Dealing with Tangible Personal Property

Distribution of someone's tangible personal property upon their death is tricky business, for a number of reasons:

1. Unless the decedent left specific instructions for each piece of property, their beneficiaries (usually the children) are going to be in direct competition for items of property.

2. While most Wills call for tangible personal property to be divided "in shares of substantially equal value," most families don't want to go to the expense of hiring an appraiser to value such property.  As a result, everyone guesses at approximate values, and these guesses may be incorrect.  Furthermore, "equal value" doesn't take into account sentimental value, or the fact that the items with the most sentimental value to the beneficiaries may be indivisible.  (For instance, if your father's prized possession was his cane, how do you and your three siblings decide who receives this item?)

3. It seems like every family (including my own, I've recently discovered) has at least one "looter."  By looter, I mean a family member who decides that he or she is entitled to some/most/all of the decedent's tangible personal property.  The typical looter will ransack the decedent's residence and walk off with lots of valuables -- often while the decedent's body is still warm.  When asked at a later date about what he or she took, the looter's memory usually becomes foggy ("I don't know").

How to deal with the above problems?  I think the keys are foresight and formality.  By foresight, I mean that the person named as executor in the Will (or the most responsible child, if there is no Will) needs to make sure that the residence -- and all tangible personal property in it -- is secured immediately upon the decedent's death.  (Three words: change the locks.)  In addition, appraisals should be performed -- there are costs involved, but I think appraisals save lots of money and aggravation in the long run.  Finally, a formal meeting should be convened at which the beneficiaries select the items they want.  At the end of that meeting, before anyone is allowed to leave with their property, each beneficiary should be required to sign a receipt and a release.

For a scary take on tangible personal property battles, you may want to take a look at yesterday's dear prudence column on Slate (here). 

Comments

[Anthony Cerminaro]

One possibility for distribution of tangible property (that has not been looted) that I have used (assuming everyone agrees) is to make a list of all the items available for distribution (with such information as to value as is available). Items are made available for viewing in person or by making a video. All interested persons rank the items they want.

A "draft order" is established (either randomly or on basis of age or other agreed criteria). I like to snake the draft, with the person having the first pick in one round having the last pick in the next round. The draft order and rankings are used to determine who gets what. When it is your turn to "draft" you get the top ranked item on your list that is still available, i.e. that has not been "drafted" by someone else.

This continues until all items that are wanted are "drafted." Excess items are auctioned, sold or donated to charity.

[Joel S.]

Anthony-

Thanks for the comment. There are a lot of ways to set up the distribution of tangible personal property, and having a set system works best. Of course, as you said, there needs to be agreement by the parties, which can be the tricky part.