Is it possible to put a clause in a will to stop someone selling something after you're dead?

[Laiste]

Just that really.

I've always been told that a certain object must stay in my life forever because it's In The Will That It Must Never Be Sold.

This has been told to me since i was a child and i've always grudgingly accepted it - suddenly i'm wondering .... is this even a real thing? i feel a bit daft for asking

Does it contain a magic doorway to Fillory?

PIL have a family grandfather clock that is due to come our way. It's a monstrosity. We don't want it. If it's worth nothing it will be going with all the other tat in a skip.
They also spoke of leaving money to the GC with conditions, not to be spent on tattoos, travelling or motorbikes. Bonkers. I don't know where they got with that.

If it's put into a family trust with you only as custodian yes. If it's willed to you however I cannot see how it's enforceable

So far as the will is concerned, the choices are

1. to give it as a gift (in which case the conditions are unenforceable but may be considered a matter of "family honour" which you either have, or don't have) or
2. to "lend" it through a trust. But the trust has to have trustees who are responsible for monitoring, and it has to have certainty over who the beneficiaries are (i.e. the next in line to "benefit" from the item). If there is no certainty (e.g. to be given to your children when you die, but you don't have any) then the trust will fail. Also the trustees need to have a process to identify who will be the next trustees after the current ones die. For this reason trusts are very complicated and expensive to set up and maintain, so unless this clock is worth very many £000's then I doubt if the will uses a trust.

One option for you would be to refuse the gift, after your father passes and the executors come to distribute his estate. Then it would pass to whoever is next in line. Usually wills have to have a residual beneficiary, someone who gets anything and everything not otherwise specified. But beware, this may also be you!

With cooperation from the executor, it is also possible to make a variation to the will, to give it to someone else.

Apart from accepting the gift and making a long term loan to a museum, where you retain the ownership but don't have to look after it, another option might be to surrender it to the Crown as (part) settlement of death duties/inheritance tax. That's much the same thing as "giving it to the nation" but you do get some value from it as it reduces your father's IHT tax bill. If the clock is already recognised as historically significant then this should be a real possibility. When the time comes, search for "Gifts of pre-eminent objects". You could also make a casual enquiry in advance at your local tax office.

Museums often have discrete little labels by their items saying things like "displayed here on loan from Sir Anthony Felch" but the "loan" is effectively permanent. Given that the controlling will maker isn't dead yet, just stop worrying about it for now. When the time comes I am sure you will find a museum which is interested in receiving a permanent loan like this.

Also when the time comes, check the wording carefully. "Mustn't be sold" is a different proposition from "Given to the Nation in lieu of Inheritance Tax" which is the path by which many valuable items end up in national museums.

I now have a mashup of "my grandfather's clock" and "where did you get that hat" going through my head.

• antique ram castrator

school rum*

My favourite thread by a long chalk.

Ask you dc`s if they are interested in it if not get rid.

No, unless it's in a trust you can do what you want with it.
As far as I'm concerned all my most treasured things are my sons to do what he wants with when I'm dead si if he chooses to dump the lot in a skip that's up to him.

all my most treasured things are my sons to do what he wants with when I'm dead if he chooses to dump the lot in a skip that's up to him

What to do with parents treasured items is a problem we all face eventually. We have homes of our own that are already full of our own stuff and the personal connection to many of the items we inherit just isn't there. Many items don't have a real monetary value and it would take a lifetime to eBay lots of items for just a few ££. So there is often little choice but the skip.

Even the few items that I kept that I thought would realise something and were too good to bin are proving very hard to sell. And furniture that I intended to keep physically couldn't get up the stairs in my house, so I ended up taking a snap decision that it had to go.

And as OP says, longcase clocks can be quite tall and new homes don't have high ceilings. So what are we expected to do...?

@Seeingadistance the clock was passed directly to the next male descendent with the family name.

I think a ram castrator would be easier to store than this clock!

I will take a pic when I get home. On the ballet rum now

OK. For those interested here it is. The room is one we’re using for building equipment at the mo. Hence the mess.

Put it in one of those paid-for storage facilities and then forget to pay the rental.

Alternatively, if it really is of historical importance, then donate it to a museum. That way it's preserved for ever and you don't have to look at it.

I'd wait until you actually own the thing before worrying about it. It may yet have to be sold to pay for the current owner's care or for some other valid reason.

Thinking of that song
my grandfather's clock was too tall for the shelf
so it stood 90 years on the floor
It was taller by half than the old man himself
but it weighed not a pennyweight more
Etc

'Loan' it to the museum.

You haven't got rid of it or sold it. Plus you're allowing many other to experience it's joy, so you're actually being thoughtful.

If it were the clock from Tom's Midnight Garden I'd say keep it. But it isn't

So how would the legalities work in this scenario:

Now how I came to get this hat is very strange and funny.
Grandfather died and left to me his property and money,
but when the will it was read out they told me straight and flat,
if I would have his money I must always wear his hat.

So is this Will actually enforceable? Or would it have been written to say that the actual owner of the estate was a trust and was only for the use of the intended legatee if the hat was being worn?

If it is valuable you need to move it.
Keeping it so close to a window will damage it. Where is the radiator?

The problem is, this is going to form part of the overall estate so chances are that the OP will end up paying inheritance tax on a valuable piece of furniture that she doesn’t like.

I do quite like the idea of loaning it to a museum. I’ve heard of valuable violins being loaned out to professional musicians (they’re expensive to insure, have to be stored at a constant temperature and need playing / tuning every day - so perhaps not dissimilar to the clock). However, if you do this, please don’t have the sign say “On loan from Laiste” - it may make you a burglary risk. The sort of people interested in niche clocks will visit museums and wonder if you have anything else worth having.

I love it!

If you don't want it I'd give it to the museum that has the document of it. They would probably want it.

I had to double check it wasn't the one I googled, especially when the curtains both had flowers on.

www.braintreeclockrepairs.co.uk/2016/12/30/what-is-a-one-handed-clock-and-why-they-were-made/

I don't think you have to accept things that are left to you in a will. I once executed a will which left several thousand pounds to a distant relative of the deceased who had lived in Canada for most of his life. when I finally tracked him down he said that he had no idea who the elderly aunt who'd left him the money was and that he felt weird about accepting it. The other beneficiaries agreed to a Deed of Variation whereby he gave up his right to the money and it was divided between everyone else equally.

I'm aware of someone with a very controlling father who owns a semi-derelict but potentially very valuable property in a posh part of London. He as recently given a terminally diagnosis with only six months to live and is insisting that if his daughter doesn't agree to accept the property on the basis she will do it up and live in it and not sell it, and her children and grandchildren likewise, he will cut them out of the will entirely and leave the place to charity. She can't afford the inheritance tax that will be charged on the estate or the cost of doing the derelict property up and making it habitable. Property is really only valuable if you can sell it or use it to earn money.

@EndoftheWorlds You're right. The rad is on the right of it. (clock is screwed to the wall and is a bugger to move).

@Bumply Oh yeah!! The decor is about to undergo a radical change ...

patnotpending that's shocking. How awful to try to manipulate your family beyond your death to that extent.

The clock situation with us is one which peeves me - but funnily enough - after this whole thread - i find myself beginning to warm to the thing! That was unexpected.

I've been googling one handed clock hand styles as they are a way to work out the age. (200+ years). I've been wondering what the face is made of as it doesn't look like brass. I might even give it a dust and polish ... Although it's not technically mine (yet) it is in my care.

God, I’d love that...

Thanks for the pic OP! I was expecting it to be, erm, more elaborate- marquetry casing, etc. but it's actually, erm, a bit plain. Still, not the eye sore you'd described earlier! I'd keep it- I love a bit of history, me. If you're not keeping it, please donate to a museum.