hand written family favourites in it.
Mum stipulated names in a hat and pick on drawn out order for fairness. I am hoping to be drawn out first for those books.
(I have already photographed my favourite pages just in case I miss out)
So what surprised you about your family and what they wanted from the estate?

There's only one thing my step-sister will want - the money!

From one GM (DP still with us) I have a tiny washing line thing with plastic pegs with animals on. I think they were glass markers but are to fragile now as the plastic is brittle. From the other GM I have her oak leaf brass ashtray. Both just remind me of their homes and the love I felt there. I have them out. My DD gave me some of his DMs silver plated tea service. It is in a box in the loft and will stay there.

My MIL hated her MIL but nursed her to the end. When she died there were a lot of antiques . My FIL had them moved to their home. It included a grandfather clock and a mantel clock designed and built by another relative two generations before.

Anyway FIL came home from work one evening almost every stick of antique furniture was gone as were the two clocks. MIL had sold them all to the rag and bone man who'd come knocking on the door. 🙈

My dad died when I was 14. My very much older half siblings kept everything from me. Not only did I not have the chance to say goodbye. But I never saw a thing from his house ( I lived there weekends and holidays while school days at my grandparents) not one bit of my possessions that was there, photos nothing. Due to my dad’s age at the time. There was no way that he would have left me with nothing or not made any provision for me. According to my siblings there was nothing. Never heard or saw them again after that. - yet now there the multi millionaires and I’m well yeah in my dreams. Turns out that was my inheritance that they used.

when my grandparents died my uncle had cleared the house out before I’d even got there and somehow had managed to get my gran to change the will that had been in place since I was born. Yet again nothing out of my own room.

the best one tho was when my mother died. Extremely toxic woman who didn’t want me. Refused to be a parent or a grandparent. So when clearing her house out after I finally managed to locate her will. Yes to my surprise she had named me the sole beneficiary but the jewellery listed didn’t exist because my step father had swiped it years ago, her life insurance policy had matured and nothing due, her private pension told me nothing from that either even tho is was named on it. But the one thing that did really hurt was that for over 30yrs she had lied to me saying that there was no photos of my dad but then I found hundreds, albums and albums of photos. Photos that she said didn’t exist. That she had all along.

Same here. By the time my grandparents died, they had more than 20 descendants and Granddad’s newton’s cradle was a real family favourite.

Alas, one of Granddad’s children took the newton’s cradle and several other special items from the house before anyone else could object. None of their siblings got very much. However, this person who took the lion’s share was the only one who didn’t have a good relationship with their parents. I doubt any amount of sentimental family heirlooms could really make up for that.

This happened in my family when my aunt died. Some people practically went there with shopping bags. All done under the guise of "helping" my uncle who was too brain fucked to argue, and the rest of us didn't realise until it was too late to protect him.

Where there is a death, there are vultures.

Was there a will.so you can prove they stole your inheritance from your dad?

@Enko that one plate alone is £445 to buy

"Royal Copenhagen 1962 Christmas Plate - The Little Mermaid In Wintertime | eBay" https://www.ebay.com.my/itm/311753357135

Mentally adding rolling pin to my list if I miss out on the recipe books

Hope this isn't side tracking but due to estrangement among siblings, I recently asked if I could see a copy of my father's will..My father passed late 2022.
Sibling replies they will try and find it. Then accuses me of being after money.
I'm not, I just want to see what his last wishes were.
It's not showing up on probate so I can't see it that way.

I have only been given one thing. My grandmas sapphire ring.

Extremely sentimental to a number of us. Whole family agreed it should be mine as I was the favourite grandchild.

It was stolen less than a year later by a care worker in my home. I'm still bitterly upset over a decade later.

When DGM died I asked for her pashmina that she always wore, it's an ugly black, purple & green thing so everyone was a bit like "why on earth do you want that?" but its so cozy, I love it & wear it in the mornings when I'm having my coffee on the balcony.

DD2 has always called it Granny Name's ugly shawl but has started borrowing it on cold evenings.

I think she must have taken or been given it before they died, but I only found out recently that my younger Dsis, who lives in the US, has one of the really big, thick grey sea-boot socks knitted by DM for DF during WW2 - he was RN and spent 2 years in the Battle of the Atlantic, so v lucky to survive.

As children (4 of us) those sea boot socks were our Christmas stockings! I’m surprised any are still intact at all. Apparently the sole survivor is very tattered now, but it’s still used for her dd, who’s late 30s and has a PhD! 😂.
.

When my nan died the vulture side of the family (who had fuck all time for her when she was alive) descended with a vengeance - we didn't get a look in and ironically we were the closest branch of the family to my nan in terms of actually maintaining contact when she was alive. Likewise when a dear family friend who had been like a father to me - mum managed to get me a hand made glass bowl that he had, along with a photo of him holding it when it was presented to him which is incredibly precious to me (for the combination of it being linked to him, and the fact I collect art glass).

When my parents die - my brother's partner is a ruthless minimalist, so I suspect I'll be sorting the house out - she has mountains and mountains of Jasperware, and I know how much craft supplies she's got hoarded away in there - I love craft stuff... but the amount she has is terrifying! She's already made sure that she's duplicated things like her sets of pearls so that both my daughters will get one bless her!

I want my fecking china display cabinet and Be-Ro cookbook back she nicked though!

That's wonderful!

when MIL died she had been estranged from her eldest daughter for some years. Her big fear was that the daughter would touch her stuff after her death. SIL still had a key to the house because MIL was too scared of her to ask for it back from her. DH and I looked after the house while MIL was in hospital and kept a dead lock on the front door so we knew SIL couldn’t use her key to get in.but knew that it would all kick off in a big way once MIL died and that the first thing that SIL would do would be to ransack the house and take everything she wanted. MIL died overnight, and before we informed anyone we got the lock to MIL’s house changed. Once this was done we told all the relatives about the death, safe in the knowledge that SIL wouldn’t be able to sneak in with her key.

Not that I know of or ever found. If there was then they never declared it.

My cousin & I are in turmoil over who's getting a hand (rotary? gorgeous antique) whisk that my auntie, her mammy, has had for over 50 years, it was a wedding present

Well, obviously your cousin should have first dibs on her Mum's things...

I wish my friend had done this change the locks. He caught his step daughters ransacking the house when his wife died. He was too distraught with grief to stop them. They also took his family stuff.

Then they harangued him continuously to sell the house so they got their half. It was awful.

It’s really sad that so many families need to change the locks to stop the vultures swooping in. For years, I knew that a family member had stolen unilaterally helped themselves to many of my grandparents’ things, but I didn’t know who it was. I was quite surprised when I eventually found out it was a (mostly) estranged family member who wanted little to do with my grandparents when they were alive. As I said before, I doubt that the sentimental items they took made them happy.

We were executors for an estate an aunt so no skin in the game. She left everything to a charity bar 5k to her cleaner. Sheesh keeping distant relatives at bay was a task.

We cleaned out the house absolutely everything went to auction I had to fight for a photograph of her the other executor wasn't sure this was legal. Anyway we catalogued every item going to the local auction house.

The other executor was bidding on a teaset. Blow me it had vanished between the home and the auction house.

Then we had to go through the spreadsheet of all the items taken to the auction house. To find other items had disappeared.

It was such a ball ache especially when the charity inheriting everything chided us because the house hadn't sold in a deep recession after twelve months.

We took umbrage and told the EA to seriously undervalue and price it down by a third. It did sell, charity happy, our duty done.

We're leaving zip to charity now

it was a flippant comment, of course she should

When my DM died,my brother wanted everything,the house,all her savings,the lot. I suspect this was because he was treated as the 'Golden Child' Thankfully my DM had made a will that stipulated we got an equal share in everything. Consequently,I am now NC with my brother.

@BlueFlowers5 if you know the solicitors are could you ask for a copy? The fact your relatives are accusing you of being after the money makes me think they're deflecting to put you off checking up on them!