How to decide split of inherited house?

[Poppyflowe]

Very sadly, mine and my brother's surviving parent is terminally ill with the estate divided 50/50 in dad's will.

I know we will be emotional wrecks when dad does pass away and I'm trying to think of practicalities in advance (although naturally doing all we can to support and be with dad).

My brother is likely to want to move in to dad's house and buy me out - but what would be the best way of doing this as objectively and equally as possible? E.g deciding its value and contents value?

Has anyone been in this situation and what did you do?

Thanks in advance.

Sorry to hear about your dad being so ill

You can get an independent valuation for the property value, I assume a solicitor should be able to advise about agreeing the value of contents - won't your brother have this own furniture he'll won't to use? In which case you could sell any remaining furniture

Get an estate agent in - but contents - depends if there's expensive items or sentimental ones etc

You will need to get a value on death for probate anyway. I got a chartered surveyor to provide this (for a fee) as the Probate Office would accept this without quibble. Alternatively, you might get 3 estate agents to provide valuations - though they will then keep contacting you in the hope that they will be appointed to sell the house for you.
Contents are rarely worth much in practice unless your DF had recently invested in expensive furniture etc that your DB wants to keep.

Thanks for the quick replies. My brother 's house is much smaller, so he will probably want quite a bit of the furniture.

Most of it isn't worth a lot, but there are some bits which are valuable including some bespoke handmade furniture my late mother commissioned.

I should probably talk to my brother about it now, but it's a very difficult conversation to have.

I think with contents, try to be pragmatic and try to be fair. Fair doesn't have to mean an absolute even split, if the furniture would be practical and is custom made to fit a space in the home, maybe your brother should keep it.

It depends if you want to have a sit down and pick particular things you have an affinitywith or holds sentimental value, then which would actually be practical to you.

It's best to get the house valued by at least 3 agents and get an average from those valuations.

Sorry to hear about your dad's ill health, I can understand how difficult a time this must be