September 16, 2007Ask Meryl ~ siblings settling the estate
Meryl,
Help! I have a communication issue that, while small now, could become much bigger quite soon.
Back in May, my father passed away. He had made me the Executrix of his will. There are only two of us, my brother and myself. As you can imagine, the months since have been very stressful for both us, what with clearing out our father’s house, deciding what to keep, what to sell and what to throw away.
Since I am the Executrix and legally responsible for everything, what I say goes, but I have been careful to involve my brother as much as I can. He and I have a rocky history, and I don’t want to jeopardize our new-found harmony. Fortunately, we have gotten along really well, agreeing on almost everything and agreeing to disagree when we didn’t. He understands I have the ultimate decision-power in the situation, but he has told me he appreciates me not “rubbing it in.”
You can tell a “but then” is coming, can’t you?
But then we put our father’s house up for sale. As I am sure you know, the housing market is not good, so we cannot expect to get as high a price for the house as we might have a year ago. My brother wanted to do sell-by-owner, but since neither of us has the time, knowledge or stress capacity for it, I vetoed that idea. I hired a realtor recommended by the accountant working on Dad’s estate, and after doing some market research, the realtor fixed an asking price for the house.
The problem is my brother dislikes the realtor, saying they are too negative and didn’t fix the asking price high enough. The realtor was only being honest with us about the current market and mortgage crisis, and after doing some research myself, I found the asking price is average for the area of town. I have tried to explain this to my brother, but every time anyone mentions this or any other house, he makes a point of telling me he dislikes the realtor and the price is too low.
I have told him I understand his point, and while I know our father put a lot of work into keeping the house in excellent condition, it will not sell with an asking price higher than it has. I told him I know he dislikes the realtor, but since I am the one who has to deal with them–and I like them–he doesn’t need to worry about it.
He will not let it go and seems determined to ignore the realities of the situation. The first reality of selling this house is we cannot set the price higher than the market will allow. The second and more important reality is we must bring this affair to closure. Dealing with our father’s death is quite enough already, and being the Executrix has only added to my stress levels. It is beginning to affect my health, both physical and mental, and I know my brother is having some stress-related health issues as well. We need to bring this to an end so we can begin to deal with our father’s death without all the “distractions” of his estate.
Help me find the words to tell my brother I understand his point but he needs to accept my decision. Again, I do not want to create a new rift between us. He is a good man without a malicious bone in his body, but I feel he is trying to bully me into agreeing with him and doing what he wants, which I will not do. Unfortunately, he is used to me (and our parents) caving to him in the past.
Thanks!
Meryl responds:
I can’t help you say that because I’m not convinced that you can’t work with him more than you have. If I’m missing something and you can’t, I’ll gladly revise my response.
First, I understand that you want to close this out because of the stress, but isn’t the stress largely because of the conflict? If you were able to find an approach to the house that seemed reasonable to both of you but took a bit longer, would it necessarily be stressful?
The discussion has been polarized, unnecessarily IMO.
• For example, you say you vetoed the sale-by-owner option, but it sounds like if you had told him you were open to that idea if he took full responsibility, he would have vetoed the idea himself.
• It sounds like the realtor option is a) either list for the price the realtor suggests or b) not use the realtor. What would it hurt to list it at your brother’s desired price for a predetermined time and see what happens? Yes, it would delay the sale, but wouldn’t the accommodation take the stress off?
• And you say your research confirmed the realtor’s estimate. Have you involved him in the research? Can you suggest that if he was able to aggregate compelling research to support the amount he wants to sell it for, you’d consider it?
These comments are less about the individual examples as to suggest that you look for more options and bring him into the process more. It sounds like you’ve overridden him based on your assessment of the facts, but that in your desire to bring things to a swift close, you haven’t sufficiently involved him in the process so that he would come to the same conclusions that you have. In the end you might need to override him, and you have the power and the right to do that. I would like to hear you exhaust every possible option before you do that.
I recently mediated between a brother and sister negotiating their parent’s estate. I have the tapes and plan to write it up in the next week or two. In the meantime, keep me posted on whether my suggestions help and how it goes.
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