Niece sold family property

[Sodi]

Hi, so my parents owned a property that has been in our family for generations. About 15 years ago my parents had to move out as it was a flat in a building which did have a lift but it didn’t go to the top floor and they weren’t mobile enough to use the stairs. My sister was going through a divorce at this time and moved in. When my parents passed away in 2019 and 2020 respectively they left the flat to my sister in its entirety as she was living there. I got the holiday home and some savings they had but ultimately the flat was worth much more (central London location). I didn’t really mind as long as it stayed in the family.
my sister then passed away quite suddenly in 2022. My niece was abroad for university but it was left to her. We stepped in to help with funeral planning etc as my niece was only 21 at the time and an only child. We also helped her organise insurance for the property, and we were the ones who checked in on it regularly while she was abroad.
She moved back to London for her masters in 2023 and moved back in, we lost touch with her despite trying to keep contact, she wasn’t interested.

The property meant a lot to me, I remember my grandparents living there, then in my late teens and uni years I lived there with my parents, then it was my sisters. We no longer live anywhere near London as we moved 2 years ago but I liked knowing it was in the family.

Recently my son asked me what happened to the flat, I asked what he meant and he told me that he had noticed niece had moved back to her country of birth and fathers home country so probably wasn’t using the flat. I reached out to my niece and she told me she had sold it. I got extremely upset, and was probably a bit harsh on her. But if I had known she was wanting to sell I’d have found a way to purchase it myself for my own family. However she gave me no notice she was planning to do this.

She told me she didn’t want to keep it as it reminded her too much of her mums death, which is fair enough. However I think it was extremely insensitive of her to sell a property that had been in the family for so long without checking in with me or my cousins.

My husband thinks I’m being unreasonable as the property wasn’t mine, it was my nieces to do as she wished with and that happened to be selling it. However I’m not disagreeing with her right to sell it just her choice not to check if anyone in the family wanted to buy it before letting strangers have it (and most likely turn it into a rental or AirBnB).

AIBU?

It was her right to do as she wishes with the property! OP doesn’t even live in London so it’s not as though she was going to live there herself! The fact there is little contact with the neice speaks volumes!

Wow! People are being really harsh on this thread! Of course it's the niece's legal property but it would have been nice if she had informed the rest of the family that their childhood home was about to be put up for sale. She's obviously been through a very hard time and seems to have kind of cut contact with the family so maybe she didn't want the hassle and emotional responsibility of dealing with the extended family and possibly having to sell it to them for a reduced price. She is very young and maybe just didn't think how much these things mean to people. It's very sad but I guess you just have to move on and maybe keep an eye out if it goes up for sale again!

She was a young woman, grieving. Why on earth should she have informed relatives that she's selling her property? I think the OP is massively entitled.
Maybe the niece was too upset, or maybe realised that Auntie wanted a family discount.

The amount of trauma that the niece will have suffered given the story of her childhood likely means that going to live in another country and cutting off contact with the wider family is the best way of protecting herself now. I hope she has enough money for therapy and can build loving relationships for herself for the future.
Not everyone wants endless contact from an aunt who may or may not have been a good person to have been around through the difficult times. Not replying to any of the messages, cards etc says it all. In fact the OPs eagerness to maintain contact suggests to me some kind of hanging on that might have led to unhelpful 'keeping the past alive'. Some people who can't find their own resolution return again and again to the same old story thus causing others pain to add to their own.
As someone else said, selling property within a family can lead to huge difficulties, haggling over the price, time delays while the money is found, the memories that would continue to surface over the property and what happened in it. I wouldn't be surprised if the flat isn't haunted!

I doubt it occurred to her to ask all her aunties, uncles, cousins etc if they wanted to buy the property she had mainly sad and negative memories of. As another pp pointed out, OP hadn’t even been to the property for years.

For God’s sake OP, it was left to her to do as she pleases. She didn’t have to sell it to you or even involve you. Let her get on with her life, she’s lost her mum, let her grieve in peace.

It’s only a building, she can’t sell your memories

I agree with everyone that it was your nieces and so she has done nothing wrong.

Unless you are a several times millionaire, I don't think you would be able to purchase back a central London flat at short notice.

Possibly you are from a culture (or your niece is, as you mention a second country) where keeping The Family Home is a big deal, I know of many nationalities especially in the Mediterranean, Central and Eastern Europe are all about the family house, but a) these countries have much more land and so having a large family house, often falling down and crumbling is more common and b) times change and mobility changes and most people don't all want to centre their lives around one building. I know of people who are obsessed with preserving their family home, it is not UK culture in the main I would say.

OP - will you consult niece if/when you sell the holiday home you inherited?

Quite. Perhaps give her first dibs, maybe a discount?

It certainly wouldn't apply to a flat in London, and reading the posts, does not seem to apply here.

Kind and careful use of words, and still get the message across.

(and most likely turn it into a rental or AirBnB).

Well what would you have done with it, OP? Because you don't say that you would have moved into it.

I'm glad you have apologised to your niece, you've been absolutely ridiculous. And I don't blame her for not wanting to get involved with selling it to a family member - no doubt you would have wanted a special deal, or something.

It was a flat - not an ancestral pile. She is not obligated to keep it. She lost her mother and it seems like you only care about the flat.

It quite clearly was OP's family home. Owned by her parents and generations before.

No. That was in the past.
What the niece sold was her own home.
Not anyone's "family home". That had long ceased to be the case.

This, exactly.

None of your damn business.

She lost her mum at a young age so I hope selling the flat helped her get a good start in life.

Oh dear. It can be the niece's home AND ALSO the OP's family home!

It was not ALSO her home.
That property legally belonged to the niece. No-one else.
She wouldn't have been allowed to sell it if it wasn't her home.
The title is very misleading.

You're being deliberately difficult. My family home is where my parents live. I don't live there and I don't own it, but it's still my 'home' to some extent.

Excuse me, none of the personal insults, please.
I have made my point so will no longer engage. I don't like it when people get nasty.
No need.

But OP's parents don't live there. They left the family home to their daughter who died and left it to OP's niece. It could be described as OP's former family home but it wasn't still OP's home to any extent once her parents had died and left it to her sister. It belonged completly to her niece who has sold it.

OP said her efforts at trying to stay in touch were rebuffed.
At least read the post before making asinine contributions.
I suspect if this rather grasping niece had told her family she was selling a family home they might have paid rather more than the buyer.

We're not talking about who is legally belonged to, are we? You know that very well.