Sibling and I have different approaches to clearing our parent's house - difficult!

[LindorDoubleChoc]

My mother has sold her house to pay for care home fees and my one sibling and I have to deal with getting rid of the contents by completion (mid November).

Sibling lives 1.5 hours drive away from this house and I live 2.5 hours drive away.

Sibling is 66, retired and lives alone. I am 61 and work 30 hours pw and have a dh and two adult children although one is only 20 and at University but still requires quite a bit of input in some ways.

Mum's house is small and uncluttered but still filled with most of her possessions including the larger pieces of furniture. Two of these are worth about £300 to £400 each, the rest are just fairly standard items (maybe 10 of them) with a re-sale value of maybe £20 to £50 per item being optimistic.

Sibling wants to hire a van for two days (£126) and for the two of us to clear her house in those two days, including taking things to the dump, taking things to the charity shop, then filling the van with her possessions, bringing them up to the town where we live, hiring a storage facility and selling her furniture from here on EBay or FB Marketplace.

Otoh, I have found an estate valuations company who could do the whole lot for us. They will separate out the valuable things and send them to an auction house locally. They will pack and clear the house and charity/dump/or recycle as appropriate for absolutely everything. I don't know what they will charge and it may not be covered by the value of the auctionable items but I feel it will be worth it for the lack of work involved!

For myself, anything I want to keep could fit in one small box and the back of my estate car.

The trouble is my sibling has done a lot more hours already in selling the house (DIY in getting it up to scratch, a lot more visits to our parent in the last 9 months in the care home, dealing with the sale etc). I really couldn't be more grateful to him for the effort.

But I am just utterly daunted by the prospect of those two days before the sale completes. I have to take 2 days days leave from work as they are mid-week. And then the enormous chore of selling things. He is not on social media or Ebay so expects me to handle all that.

Sorry it's long. What do people think?

What does your mum want?

I’m another who’d go for house clearance (having done it both ways).
Remove any sentimental items that anyone wants to keep, first, and do get anything valued if you’re not sure about it.

A Dsis was there when a house clearance firm was doing an old aunt’s house after she’d moved to a care home. She saw them taking more than a very cursory interest in a painting that had been wrapped in brown paper and evidently stored behind a piece of furniture for ages.

So she had it valued. It turned out to be by quite a well known Victorian artist and sold at auction for £9500, which went into the aunt’s pot. I did vaguely remember it from our GM’s house decades previously - she’d probably picked it up at a sale for relative pennies - she’d never had much money.

As for putting things in storage, dh and a brother of his ended up putting a mass of their parents’ stuff in storage after the last one died - they couldn’t bear to just chuck so many items that had only sentimental value.
Neither of them lived anywhere near - much of the stuff remained there literally for years - costing ££ per month - until they finally got around to chucking virtually the whole lot.

@Nopenopenopenopenopenope - it's all resolved and I updated the thread just a few posts ago.

As for putting things in storage, dh and a brother of his ended up putting a mass of their parents’ stuff in storage after the last one died - they couldn’t bear to just chuck so many items that had only sentimental value.
Neither of them lived anywhere near - much of the stuff remained there literally for years - costing ££ per month - until they finally got around to chucking virtually the whole lot. Sometimes you can’t take the logical decision, and sometimes you have to spend money to get to a place you’re comfortable with.

Not that much to be honest. Took about 10 items a day to be posted (lots of people bought bundles) and I live in a big town- so that took 20 mins maximum- if it was just 1 or 2 I popped in a locker on the dog walk. Listing takes a couple of minutes per item. Cheapest item was about £15 I sold.

My DM is very much alive. The money went to the 5 grandchildren.

That's the best outcome for you both. I was going to say to get the clearance company to do it for you too.

had to deal with this twice and though you say what you want fits in a box a year down the line you may have many regrets. Due to family problems my partner has said he doesn't want anything of his mum's but I know things may change so I have put photos ornaments etc away in case. with me, my sister took over and I now have a lot of regrets about what I had or rather didn't.
though the auction place sounds good it will be expensive and you don't know if you get the best price auctions can vary sometimes things go for very little especially furniture I know as I regularly sell and buy at auctions. people rarely want dark or brown furniture.
I am really thinking that your sibling has the best idea to go through it together as you really don't know what you will find.
please don't turn visiting your parent into a contest

We've found a solution we are both happy with. It's always a good idea to read the OP's updates on a long running thread. I don't want any ornaments or books! I have a valuable piece of furniture I want. DB has a TV and hi-fi sound system. I have some plants, linens, jewellery. Our Mum still has all the photos and we will deal with those when she dies. That's all fine, we are happy with what we are doing.

Why would the person who is retired expect the person with a nearly full time job to do the time consuming stuff? What is to stop him opening an eBay account?

There’s a storage company near us that will empty a property into one of their units for you. Then you have some time to sort and redistribute. They will even downsize the unit as it empties. A lot cheaper than a lot of removal companies.

Unless your mums furniture is very modern you will find that people won’t pay a reasonable sum and many will bid you down or not turn up . Many charities will collect for free but sofas etc must have a fire label to be accepted . We found although the house clearance was hard the shared memories brought us all closer sorting through things and when the house was empty we had a toast to our parents and reminisced together .

Have you asked your brother what really matters to him here? It may be that this isn't about the stuff or money as much as the process and the emotional impact, especially if he has been spending a lot of time here recently. Maybe you could agree to help with the clearance and be with him to say a final farewell to your mother's home, but donate even the valuable unwanted items to a charity you both, or your mother would support.
Sometimes doing this stuff is easier to talk about in terms of practicalities and belongings, but really about being able to manage and move on from difficult times with support without having to be too direct about it. It may turn out to be a great opportunity to connect and share some memories and prepare a bit for how you will both cope with the next phase of your mother's care.

2 days is enough - get your adult children to help too 🤷‍♀️

Read the OP's most recent post.

Don't put anything into storage. It'll cost a fortune and you will have to clear out from there too for the unwanted items

Sell the valuable items on Facebook. Or advertise an open house sale on x day. Accept offers. Things will not be as valuable as you think. They will be old-fashioned and unsaleable. Once you have done that. Gey a house clearance in for the rest

I hope the house sale went smoothly and that your mother is settled in her new abode, OP.