Moral Dilemma - to sell this and pocket the cash?

[PersonaNonGarter]

I have a moral dilemma.

A Sponging Relative (‘SR’) has run up so much debt that he has finally been evicted from his property and is likely to be made bankrupt shortly. He is also a massive hoarder. Recently, my aunt went to visit SR and suggested he part with some toys rather than pack them before eviction. The toys were given to my DC.

The toys turn out to be worth a lot of money and I will sell them rather than have them take up space - DC aren’t going to play with them. Should I :

1. Pocket the cash and give it to my DC on some way like a holiday
2. Give it to the very skint SR
3. Give the cash to some of the people SR has sponged off.

He doesn’t sponge off me although he has tried. In law, I know they were a gift and are mine/DCs. But morally...?

I though the In law, I know they were a gift and are mine/DCs bit in your first post was a bit weird, but now I can see why wrote it.
You'd made your decision from the off and
It is one of your excuses as to why you should be allowed to flog the toys.

Then came along excuse 2 (a seemingly massive effort and huge cost involved trying to sell them), excuse 3 (no where whatsoever in your home to store 1 single box), excuse 4 (jumped on the 'it would encouraging his hoarding' train), excuse 5...

Can't be bothered but I think you're up to about excuse 7 or 8 in your defence of shafting your family.

Yes - I did not know what I was accepting.

The aunt and other relatives pass me boxes of stuff reasonably regularly. If you know hoarders, this is normal. If you don’t know hoarders, I can see it is weird. It usually goes to the charity shop or in the bin if it is not useful to me.

Hoarding is a special type of behaviour and mindset.

Then why are you encouraging it by accepting any old junk?

Sell them and donate the money to a charity that helps hoarders.

You ever think that by accepting their boxes of trash that you are actually validating their need to hoard in the first place because now you are showing them the stuff has some value? Just a thought...

But I digress....In my opinion, your real choices here are either tell aunt and SR the true value and let them decide if they want you to have these family treasures even if you don't wish to keep them in the family.

OR

Keep the toys, even if that means storing them away until the kids are older and can appreciate their value.

It isn't always about the cash. Sometimes, it might just be a lovely sentiment to one day bring out an old box of hidden wonder from years gone by that your children can research and learn about. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to appreciate the craftsmanship of an old toy that has outlasted family members and been treasured?

At the end of the day, this is your choice to make (have made?) and you're going to do what you're going to do but just know.....keeping this a secret and selling the goods is karma bait.

Again...zero hatred here! You asked for advice on a moral dilemma and as far as morality is concerned, there really is no dilemma here.

I’d pass the money to the landlord. Having shitty tenants who don’t pay rent (often relied on to pay mortgage) cancause so much stress with v little protection

‘I’d pass the money to the landlord’

There is no money, there are only toys.

I don’t know the landlord. He is an unknown entity 300 miles away with his own reasons for allowing the debt to mount. The reason I know he is very nice and kind (and the size of the debt) is because I was told by one of the people working at an agency who have been trying to help SR.

There are lots of other kind creditors so difficult to pick the landlord over them.

You could give the money to the administrator, they pass it on, and there is a priority list of who gets money first. The landlord will have insurance so don't worry about that.
You should give the money to the poor person he will be sponging off for the foreseeable future.

Just to run through the different option:

1. Pocket the cash and give it to my DC on some way like a holiday This is the best of your three options, except the cash is for the kids' pockets, which is what I assume you mean anyway.

The toys were a gift to your DC. They are no use to your DC in their current form, therefore sell them & put the money in your children's savings accounts and/or spend it on them (e.g. a holiday they'll always remember. Anything that would be a bonus, e.g. not christmas as you'd buy them things anyway, not a holiday you already had planned as you'd have done that anyway). Alternatively, keep the toys for them as an investment to sell on in the future, assuming they'll increase in value.

As a PP said it would be nuts to give vintage toys worth thousands to children to play with & decrease the value; vintage toys are more of a collectors item than they are actual toys for playing with.

2. Give it to the very skint SR
   He is very skint because he spends everything he gets. If he would put the money to good use then this would be the obvious answer, but to spend your own time on selling the toys for cash just to give it to him to waste (inevitable, given the background you've given) is obviously nuts.

3. Give the cash to some of the people SR has sponged off.
   There is no cash, only toys. Assuming you were willing to sell the toys for the benefit of the sponged off people, how would you allocate the money between everyone? How would you prioritise who to pay and who not to pay? If they had lent money to him expecting the toys in return if he was unable to repay then this would be a different story, but obviously that isn't the case. It would be impossible to be fair and/or equal in the repaying of these individuals especially as you live hundreds of miles away and wouldn't possible know exactly what he borrowed off of exactly who.

Other options:
4) Give the toys back now that you have found out their worth
Given that the sponger & your aunt are hoarders, this isn't a worthwhile option for multiple reasons I won't go into, many of which have already been covered. The toys would not be sold by either family member & therefore would not have any benefit at all.

5. Keep the toys as an investment for your children when they're older This is a sensible option so long as you have the room to store them. I'd imagine their value is likely to increase & therefore, as the toys were a gift to your children, your children can decide what to do with the toys when they're older & how to spend the money if they decide to sell them.

If you have somewhere to store the toys I'd go for option 5. If you don't have the space to store them I'd go for option 1.

I get why this is a moral dilemma as giving the toys back or giving money to the sponger and/or creditors sound like the right thing to do but I genuinely do not think that they are when taking into account the background & information that you've given.