Clearing the house of someone who died

[Zippyitdoodar]

Aibu to think you could at least wait until till after the funeral to clear the house of a person who's died?
A very close friend died a few weeks ago his neighbours who've inherited his house were straight in there, giving his stuff to their family & clearing it.
They were telling me what a difficult job it was at his funeral. I was a bit

Tell me I'm wrong & perhaps I'm being over sensitive but I found it very sad & I don't reàly know why.

Surely all the legal side of things to give them ownership can’t have been processed so quickly?

In the case of ownership this sounds rather quick and unnecessary but it may be that the benefactors have previously had to clear relatives council houses for which 4 weeks after the death is usually the maximum the council will allow for the keys to be handed back (and I think rent has to be paid from the day of death even where housing benefit was being claimed ).

I've no idea. He had no family & his will was all in place to leave everything to his neighbours, so they know it's theirs anyway & had a key so have let themselves in & cleared the place.

He owned the house & left it to them.

Oh gosh when my aunt passed they was in the house the next day (council house). Skip was on the drive way they threw everything away. Her brand new Xmas tree and decorations her clothes her makeup. They took her tv as it was huge and expensive everything else went into the bin. She died on the Friday the keys was handed back to the council by Monday morning. Absolutely awful

I don’t see a problem with it. It’s a difficult job that has to be done and if they have the time and are mentally prepared for it, then why wait? We cleared out my father’s stuff in the days after he died. It was something to do, we were upset anyway and as he was gone, it was just uneeded stuff sitting there.

When my Dad died we cleared his flat within two weeks as he rented the place (not council). The funeral was four weeks after his death.
I wasn’t particularly relishing the task but me and my sister spent some time there reminiscing and going through his stuff (parents long divorced and Dad lived alone) so it made us feel close to him.
Could be a mixture of wanting to feel close to the person who died as well as practical reasons OP. I told people at my Dad’s funeral what a hard task it was, hope they didn’t think the same as you.

Maybe they are planning to move In or do it up, if there's no one to contest the Will and they have inherited it anyway then it's all theirs, the tax and probate can takes months to sort out,

I think it is best to get into it straight away otherwise could end up putting it off and dealing with rotting food etc. How does it affect you? Were you hoping for a momento or to visit one last time?

Could be a money thing - they don’t want to keep up buildings insurance etc for longer than they have to? And if it’s an elderly or expected death you probably do some of your grieving before the death? Maybe they feel their attachment to the person is nothing to do with attachment to his posessions? I don’t think you’re being sensitive, more judgemental and there might be reasons you don’t know about. We’re all different and how you grieve or what you feel is respectful might be different to others.

I agree that's a bit rapid, but if the deceased didn't have any relatives and left it to them in its entirety, then I guess they were within their rights to do what they did. How very sad, but he must have been close to them to leave it them in the first place. I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.

I know someone who did this, it was a case of an awful thing that needed doing so get it done asap she was a pregnant child though and had been through a lot so very hormonal and difficult time

My Dad started clearing my Nan's house when it became apparent she wasn't going be coming back out of the nursing home she was in. It was a massive job, gave her some say in it all, and tbh I think it gave him something useful to do when he was feeling pretty helpless about being able to do anything else for her.

My brother got to our parents house first after they died and took all the valuable stuff he wanted, and threw away all my mum's cook books.

Ok fair enough I am being sensitive aren't I. I'm glad you've put me right.
It's something I've never had to do so thought maybe waiting until after the funeral was a bit more respectful, then again I guess why wait.
I guess so @jenny but I have lots of happy memories.

My mum died suddenly in a care home. We had to clear the room almost immediately as we were being charged for everyday after she died. Bless her, she didn't have much as she always resented being in there and never thought of it as her home. I did it alone, disposed of most of her old clothes, and bought a few pictures/cards etc home. I also bought her handbag home. Its two years in August and I've never got up the courage to open it...... its safe at the bottom of my wardrobe. I didn't grieve after her death (she was nearly 101 and luckily hadn't been ill) but I think if I open her handbag there will be a great outpouring of grief. Can't explain it really.

YABVU

We had to do this for my father in law. It was a very big job and we all had to take time off to do it, so it had to be done during the initial leave we all took after his death. It involved 5 family members from different areas in the UK all coordinating and tearfully doing it together, supporting each other. It was a rented flat in a disgusting condition, with several medical aids on loan from companies who wanted their stuff back immediately. We were given 2 weeks to clear the flat by the landlord. It was horrific.

If anyone judged us for the way we handled it that says more about them than it does us. I hadn’t even considered it! It was a horrible thing that just needed doing urgently.

I have had to do it once. It's not something I would ever want go do again. I started it after the funeral. The house was used for the family to meet on the day of the funeral and it would have felt disrespectful to do it before. I didn't inherit the house, in my case the ones that did, didn't help me at all.

I started clearing Mum's house the day after she died. She'd done an equity release and I knew I only had 4-6 weeks before the company wanted to sell it. I hated doing it and I came close to throwing out my Uncle and his partner when they were bickering about what should happen to things. I did refuse to have a skip before the funeral though as Mum was going from her home and it didn't seem right for her belongings to be in a skip on the drive.

It was one of the worst things I've had to do and I had to get on with it. Luckily DH did most of the clearing out as I found it too hard. After it was done and the keys had been sent to the equity release company I broke down at work and ended up being signed off.

I think that will be me when my mum dies. She is a massive hoarder and it is a job I’m dreading (I am the only sibling that lives locally to her, so it will all fall on me). Assuming we have the typical UK 2/3 week gap between death and funeral I definitely be cracking on with clearing the house to keep myself busy. I will save things I think other people would like to have but most of it will be dumped/donated asap.

At the moment I am waiting to get my mum's death certified. She died at home so there will quite likely be a postmortem, and only when all that is done can I book the funeral. It will be some weeks yet. Meanwhile, I need to make the house as easy to navigate as possible for the carers who will be now coming in to care for my dad. But you think I should leave everything untouched for weeks out of a sense that it would be more respectful that way? I disagree and so would my mum have done.

I used to support a lady who was severely disabled. She didn't see her mother often, so when L had a hospital appointment around the corner from her mother's house, I arranged to meet her in the hospital waiting room. Mum turned up with her horrible sleazy boyfriend. They stayed for about ten minutes, then he said they had to go as they were clearing out his aunt's flat. I commiserated, saying I knew how awful it was having to do that job when somebody had died. His reply? "Oh, she's not dead yet, she's just in hospital, but she won't live".
Guess who got better?...…..

Here, a funeral is usually 3-4 days after the person passes away. So that would be quite quick. When when an autopsy is required is usually inside a week.

But there it seems as though these things are more drawn out. So before the funeral might be more feasible.

YABU and pointlessly judgmental. I've had to do this twice, for my mum and my sister. DH and I started sorting stuff at my mum's in the week or so between her death and the funeral.

It was purely practical: we lived 200 miles away, had limited amounts of time off work and had to get on with it. I was the executor but not the only beneficiary of the will, and the house needed to be sold. It never occurred to me that it was somehow 'improper' to start the job quickly, or that anyone would think we should be sitting there twiddling our thumbs until after the funeral.

It was also a distraction from the grief to an extent. My mum had kept lots of stuff and it was easier emotionally just to get on with it than to know it was there waiting for us at a later stage.

I'm quite sure none of our family or friends were judging us for dealing with necessary practicalities, but wouldn't have given a shit if they had been. I was with my mum, at her bedside, every day as she was dying in hospital; and how I dealt with stuff afterwards was nobody else's business.

I think when there's a death there are so many things people think should be the 'done thing' or 'not the done thing' rather than what suits the bereaved.

I got short shrift from late DH's work when I asked about his pension, as I hadn't heard anything about it two months after he had died. The reaction I got made me feel as though I was being grabby.

There will be lots of reasons they decided to get on with it