A slightly morbid - but genuine - question!

[bookzombie]

Okay, so we're doing one of our occasional attempts at being grown-ups and have actually started lookng at sorting out our wills (somewhat inspired by the still-ongoing fuss around my grandmother's funeral, etc.)

Most of it is fairly straightforward, but one thing we're debating is what to do with our 'stuff': by this I particularly mean books, but also DVDs, CDs (especially the Big Finish audio dramas), etc.

So given my friends list consists of many people who also suffer from this problem, I'm curious about your thoughts! There's certain things that we've already got an idea for (for example there's a school that P. has done a 'reading buddy' scheme with who we'd probably give many of the childrens' books to.) We'd also probably arrange an 'open house' to allow family to choose things that they'd like to have, but that would also leave a lot left over. We could just say 'anything left over donate to charity x', but that feels a bit impersonal for something that's so important to us.

So we're looking for ideas of what other people have done, or any organisations that you know of that would be particularly interested in the sorts of things we would be disposing of.

Any responses along the lines of 'that's easy: just give them to me' will be met with the traditional Paddington Hard Stare!

Comments

[taldragon.livejournal.com]

leave named things to named people, and let your executors deal with the rest? :)

(discuss your wishes with your executors, obviously! esp if there are specific charities etc you want to donate stuff to).

[coth.livejournal.com]

This is going to sound harsh, but it comes from years of dealing with bequests and house clearances in connection with Porcupine Books and the SFF, as well as from handling my own parents' estates.

I suggest the major determinant of the answer should include consideration of who will be dealing with your stuff, how much you care about them, and how much time and energy they will have to do the job. The more you try to dictate, the harder the job you are giving them.

If you really care where something ends up, organise it yourself in your lifetime. Don't leave it to executors. The family 'open house' is a good idea. For the rest...

If your executor(s) live close by, and have time to spare, and can pop in and out of your house conveniently, you have some hope of making individual dispositions stick, and realising maximum value for your estate and its beneficiaries.

If someone will have to make arrangements at a distance then bulk disposal to a charity or house clearance company is likely to be a major part of how they can cope, but the major beneficiary will be those organisation(s): your estate will realise little or no value. Most of the stuff that doesn't get dealt with that way will probably spend years in someone else's loft before it becomes the same problem for them then as it is for you now. Believe me!

Roughly speaking, most things (furniture, clothes, books, DVDs, etc.) have little or no monetary value anyway, or at least none that does more than repay the human labour cost of getting the thing from your house to its eventual purchaser. This mundane fact is disguised by all the stories of the old master on the top of the wardrobe, which does happen, but not very often. (If you doubt me, look at your local Heart Foundation shop and see how many items are on sale for more than the cost of moving the items in and out of the shop.)

Try and find someone to value a fannish book or art collection. If you can find one, they will politely put you off; or will want to charge both a minimum fee for their time and a percentage of the assessed value. This is because there is very rarely enough value to pay for the assessment.

You could check the SFF catalogue for such things as the Big Finish audio dramas and other scarceish/collectible items - anything not on the catalogue would probably be a welcome donation and would end up being accessioned. Otherwise they will end up in some equivalent of a charity shop pretty much whatever you do. Some people are trying to sell estates via convention art shows and dealers rooms: it is possible, but its a lot of work, and see earlier comment re values.

That's about it. Sorry if it's not what you want to hear.

[bookzombie.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's extremely useful (I thought you might have a good idea of the pros and cons!)

So to summarise: beyond specific bequests and expressed interest (and checking things like the SFF library) then the most efficient thing to do is to send things to charity shops or libraries (the latter would probably be better for books: more and more charity shops seem to not want books or only stock very small numbers of them.)

Honestly, with the books, etc., I don't think we're particularly worried about realising any intrinsic value - it's more that we'd like them to go to someone who would appreciate them.

[coth.livejournal.com]

Glad that was helpful.

The harsh fact is that you can't guarantee anything after you are dead, because what happens depends on those still living. Given the pressures on the living, if you aren't able to manage the disposal in your lifetime, the best way to get things to good homes is probably to make sure that your will directs executors to talk to people who know people who might value your things, rather than leaving them to send everything to house clearance which risks books (in particular) ending up as landfill.

Good luck with it all. B and I have sorting this out for ourselves on our to-do list for the winter, so I say that with all fellow feeling.

[replyhazy.livejournal.com]

When Madison fan Laura Spiess passed away, many years ago now, her friends handled all of her stuff as she was not close with her family. They put the word out for friends to come to her house and buy furniture from the estate (I still have two dressers) and for the books (mountains of them), they had a memorial party in which everybody came and shared memories and food and picked out books to take home and took all the rest to the library.

I thought at the time that I'd like this to happen for me, but that was before I was married and pretty much tripled "my stuff" when it all became "our stuff". Now.. I have no idea.