8 Ways You Can Help Your Elderly Parent BEFORE Crisis

February 15, 2010 | Julie Hall

Here are 8 ways that you can be proactive and and take action now to help de-clutter your parents’ home. Do this now for their sake, and for your own sake. I can tell you from personal experience: you do not want to have to do this in “crisis mode.”

Have the important conversations with your parents. Approach them with love and ask them about their wishes. Try to gain an understanding of their financial situation. Be sure to know where all the important legal documents are kept.
Start to de-clutter your parents’ home. Since they won’t likely appreciate this, suggest that you are helping them avoid both a fire and a tripping hazard. Start by removing expired food, unused things, piles of newspapers, etc.
Discuss and document allocation of personal property and heirlooms. Create a wish list and ask an appraiser to assess the values. Suggest “gifting” of special items while your parents are still alive.
Every time you leave their house, take a few bags of donation items with you. Dress the less fortunate. Tell your parents you are helping them to “thin out” the house.
If your parents have already moved out or passed away, begin the process of clearing out the house by using three piles to sort belongings: donate, sell, keep.
When in doubt, always have a personal property appraiser evaluate antiques, collectibles, and anything you are not sure about.
Continue to keep in touch with siblings and keep everyone on the same page. This is the only way that whole family will maintain close and healthy relationships through this process.
Always come from a place of love. In the end, life is about MUCH more than the stuff. It’s about the wonderful, deep, and abiding relationships within our families.

That’s my thoughts for this week. Click on the “leave a comment” line below, and let’s discuss this together.

Letting go of your possessions is harder than you think

February 8, 2010 | Julie Hall

In the last post, I included a list of some reasons why people have a hard time letting go of their stuff. I want to continue the conversation with a couple of important suggestions from my experience as an appraiser of residential contents and estate liquidator.

First, if you are clearing out many possessions, enlist the assistance of a personal property appraiser. When in doubt, always have the contents of an estate/home appraised prior to distributing or selling contents. Most times, the heirs are not surprised to learn that much of what mom and dad amassed doesn’t have much value. There are some children who feel that “everything is junk” and then discover through an appraisal that some pieces have significant value. Family stories through the years can also add to the anticipation of great-grandfather’s chair being more valuable because it is so old. Remember, age is not the only determining factor of true value.

Another important issue that the older generation should realize is that many of the heirs generally won’t take much. Their children allready have houses that are full from being married 20 years or so, and adding more will only fuel marital strife. The younger generations appear to want nothing but cash assets. Even if your children do take items, their children definitely don’t want them now and most likely will feel the same in the future. They are not interested in antiques or traditional possessions, when they could take the cash they receive and go to IKEA or Pottery Barn.

Holding onto possessions for the sake of not wanting to let them go will leave a massive burden for the children/heirs. Gifting now and making plans for the distribution of your possessions while you are still here (and in control of those decisions) is the best plan of action!

‘Til Death Do Us Part

February 1, 2010 | Julie Hall

Most of us enjoy hearing those words during a wedding ceremony where the new couple is floating in bliss and envision being by each other’s side until death separates them. From my perspective, however, I see people who have a very passionate reliationship with their material possessions; sometimes more so than with each other! If I didn’t know any better, I would say they feel confident that they can take their possessions with them when they leave this earth.

With almost two decades in the estate industry helping people make decisions about the dissolution of personal property, I have seen it all. And in all those years, I have tried to figure out why people have such a hard time letting go.

It is important to note that often the Depression Era generation is the one that accumulated the most. Their parents did not have much and probably possessed more utilitarian items because of the time period. When their parents passed away, they did not distribute or sell those items — they absorbed them, which means the Boomers have much more to deal with when their Depression era parents pass away.

Here are a few thoughts on why people hold on to so much:

You just never know when I’m going to need this.
There are so many things I could use this for.
If I only hold onto it long enough, it will become valuable.
It is already old, so it must be valuable.
I did without this as a child, and I will not do without again.
It was a gift and I will honor the giver by keeping it.
The more I leave for the kids, the more they will have.
I worked very hard for these things, and I will pass them down.
They bring comfort and familiarity.
Sentimental reasons
Too overwhelmed to let it go — emotional attachment
“I’ll let my kids deal with this after I’m gone.”

What do you think? I’d love to hear your reasons for keeping things; click “leave a comment” below this blog. We’ll talk more about the problem and the solutions in the next couple of weeks. Please come back!

The Lady Who Wouldn’t Let Go

November 10, 2009 | Julie Hall

Joanne was in her mid-seventies, and her daughter knew mom just couldn’t take care of a house over 4,000 square feet on over an acre of land. Joanne had to have a home that large to house all of her possessions. She needed to downsize and move to Assisted Living, but she was giving her daughter a very difficult time about the move.

The daughter made an appointment for me to come over and educate them in the estate sale process. Her exact words: “Mom’s got 4,000 square feet full of stuff, junk and everything else, and it’s time to sell it all so she can fit into her new place.” To complicate the matter, the house had already sold!

Throughout the conversation at Joanne’s house, I had a familiar feeling that I had to share. I addressed the daughter who had asked me to come: “I would be happy to assist you in selling the remainder of this estate, but I have a funny feeling mom will not part with anything.”

Joanne looked over at me and gave me a “cat ate the canary” grin; I knew she was up to something. The daughter insisted that all of the possessions had to go. Still, I persisted as gracefully as I knew how. “I think your mom might have other plans for it, don’t you, Joanne?” Again, I received the same grin, but she sat silent, as if this was punishing her daughter for trying to make the right decision.

The daughter became increasingly disturbed, and I was caught in the middle. “Mom, what is going on?” Still, no reply from her mother. Once more, I put on my gentle voice and stuck my neck out. “I’d be willing to guess mom has other plans for her possessions. Something like storage.” Mom’s face was simply beaming. I had hit the nail on the head!

The daughter’s face grew dark like an impending storm, and demanded to know what nonsense mom was up to. Finally, it came out. “Julie’s right. I’ve already reserved four extra large storage units. I’m not giving it away, or selling it. It’s mine. No one can have it but me!”

The lady who wouldn’t let go ended up moving and placing everything in storage, to the tune of over $7,000 per year.

Moral: You can’t take it with you, no matter how hard you try!

Why Do We Accumulate Stuff?

November 2, 2009 | Julie Hall

With 18 years experience in watching how people react to death and the division of personal property, I have an interesting theory. Down deep, I believe we are all connected not only to one another, but to our ancestors through our DNA. If the cavemen did not gather (collect or accumulate) staples such as kindling, nuts, berries, meat, etc. for their family, they would surely perish, and many did.

I believe we still make the connection of “having enough, just in case” so that we feel safe and taken care of. By today’s standards, however, we simply have too much! We have taken accumulation to the extreme, in many instances.

WE ACCUMULATE FOR MANY REASONS

If we look back into our recent past, we can examine our Great Depression generation. Because they had so little, and often nothing to sustain them, they came through that extremely difficult period in history with a built-in behavioral pattern.

What we have learned

We can waste nothing because we might have to go without again one day.
Be prepared or go without.
Make sure we have enough accumulated. You never know what we might need, and when.
I might need that one day.
If I hold on to it long enough, it will be valuable.

All of these thoughts are completely understandable and all have some truth. In today’s world, however, much of what has been saved through the decades is no longer useful. It has been held too long and should be discarded due to damage, health hazard (mold), obsolescence, etc.

This is the type of accumulation that often the Boomer children are left cleaning up, much to their chagrin and lack of time and knowledge on how to dispose and distribute all this stuff. I have personally thrown out enough bread twister ties to go around the equator at least once!

A great guide and gift idea is my book, “The Boomer Burden — Dealing with Your Parents’ Lifetime Accumulation of Stuff.”

Use your stuff to bless others

October 5, 2009 | Julie Hall

You don’t need me to tell you that times are economically challenging right now. This true story of a recent estate I handled may give us all new perspectives on our accumulated stuff.

I had to clean out the home of a lady who passed away. The family had already been given all the items they wanted from her home. What to do with the rest of the belongings?

Often a family wants to donate the remainder of the belongings to charity and doesn’t have a preference where to donate. When that happens, I recommend Blanket America Ministries http://www.blanketamericaministries.org/.

We cleared all the remaining items of furniture and household goods, and the ministry loaded them on their truck. They ended up taking all this to a woman up in Appalachia who had been burned out of her house. Everything that was unloaded from the truck was exactly what she needed. Amazement and thankful looks were everywhere, from this woman to the ministry volunteers.

The obvious suggestion here is that when you pass away, there are places where your possessions can help someone in need. That’s good, but what about all the possessions that we hold onto now?

We have garages that can’t hold cars, we have linen closets that we have to lean on the door to close, etc. In a word, we have so much we don’t need! Who could we bless now? There are many in need who look for a professional outfit to interview for work, or a house full of furniture due to disaster, or clothes for growing children. Maybe it’s time to seek out a ministry that helps others, and pass along some of the extra stuff we have accumulated.

What do you think?

The Estate Lady

Simplify stuff now