Family Fun
You don’t often hear those two words when having to liquidate an estate. But for a recent Caring Transitions of Charlottesville (CTC) client, the experience ended up exactly that – family fun.
Increasingly today, many Baby Boomers are faced with the task of sorting, cleaning and liquidating the house of a parent who has passed away. It can be a daunting task that becomes more challenging if the children live in different cities or states from the home of the deceased parent. This was the situation faced by Bill and his four siblings.
“We had gotten through the easy stuff,” said Bill, but “facing the remainder of everyday life things” and the amount of sorting, cleaning and disposing of household goods required to get the house on the market for sale started to get a little overwhelming. “We called Caring Transitions of Charlottesville (CTC) looking for solutions.”
Although friends warned Bill about “tossing things in the dumpster with tears in our eyes” when using a liquidation company, Bill found that with CTC, this was just not the case.
“CTC offered a great menu of services,” said Bill. “They had the tools to identify and produce the modern-day estate sale: a 10 day online public auction.” In fact, “we were surprised at the number of quality items for sale, some even with a reserve (higher starting bid amount).”
Then the family fun began. The online auction brought the 20+ family members from all over the U.S. together to view and bid on Mom and Dad’s things. A couple of items even incited some friendly bidding wars between family members! “It made the process fun, without tears or tension, and pushed us to the last bit of settling the estate and to get the house on the market for sale. An online auction may not work for everything, but CTC had the knowledge and skill to direct and advise us throughout the whole process.”
“I wish we had them sooner. The CTC team helped with the sale, disposal and donation of a life well lived.” And the family had fun!