Cleaning up after Deceased Estates

[Olly]

I'd like to hear people experiences with deceased estates.

Ever been involved in one? Did you go and box up all the stuff yourself? What did you do with the stuff? Did you then clean up the house ready for market? If you were far away from the property and didn't want to or couldn't get to the property to sort everything out yourself - what would you do?

Ta
Olly

 

[geoffw]

Not quite the same thing- but I did have a tenant who became deceased during his tenancy.

It was the responsibility of the executor to pay the rent until the place was suitable to be rented out, and to make it suitable for occupation. So it was their reponsibility to deal with all goods and chattels in whatever way they needed to.

I'm sorry, not quite the same thing, perhaps a little help though.

 

[Olly]

Not quite the same thing- but I did have a tenant who became deceased during his tenancy.

It was the responsibility of the executor to pay the rent until the place was suitable to be rented out, and to make it suitable for occupation. So it was their reponsibility to deal with all goods and chattels in whatever way they needed to.

I'm sorry, not quite the same thing, perhaps a little help though.

I get what you're saying, but I'm interested in what people (the executor) does when they are far away from the deceased estate and can't do the "stuff" clean up, and don't want any of the stuff - just want to sell the house and grab the cash - who do they get to do it?

 

[The Fuzz]

Are there professional cleaners out there who do clean up deceased estates? If so, does it matter if the place is very 'messy'? ie if the person was not found for a while and requires some heavy duty clean up.

 

[peastman]

...I'm interested in what people (the executor) does when they are far away from the deceased estate and can't do the "stuff" clean up, and don't want any of the stuff - just want to sell the house and grab the cash - who do they get to do it?

My brother in law and sister in law have recently had this experiance. Their father died in Melbourne and they live in Canberra and Perth respectivly. They found a very good solution by asking my wife and myself to do everything (It was my wifes father that died).

We cleared the house, took what we wanted, gave to charity anything else that was half decent and threw out the rest. Then got a professional house stager to present the property. Put it on the market and sold it for 20% more than we expected in less than a week.

 

[pennyk]

Oh, we are in the midst of this as I write.... not quite a deceased estate, but my mum has moved into a nursing home, and we need to clear out her house, ready to rent.... its a 4 storey, 6 bedroom beauty, with lots of very nice furniture, and antiques, and jewellry and cash hidden in socks/ drawers/ behind cupboards etc etc. So, every single item needs to be checked thoroughly. Fortunately, my dad did do a lot of tidying and organising before he died. But still there is alot to sort out.
So far, its taken us a year to sort through, and I'd say we are maybe half way!
Some of my family live a fair way away, and all of us work full time and have busy families. Our approach was that firstly, we wrote a list of all the major items, and sent around via email to say which items were top of our list to inherit, to work out if there were any major potential conflicts. We then organised a couple of days where we could all travel to the house to clear out every room into a couple of central locations, and again place our "bids" in for particular items which we wanted. Once that was done, the really hard part started...... what to do with the rest. We have sold some items on ebay, thrown alot away, etc etc. There are still 2 rooms full of knick knacks, and numerous items of furniture.
Basically, what we have left are the valuable items that no-one in the family wants, and the junk items which no one wants. Both are difficult to get rid of. We are looking at auctioneers for the valuable items, and either a garage sale or the bin for the rest.
I can't imagine how we could have done this from a distance, unless we had got removalists to pack everything and put it into storage. But I guess if you were happy to just throw everything away, then you could arrange for a cleaning company to come and do that. Or if you knew someone locally who'd be willing to arrange garage sales, that might work.
My thought is that it is probably easier to take a flight, spend a week or so there and get it all sorted out.... otherwise you'll be like us and it will take forever!
Pen

 

[BKR]

I've done alot of kitchen ripouts from deceased estates and in most cases its the new owner that organises skip bins and dumps everything themselves, otherwise there are rubbish collectors in the local paper who would do it. Only seen a few ppl get them but I guess if your far away then get quotes and have them do the yards and clear inside and under house.
I had a couple of places getting gutted by builders who were going to work on the place, so they must have added to the price to clear it out as well.

The only thing with deceased estates is I get really sad when you come across the stuff left there, all those memories gone. Sometimes you find letters, postcards, toys, etc that have fallen behind the cabinets and have been there for 40-50 yrs.

 

[kissfan]

Are there professional cleaners out there who do clean up deceased estates?

Yep, Winston 'The Wolf' Wolfe (Harvey Keitel) in Pulp Fiction.

No disrespect for our very own WW from the forum.

Regards
Marty

 

[Macca]

Hi,

If you are absolutely sure there are no valuables hidden away and there is nothing you want or need then I would be contacting a few local real estate people.

Ask them for an appraisal and then ask the ones who sound the most helpful if they know of a cleaner who could clear it all out and spruce it up ready for sale.

 

[RumpledElf]

My parents are doing this now, although they are mostly done.

They got rid of all the consumables first (food), then the medicines (to the chemist to dispose of), and sorted out the paperwork. Then anything any relatives wanted to take got taken, and the rest is going to charity and in the bin. The house is immaculate and only really needs a coat of paint inside to make the colour scheme more neutral (full of pastels at the moment), but I'm sure it will end up sold as-is.

The house will probably go in the market in a few weeks when the paperwork is all sorted, I've mentioned it on here a few times as a very good investment but no bites, I reckon its just going to go to an agent.

 

[Mooze]

If there's nothing you want to keep, you can call in an Auctioneer to sell off all the furniture, nick nacks etc - if you check out your saturday paper these are often advertised.
Then you get the cleaners in
Then the RE

 

[Olly]

OK, well firstly I'm not going through this. I have 2 friends (who are sisters) who are wondering if there's a business in 'cleaning up' deceased estates. One of the sisters is an RE agent and she says she gets about 3/4 per month and in at least half of the cases the 'family' don't want any of the stuff, can't find the time to clean up themselves and are happy to pay for someone else to do it - they just want the house sold quickly so they get the money. While the RE agents can make money from it, it can be a pain to do as it needs a lot of hands on co-ordinating and ringing around to get auctioneers and furniture stores around, then someone to sort the rest for charity and dumping or hold a garage sale on site, the medicines, the house cleaning, the gardening, the carpet cleaning, possible paint job and so on.

My friends live in a retirement, beachy type area so business would be fairly regular, (1 per month anyway), they don't want to spread all over the place, just keep to their area and make a bit of extra cash.

What do you guys think? Depending on the service the family want, can you see people paying a couple of grand plus clean up costs to get the job done? What sort of insurances would be needed? Anything else you can think of too please.

Ta
Olly

 

[Ausprop]

have been involved in a few. my nanna hid rolls of $50 notes in old plastic shopping bags and other bizzare places. aunt had a tin of cash in the roof that mysteriosuly diappeared (executor was a friend of a friend and suddenly started getting around in a new car). I couldnt just hand all that sort of stuff over to a stanger but I suppose these things happen, some people want nothign to do with the memories and emotion of it all.

 

[Dazz]

One of the sisters is an RE agent and she says she gets about 3/4 per month and in at least half of the cases the 'family' don't want any of the stuff, can't find the time to clean up themselves and are happy to pay for someone else to do it - they just want the house sold quickly so they get the money.

.....and isn't that so paradoxical. Most people don't give a rats about all of the "stuff" that has been bought and accumulated over a life time. In the end, all of the revenue that has come into the house has gone straight back out to get this "stuff", which no-one values.

The companies flogging this "stuff" make the big moolah and the cycle of life goes on.

The only thing the kids truly desire is the dirt underneath, that has slowly grown in value to be worth something. But what does the next generation want to do ?? Immediately sell it, so they can get a bunch of cash and typically go out and buy more worthless "stuff".

 

[eggnog]

Just did it myself. Got a few skips in (10 or so from memory) and some mates around. Bought whoever helped lunch or dinner or basketball fees. While they were around also gutted the place (carpets, kitchen, doors, etc) to prepare for renos. Pooled all the hazardous waste (paints, batteries, spirits, etc) into a pile and waited for councils free hazardous waste disposal day. Found some pretty interesting and naughty material

 

[wylie]

.....and isn't that so paradoxical. Most people don't give a rats about all of the "stuff" that has been bought and accumulated over a life time. In the end, all of the revenue that has come into the house has gone straight back out to get this "stuff", which no-one values.

Having just done this with my parents' house, I have to say that this just isn't always the case. At 49 years old, I didn't want or need to absorb a huge house full of "stuff" (as you call it) into our own house which is full of our own "stuff".

I felt sad selling, giving away and finding new homes for the accumulated lifetime's collection of things that my parents loved, but when they are gone or can no longer take things with them into a home, it is wrong to just assume that kids aren't interested in any of it.

My very stylish and modern 21 year old (who was partly instrumental in changing our desires from antiques and 30s style furniture to more modern tastes) surprised me by the amount of Mum's antiques he wanted to keep. Problem is we don't have room to store too much, so he kept his favourite pieces. Same with the 18 year old son. Storing them is problematic as we are going through the "let's pare down and live a more simple life" only to find ourselves cluttered up with furniture that we may be storing for years.

Whilst I went through some angst selling Mum's treasured things, to keep them will not bring her back. I have made a vow to sit my boys down and tell them that should something happen to me like happened to Mum, that I am happy that they dispose of things that they don't wish to keep, and not to feel obligated to keep "stuff" that was important to me, but that obviously may not be important to them.

Apart from things that Mum kept because she enjoyed them, she also had a leaning towards "hoarding" and through the years when I struck her in a "let's have a little clean out" mood we got rid of plenty of unimportant "stuff" that she just could not seem to part with. Things that might be useful one day. Those things I had no trouble and Lifeline is the richer for them. It is the things that were enjoyed by Mum that I had more trouble with, but keeping them because they belonged to Mum just turns me into a hoarder (unless it is something I also cherish).

"Stuff" does not maketh the man, nor the memories and disposing of "stuff" does not mean you are diminishing the love or memories of those who it once meant something to.

 

[INVSTOR]

We purchased a deceased estate. It was all clean and spotless except they'd (accidently) left behind two cupboards of saucepans and dinnersets in the kitchen and about 200 pot plants. According to the neighbours there was a big skip bin out the front of the house and the cleaners broke all the antique furniture into pieces. They asked if they could have the furniture but were told it all had to be destroyed.

 

[pennyk]

I would be happy to pass over the cleaning etc of the house, but the sorting through I definitely want to be involved with......not just because mum hid stuff everywhere, but because there are so many fantastic little things which would be easy to miss. I found the funeral notices/obituaries for my grandfather. I never met him, but he and my mum didn't get on that well.....but these showed him in such a different light to the perspective my mum had given. Last week I found an "autograph book" that mum had when she was a girl. For me, these are priceless and i want someone in the family to keep them. Fortunately, we have a big family, so its pretty easy to share the stuff around!
Pen

 

[Judy D]

There is already a company, 'MOVING ON' , that cleans up Deceased Estates in the Sydney area. They are fabulous, I highly recommend them. They really understand the stress that a family experiences at a time like this and they verify all the legal issues like probate. They sell what can be sold via auction houses or second hand dealers, they give other usable stuff to various charities and take rubbish to the tip. They also have a team of cleaners, carpenters, painters, electricians, plumbers etc to fix the property for sale or rental and they even organise furnishing it for the sale. All this within 4 days. They are very professional, efficient and compassionate.
The web site is www.movingon.com.au.

 

[Olly]

Thanks Judy for that link. Luckily we aren't doing the Sydney area so no competition.

Olly