Help! Dad wants rid of Mum's stuff, but won't let her fetch it?!

[WoodlandsMum22]

Sorry for the long post!
So, this a complicated one...
My Mum (62) and dad (68) over the Summer in 2020, after being married 44 years. They are still married and have not started divorce proceedings and I'm not sure they will ever bother. They had lived in a rented housing association semi since 2000. Mum left the tenancy so Dad now rents it on his own as sole tenant.

The loft is FULL of stuff, mostly mums, then various childhood belonging to me and my two siblings. The marriage did not end amicably on my Dad's part, he is still bitter, says he hates her and never wants to see her again. Here is the tricky bit...

He says he wants rid of her stuff, but will not let her retrieve it. He will not let anyone she knows help, she cannot just hire a man with a van as they won't go in the loft, and it needs organising. Dad also refuses to get any of it down from the loft to even get it outside, so suggestions of leaving it outside for her are pointless.

I cannot help, I live on the other side of the country now and have a 10 month old to look after. My sister sided with mum and excommunicated Dad, and Dad won't let my brother help either. Both me and my brother are on good terms with both Mum and Dad as we refused to take sides.

Dad has just rang and asked what are his rights in terms of stopping her retrieving her stuff so that he "doesn't make a fool of himself". This is obviously ridiculous but I thought I'd seen if anyone knows the laws for this, hopefully one that can end in Mum getting her stuff back without having to speak to Dad, and so then Dad stopping going on to me about "that bloody loft" full of stuff! He has talked about hiring a skip and throwing it all out which I suspect may be illegal and he will also probably end up throwing some of my childhood things away which I would like to retrieve when I feel my DS is up to the trip.

Gah! Please help!

That sounds bonkers. Would he let a house clearance service do it? Some of the smaller ones are a bit more lenient about going in lofts. Then you can sort the stuff at your mums?

It is completely bonkers! He says he doesn't want to see her or know she's been in the house as it will bring everything back, although he isn't over it in the slightest anyway!

He would allow a company, but I'm not sure if mum could afford it and Dad won't pay. The trouble with the loft is that a few years back the housing association did checks with the fire service and said it was too full and at risk of collapsing!! And it has a certificate warning of that. So that would probably keep any companies from wanting to go near it...if I still lived locally I would just go and do it!

Tell him to grow up he is being spiteful and ridiculous.

Crikey that is a muddle isn’t it? I’m going to have a think. My current thinking is he needs to empty the bloody loft and let your brother move everything.

You need to rip your father a new one. He's beyond childish.

Ask him what he expects to happen. He wants it gone so how can he facilitate that? If he won't let his wife or her designated persons enter the property then he needs to make it happen. He can't just skip it, its not his property.

Legally if he's refusing to let her get her possessions she can go with the police in attendance. I had to do that once. I don't know that they'd really have much time for it these days but she can ring and ask, and he's not allowed to refuse, as it was explained to me, she has a legal right to collect her property from her former home and he will be breaking the law to stop her.

Maybe get your mum to do a court order giving her the right to access to get her property, then get it done. Take the power away from your dad as he's turned nasty. No wonder your mother left him.

Did your mum actually take her name of the tenancy?

Can you tell your Dad you will help, and invite him to your house for a couple of days to see the baby and talk it all through.

Let your Mum know when he will be gone and then she can go and get her stuff.

When she says everything is out, tell you Dad you organized for someone to get it and its all done and dusted now and he doesnt have to worry about it anymore.

If he pitches a fit, tell him he was acting like a baby and he is lucky your Mum didnt turn up with the police to collect her stuff

Hopefully your Mum still has a key

Could you make a weekend of it and have your money babysit your child while you go through it.

If her name is no longer on the tenancy she has absolutely no rights to enter the property and he can do whatever he likes with the items she left behind.

She should not have signed the tenancy over

I would tell him plainly to stop being such an insufferable arsehole. No wonder your mum left him.

Tell him she can go with the police and get it.
That she can go to court and get an order.
That if he destroys her belongings she can take him to small claims court and she would win.

Tell him that for someone who hates her, he's doing his best to hold onto her stuff and if he really wanted to have nothing to do with her from now on then sucking it up for a few days so she can arrange to have her things collected would be what he would want so why won't he let that happen? Does he want to keep the attic full of memories of her?

I suspect she could get some kind of court order and the police would have to enforce it - suggest to him he would look particularly petty and stupid if it went that far!

How infuriating! Could you tell him that he's at way more risk of making a fool of himself if he persists with this? It wil have to come out of the loft and out of the front door for it to get into a skip, he is being ridiculous. He's obviously very emotional about it and there's no rational thought going on is there?

Can you head over for an arranged weekend with maybe a neutral friend or family member with you to help you, leave the baby with your mum and get stuck in there and get yours and her stuff out?

Good luck! There's no fool like an old fool, so they say!

This happened to me. My solicitor (I was divorcing) wrote to his solicitor and asked for time to get my things. I got two hours! Me and a friend went round and filled our cars, but a lot of stuff just wouldn't fit 🙁 And exH sat in his car outside, watching. It was awful.

I had previously reported him to the police and afterwards, when I told them about the tiny amount of time he 'allowed' (as this point I owned the house, too) and him watching, they said I should have told them and they would have accompanied me to the house.

It might be worth your Mum contacting the police?

He is refusing to make fair provisions for her to access and take items that she has tried to retrieve several time.

It is NOT abandoned property, he is holding her property hostage due to jealousy and he absoloutly can not 'do what he likes' with it.

She can however get a court order and police assistance to remove him so she can rightfully retrieve her belongings.

I would be telling him that he already is a making a fool of himself and he risks damaging his home.

I’d spin it back on your dad.

Tell him that what he is saying he wants are wholly incompatible things. He’s either got to be accommodating about it being retrieved or it will just remain there creating a problem with fire/ceiling collapse etc. His options are:

One: The stuff gets removed by someone else (if he doesn’t want to be there then he can go somewhere else while it’s done). I wouldn’t pander to it not being anyone your mum knows.

Or Two: Have the stuff there forever more and to continue going on about it and cheese off himself and everyone else in the process and make the house dangerous.

He’s the only one making a fool of himself, by being an obstinate and ridiculous idiot with the conditions he’s coming up with. Be the obstinate one back at him, and show him how he’s coming across to others.

This sounds very sensible and firm.

He is already making a fool of himself, just in a different way.

Sometimes you just need to be blunt. Tell him he either allows her to come and get the stuff (he doesn't have to be there after all) or he brings it all down from the loft and allows a family member to sort it and get it to mum, or he stops whinging because frankly you are sick of hearing about it while he is blocking anyone from doing anything about it. He has several choices here, carrying on moaning while being obstructive isn't one of them.

Could you ask him “in front of whom would it be prudent for a parent not to make a fool of themselves?”

Are you mollycoddling him? And giving him attention cookies?
would your mother be better off (risking) dropping the rope completely.
To what extent is this just a mechanism to hurt and control her (and is that a theme)?

He’s behaving like an absolute tit, but presumably that would be interpreted as you taking sides. Could you tell him how his various positions are somewhat contradictory, and that it looks like the reaction is way more important to him than the action it clear it out.

It’s all game playing on his part. Your mother should tell him to burn the lot.

Your dad is a horrible little turd.

So he’s doing lots of moaning and saying what he doesn’t want, but he won’t say what he does want. And it’s somehow up to you and your brother to do something, somehow, that suits both him and your mother.

How ridiculous and selfish of him. I agree with @Dragonskin , if he won’t agree to any of the perfectly reasonable solutions he should shut up. But it should be for the two of them to sort out between them. As so often happens they’re expecting their adult son and daughter to be their mum and dad.

Thank you everyone!

Yes, mum willingly left the tenancy to Dad, she wanted an easy out. She emotionally left him years ago and only stayed as it was easier, she knew it would be like this! In the end it all came to blows quite quickly and she didn't have chance to take much, he let her back once and she got a lot of her important things like photographs etc but there are years of things still there (she is one of those "I have one of those somewhere, I kept it knowing it would come in handy" kind of people!).

Dad has admitted to me that he knows he is making it difficult but is unwilling to compromise. He has always been like this, when Mum finally left him noone was surprised! They married when she was 18, and straight away she wasn't allowed out anymore, had to have his dinner ready when he got home (from the pub).

I have tried previously to be blunt, have said one way or another that stuff needs to get out of the house and if the only way is for mum or her friends to get it then so be it, but he just completely shuts down the conversation and puts the phone down. I live 3 hours way so we always have these conversations on the phone.

I'd happily go and help one weekend, but when I suggest it he shuts it down and says he doesn't want to burden me with it. Ironically if he let me get on with it, it would be a lot less of a burden than currently being his therapist and middle man!!

I have said to him it seems that when it comes down to it mum can just get the police or courts involved and he just said "oh well that's the end of that then", he won't push getting rid of the stuff if he thinks mum will somehow win by getting the police involved. He is also fixated on the idea the neighbours all spy on him for her and they would absolutely lap up the drama of police turning up (they honestly couldn't care less, and why should he care what they think anyway!).

Mum is visiting tomorrow so I'll have a conversation with her and see what she can afford to do/is happy to do in relation to getting it back!