The distribution of my Uncle’s personal possessions was a frustrating task because there wasn’t a distribution plan mentioned in the will. Except for a couple of items he left to me, a plan didn’t exist for the rest of the possessions. So, I asked the attorney about distributing the personal possessions. The attorney advised me that distributing the personal possessions is at my discretion since there wasn’t a plan in the will.  So, I knew then that this part of the estate would take some thought.

Concerns for Distributing Personal Possessions

The real concern I had with the personal possessions was that my Uncle moved into his wife’s home, which intermingled their possessions. This brought up the following concerns:

• In the list of beneficiaries, my Uncle included his step children which were to receive the Mother’s possessions. The problem here is to determine which possessions belonged to the Mother. I needed to secure the possessions that belonged only to my Uncle.

• In the estate, eighteen beneficiaries existed, some spread over five states. So, the amount of personal possessions to satisfy every beneficiary was a concern. Also, how would I get the property to the distant beneficiaries?

To make this distribution fair, I knew I had to come up with a plan. As mentioned in the article The Life Estate and Personal Possessions, I already had the possessions organized. So, I rummaged through the possessions and realized that most possessions had only sentimental value to a few beneficiaries. Then, I located the items my Uncle left to me and other items with some value and took them out of the mix. If I needed to sell tangible property to cover expenses, these were the possessions that could raise some cash. So, I took the items home to secure them.

The Distribution Plan

Once I determined the personal possessions to distribute, I came up with the following plan:

• I put aside the possessions for each family that would be more meaningful to that particular family.

• I delegated the distribution by family. The beneficiaries were part of four families. Each family involved had a family member relatively close to the estate home. When it came time to distribute the property, the family member would come to the house and claim their possessions.

• I asked the stepdaughter if she would help me determine which possessions were her Mother’s and separate them from my Uncle’s property.

The plan came together when my Uncle’s stepdaughter agreed to help me separate the possessions. This was extremely helpful because I could incorporate all the possessions belonging to my Uncle in one distribution. At this point, I planned on distributing the personal possessions as soon as I received my approval letter from the probate court … or so I thought.

Would you have handled this situation differently? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.