Probate and Estate's responsibility for the making the house sellable?

[SC Minnie]

It should come as no shock that the sister wants to close probate. Is there an option for the brother and sister to buy out the other siblings? They could buy the house and continue to live there in whatever condition the house is in.

It would be an easy matter of selling the house to the sibling(s) (for fair market value) and then dividing up the proceeds. Yes, the person who bought it would have a mortgage, but at least they could stay where they are.

I was thinking the same thing. A few posts ago I think it was noted the house may be worth $150,000. Have the 2 that live in the house buy out the $50,000 to the other sib (I haven't caught if there were more siblings). Not sure of the area but it's highly unlikely the 2 sibs that live in the house now will find anything for that price.

 

[karen4546]

I was thinking the same thing. A few posts ago I think it was noted the house may be worth $150,000. Have the 2 that live in the house buy out the $50,000 to the other sib (I haven't caught if there were more siblings). Not sure of the area but it's highly unlikely the 2 sibs that live in the house now will find anything for that price.

They would need to actually sell it though-not just a buy out. I am not sure what kind of issues they would have if there were an act of donation or whatever. To keep everything simple, just sell the house to one or both siblings and split the money. They can then put the proceeds from the sell towards the mortgage if they need a mortgage.

 

[barkley]

plastic bowls like cool whip comes in

my mother was not a hoarder by any means but when she moved into assisted living and we cleared her home out her ammassed collection of cool-whip containers was impressive (or terrifying) to say the least (i recall her repeatedly saying over the decades she could'nt understand why people wasted money on tupperware when cool-whip containers were so much more of a value).

 

[kymom99]

They would need to actually sell it though-not just a buy out. I am not sure what kind of issues they would have if there were an act of donation or whatever. To keep everything simple, just sell the house to one or both siblings and split the money. They can then put the proceeds from the sell towards the mortgage if they need a mortgage.

I bought my parents house from my siblings. I used my 1/4 as a down payment and took a mortgage for 3/4 of the agreed price. That money was divided 3 ways by my siblings.

 

[tvguy]

my mother was not a hoarder by any means but when she moved into assisted living and we cleared her home out her ammassed collection of cool-whip containers was impressive (or terrifying) to say the least (i recall her repeatedly saying over the decades she could'nt understand why people wasted money on tupperware when cool-whip containers were so much more of a value).

My MIL had 20 sets of fitted sheets for her bed. Why does a woman living alone need 20 sets of sheets? When we cleared out her house, my mom saw the work we went through and over the course of the years cleaned out a lot of stuff. But she still needed all her furniture, pots and pans, dishes, appliances, etc. Only thing I found that probably could have been cleaned out was a stash of lumber in the rafters of the garage. My dad was a lumber salesman, and he died 46 years before my mom, so that is how long that lumber had been up there. All 2 x 4's, back when they were actually 2x4, not 1.5 by 3.5 like there are now. A former co-worker who does woodworking took it all, sight unseen. As a thank you he built a file cabinet from some of it so I still have some of that lumber.
I was shocked how hard it was to get rid of her perfectly functioning washer, dryer and fridge. I ended PAYING to have a junk hauling company take them. No charity wanted them, no used appliance store wanted them, even for free.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

My mom isn't to the point of living in filth and hoarding trash, like you see on Hoarders. But the basement is completely full of stuff. The garage is too full of stuff to fit any cars in. One upstairs bedroom is being overtaken by stuff. There are piles of clothes in her room because there is too much to fit in the closet and dressers and she doesn't get rid of anything.
My grandmother (my dad's mother, oddly enough) was very much the same. She never threw anything away if it might still have use.

I call that a pack rat vs a hoarder. In fact a pack rat is often considered a "just in case" kind of accumulation such that "I may need this some day". I actually still have clothes from many years ago---they are now since labeled garage sale although I could just donate them.

I think people confuse the terms. If you have clutter, messiness, etc just by years worth of accumulation that's just being a pack rat. You've accumulated stuff throughout your life and just haven't gone through it. Yes it can take up basement space, garage space or room space.

But a hoarder has a psychological need to get more and more and more stuff. It's a never-ending need to get more possessions because those possessions fulfill something to them.

The vast majority of the time people are using hoarding like a catch all phrase. I took the OP's word for it that the house is a hoarder house but I know over time from the DIS people tend to just throw it out to explain away the vast amounts of things people own. It doesn't make you a hoarder just because it took up a lot of space or a lot of effort to go through after someone's death, it can make you prone to not going through things that's for sure.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

My MIL had 20 sets of fitted sheets for her bed. Why does a woman living alone need 20 sets of sheets?

IDK why do we have so many JCP towels still from our college days? Because they still get usage. Although we are slowly upgrading our towels and since the old ones are still good just nowhere near soft we still have them. Some will become towels for the garage to use for things in the car or other projects.

Presumably your mother-in-law had some sets that were not used too much but then had others she favored. She didn't truly need 20 sets but then again people don't really need a large amount of place settings (mug, salad bowl, plate, larger plate, etc X that by a lot) but tell that to people

 

[tvguy]

IDK why do we have so many JCP towels still from our college days? Because they still get usage. Although we are slowly upgrading our towels and since the old ones are still good just nowhere near soft we still have them. Some will become towels for the garage to use for things in the car or other projects.

Presumably your mother-in-law had some sets that were not used too much but then had others she favored. She didn't truly need 20 sets but then again people don't really need a large amount of place settings (mug, salad bowl, plate, larger plate, etc X that by a lot) but tell that to people

Sort of like China. A friend has been married 49 years and is selling her China because she figures it has been used three times.
My wife and I have been married 41 years, and we use our China for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we've had 80ish uses, but that is a lot of money tied up in dishes that rarely get used.

 

[Moliphino]

I call that a pack rat vs a hoarder. In fact a pack rat is often considered a "just in case" kind of accumulation such that "I may need this some day". I actually still have clothes from many years ago---they are now since labeled garage sale although I could just donate them.

I think people confuse the terms. If you have clutter, messiness, etc just by years worth of accumulation that's just being a pack rat. You've accumulated stuff throughout your life and just haven't gone through it. Yes it can take up basement space, garage space or room space.

But a hoarder has a psychological need to get more and more and more stuff. It's a never-ending need to get more possessions because those possessions fulfill something to them.

The vast majority of the time people are using hoarding like a catch all phrase. I took the OP's word for it that the house is a hoarder house but I know over time from the DIS people tend to just throw it out to explain away the vast amounts of things people own. It doesn't make you a hoarder just because it took up a lot of space or a lot of effort to go through after someone's death, it can make you prone to not going through things that's for sure.

Some of it is that she can't resist a bargain. Maybe she didn't really need it, but it was on sale! There are about 20 unused full bed sets in the cellar. I asked if I could take one when I was house hunting and she said no because she planned to use it. Has she used it in the years since then? Nope. Hasn't changed from the set she was using.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Some of it is that she can't resist a bargain. Maybe she didn't really need it, but it was on sale! There are about 20 unused full bed sets in the cellar. I asked if I could take one when I was house hunting and she said no because she planned to use it. Has she used it in the years since then? Nope. Hasn't changed from the set she was using.

Yeah I'd say that's still a packrat but add in bargain shopper. She's holding onto the sheet sets because she thinks she'll still find usage in it..she won't but just that thought that she will. It's probably an extreme task to remove that "may need" from why she's got all that stuff so I feel for you in respects to the eventual clean up that would need to be done.

This reminds me of a DIS thread from a few months ago that someone insisted their in-laws were a hoarder.

To be fair and clear I'm not saying being a pack rat is what you'd want someone to be but rather it's not the same as a hoarder and many of us would fall under pack rat while few of us would fall into hoarders (which is a psychological condition). And hoarding has different base reasons going on than pack rats.

Just a brief research from various sources:
"A pack rat will clutter up their home or apartment with a lot of stuff, but when pressed for a reason, they’ll insist they may have a use for it somewhere or at some time. A hoarder simply absorbs anything and everything without any definitive purpose for the largest percentage of the stuff they acquire. Pack rats insist they keep things because they will need them. A hoarder gets things to satisfy a subconscious need to just have more stuff. If asked, a hoarder may be hard-pressed to explain why they keep many of the things they keep."

"A packrat is someone who collects, what others would consider, unnecessary items. They will have a lot of clutter but will have a reason or purpose for all of it."

"If the years of obituaries were pulled from the paper and in a large stack to be looked at “someday”, that would be considered being a pack-rat. If there were years of full newspapers stacked on the floor, blocking exits, or causing safety concerns, or full of pests, that is hoarding behavior."

"The primary difference between a packrat and a hoarder is that packrats suffer from a relatively mild compulsion to store things, while hoarders have a crippling version of obsessive-compulsive disorder. A packrat may feel a strong need to collect items, and they may even have trouble throwing things away, but a hoarder can have his entire life controlled by the overwhelming compulsion to save everything. In general, being a packrat is seen as a minor eccentricity, while hoarding is considered by many psychologists to be a severe mental disorder requiring treatment. One thing that separates hoarders from packrats is the motivation for their behavior. Packrats generally have fairly logical reasons for the things they keep, while hoarders are often motivated by irrational ideas or compulsions they can’t explain. For hoarders, it can be almost impossible to throw away anything, and many of the things they keep have no purpose at all."


__________________________________
People tend to just focus on the stuff and say a lot of stuff kept and for what most would consider not needed is a hoarder. Both a pack rat and a hoarder can present problems late in life especially last year of life and after death in terms of dealing with stuff though that is absolutely the case.

 

[robinb]

Dang, it seems like every person posting here has hoarders for parents. I'm starting to question that use of the term.

Not me. It cost $15,000 to clear my mom’s house.

 

[tvguy]

Not me. It cost $15,000 to clear my mom’s house.

I have to ask, if she didn't have a lot of stuff, what cost $15,000? Like I said, other than I had to pay to have my mom's washer, dryer and fridge removed, everything else was sold at an estate sale, kept by me, or donated to charity. The estate sale didn't do anything amazing, about $2,700 as I recall, but more than enough to cover the $175 I paid to have the appliances hauled away.

 

[barkley]

My MIL had 20 sets of fitted sheets for her bed. Why does a woman living alone need 20 sets of sheets?

she probably caught some on sale-like when the winter themed stuff gets put out with the christmas clearance. it's hard to resist paying $10 or $20 for a king size set that normally runs $70-$90. i'll admit to having more sheets sets than i will ever use but that's b/c until they are useless i'm not going to toss them (and at that point several have been transformed into drop cloths or donated to the local animal shelter that activly solicits them).

IDK why do we have so many JCP towels still from our college days? Because they still get usage. Although we are slowly upgrading our towels and since the old ones are still good just nowhere near soft we still have them. Some will become towels for the garage to use for things in the car or other projects.

ours go from day to day use to 'back up'/hot tub to garage (aka-if you get oil or gas on it just toss it in the trash can) to giving them to a friend who will take the most threadbare as 'shop towels'. when we had too many back ups we donated them to the animal shelter.

I have to ask, if she didn't have a lot of stuff, what cost $15,000?

depending on the state of the house it can require haz-mat like cleaning. if there are rodent droppings cleaning it can require ventilators to be worn (hantavirus and other diseases can be inhaled). if there are cats then simply touching a place where their droppings have been can be a risk and breathing in a cat urine exposed area can cause ammonia poisoning which is why you frequently see on the hoarding shows the advisement that nothing be saved and all contents be disposed of in a safe manner.

 

[china mom]

They would need to actually sell it though-not just a buy out. I am not sure what kind of issues they would have if there were an act of donation or whatever. To keep everything simple, just sell the house to one or both siblings and split the money. They can then put the proceeds from the sell towards the mortgage if they need a mortgage.

I bought my parents house from my siblings. I used my 1/4 as a down payment and took a mortgage for 3/4 of the agreed price. That money was divided 3 ways by my siblings.

Same. I bought my mother's two houses. I got a mortgage for 3/4 of the value and used my inherited interest as my down payment. It really wasn't that complicated. My mortgage broker and title company did most of the heavy lifting.

 

[focusondisney]

Dang, it seems like every person posting here has hoarders for parents. I'm starting to question that use of the term.

Many of our parents were kids in the early 30s, so true depression era kids. My mom was 89 when she died last year. She threw daily garbage out. But kept magazines, newspaper clippings, plastic bread bags with the twist ties, jars of buttons, most cards or letters she ever received, junk mail in plastic bags, boxes & boxes of books, shelves of Tupperware she was saving since the 70s, worn out clothes, & on & on. I’ve shredded monthly bank statements & tax returns from as far back as 1995. And 3 of my siblings have been shredding stuff too. The house has 2 rooms in the attic, plus 5 bedrooms on the 2nd floor & a full basement. 5 out of those 7 rooms were full, as in you can’t close the door or walk into the room, because there were boxes & “stuff” piled high everywhere. The basement held magazines, shelves of as many empty jars she could fit, cupboards of platters, bowls, unused kitchen gadgets, toys & games, a workroom full of stuff, a pantry with shelves of canned goods (some outdated) & shelves of reused foil pans. She was never a housekeeper, had us kids clean when we were home, my dad did it until he finally gave up in his mid 70s. When you have that much stuff, you’re not cleaning, vacuuming or dusting around it all anyway. After the kids all left, she had more room to save stuff. Then she inherited more stuff after my grandparents & her aunt died. A lot of their stuff she said she was going to “go thru” was still there for us to deal with. She had a China hutch she would put her paid bills & various receipts in, the shelves were stuffed full, things fell out when you opened it. Age & health issues eventually leading to dementia made the issues so much worse.

No one who knew my parents but never saw inside their house would have any idea what it looked like. They were friendly, popular in their social groups & went out of their way to be helpful to others. Hoarder isn’t a term most people use lightly. It’s not like anyone is proud of it. Count yourself lucky if you don’t have to deal with it.

 

[china mom]

My definition of hoarder versus packrat is when the stuff affects the quality of life, the person is a hoarder. By this, I mean that I have been in houses (my brother's included) where there are narrow trails through the rooms. We call them rabbit trails.

I have no idea where my brother would sit because if there is any furniture in the house, it is under piles of stuff. Some things were collected obsessively, some were "I might find a use for this" and most was trash that I cannot understand why it wasn't thrown out. We pulled back a tarp on his rear porch and found a pile of old style (CRT) computer monitors. There must have been at least 15. And there were more in the house. The number of empty Gatorade bottles was unfathomable. I cold go on.

I, on the other hand, collect Christmas trees and Christmas decorations. have somewhere between 40-50 trees in my house but I would not define myself as a hoarder because there is nary a sign of my collection outside of the season. Everything is packed away in the attic.

My in-laws are packrats. FIL cannot resist a grocery sale or anything to do with plants. MIL likes kitsch. Although the garage and cabinets are full and there is way too much clutter everywhere for my taste, you can always find a place to sit or sleep and, for the most part, the floors are clear.

 

[QueenIsabella]

My definition of hoarder versus packrat is when the stuff affects the quality of life, the person is a hoarder. By this, I mean that I have been in houses (my brother's included) where there are narrow trails through the rooms. We call them rabbit trails.

I have no idea where my brother would sit because if there is any furniture in the house, it is under piles of stuff. Some things were collected obsessively, some were "I might find a use for this" and most was trash that I cannot understand why it wasn't thrown out. We pulled back a tarp on his rear porch and found a pile of old style (CRT) computer monitors. There must have been at least 15. And there were more in the house. The number of empty Gatorade bottles was unfathomable. I cold go on.

I, on the other hand, collect Christmas trees and Christmas decorations. have somewhere between 40-50 trees in my house but I would not define myself as a hoarder because there is nary a sign of my collection outside of the season. Everything is packed away in the attic.

My in-laws are packrats. FIL cannot resist a grocery sale or anything to do with plants. MIL likes kitsch. Although the garage and cabinets are full and there is way too much clutter everywhere for my taste, you can always find a place to sit or sleep and, for the most part, the floors are clear.

I would agree with this. My BFF's mother is 92, and living in the same house over 60 years. BFF and her siblings take turns caring for Mom at home--she's in good shape, considering, but needs a little help. In her spare time, BFF works on sorting through the decades of old stuff--with 4 daughters, there were literally enough 80's prom/bridesmaids dresses to outfit the cast of "Footloose"! Her mother wouldn't count as a hoarder, it's just 6-7 decades of detritus. Her house is clean, you can sit down, it's safe to walk, etc.

P.S. I'm a Christmas ornament collector, as well. They're small and cheap. I have a crap ton now, but will likely give some to each of the kids as they move out. Some are sentimental--made in preschool and so forth, some are from our travels, some are homemade. Our tree looks like Santa threw up. But, it makes me happy.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

My definition of hoarder versus packrat is when the stuff affects the quality of life,

That is indeed a general consensus amongst most in the mental health field as well as my comment mentioned when you start having safety risks due to things in the way for an escape (that's why the used the obits example).

But just describing clutter or rooms taken up does not make one a hoarder and many here do tend to shortcut through to that definition. It's stuff taking up space but that does not meet the definition of a hoarder just by that.

I think the reason why it's gets mentioned in most threads about whether truly someone is a hoarder or not is because it can be disrespectful to label someone with a mental health condition that if they don't actually meet it and it also tends to be spoken about disparagingly.

 

[robinb]

I have to ask, if she didn't have a lot of stuff, what cost $15,000? Like I said, other than I had to pay to have my mom's washer, dryer and fridge removed, everything else was sold at an estate sale, kept by me, or donated to charity. The estate sale didn't do anything amazing, about $2,700 as I recall, but more than enough to cover the $175 I paid to have the appliances hauled away.

Because she was a hoarder. The reality show Hoarders type of hoarder. She had 3 floors full of stuff and garbage. No estate sale company would touch that house with a ten foot pole. I moved the valuable things into a large storage locker which I cleared within two months. We donated what we could. The rest was hauled off to the dump. It literally took 2 weeks of me working with a team of 3 people to finish the job. I spent another few days cleaning the floors and surfaces before I put the house up for sale "as-is". In the meantime, I was inundated with low-ball "we buy ugly houses" offers. I was offered between $75k and $107k by those vermin and ended up selling the house for $135k.

 

[easyas123]

My definition of hoarder versus packrat is when the stuff affects the quality of life, the person is a hoarder

Oh this, 100%. Having (and enjoying?) stuff is one thing, but what we are dealing with is a whole other world! The sinful think is their house is falling apart around them. I dunno, maybe they don't care. They've been living there for years, we suspect it is a owner finance and they don't have a traditional mortgage thru a lending bank. It is there only asset and they are destroying it.
We've called local animal control - they come out, take most of the cats leaving a few for my MIL after extracting promise to get them fixed & shots. Somehow more cats appear.
We've called the Health Dept. - they've come out and had them clean up but honestly, health dept. folks didn't look to close, they just stepped in the kitchen and told them to move litter boxes and toss old food from counters & clean up trash around house. No follow up afterwards.
In-laws are perfectly able to look after themselves, FIL still goes to work so there is no reason to take over the situation there. They refuse to get rid of anything and get very aggravated when it's brought up. Grandkids haven't been there is well over 10 years, neither have I, nor my SIL or my husbands sister & husband. No other family members are invited over either. I don't think my FIL's sister & brothers have been in their home for years & years.
So we had to walk away from anything but rudimentary & one a year visits away from their home and my husband and his brother have distanced themselves greatly. All we can do now is have relevant information ready for them & us when the time comes - be that a death, a infirmity or some other decline in health that prevents them from living there.

My in-laws have asked my husband to come up and fix something in their bathroom - I think the bathtub was falling thru the floor. My husband told them he'd be up there to do the work as soon as they found (yes, found - they already bought ) the materials they previously purchased for the project AND cleared the bathroom out so that he could actually do the work. It's been two years now, they ask him about every 6-9 months and he gives them the same answer. They say they will, but they never do. So yeah, bathroom is falling apart to the point where the tub is sinking and there is mold and rot.