After a parent dies and their assets/estates have to be divided, siblings will often resort to a dispute rather than common sense. Many times, we see relatives, sons, daughters fighting over the estate of their loved one – not considering the wishes of the latter.

Naturally, such disputes can escalate and even end up in court – especially when the deceased didn’t make a will or consulted an estate planning lawyer to divide their estate. Given this, it is essential for siblings to either avoid or dispute such battles.

Therefore, here are some tips that can help them – or you, if you’re in such a case – avoid fighting with their family over an estate!

The Family Auction

If the siblings have to divide the estate themselves – and they run into a dispute – they can rely on an auction system to help them split it.

With an auction in place, every member of the family/siblings has a legal claim over the estate. Everyone will get some tokens that they can use to bid on whatever parts of the estate they want.

As such, one sibling can go all in if they want the car or the house, while another can split their tokens across multiple items, to their liking. 

Appraisal

Getting an appraisal of the estate can be one of the things to help a family avoid disputes entirely. Given that some items may be very valuable for the siblings having them fairly distributed will be complicated.

An appraiser, on the other hand, will provide you with a market value for those items. As such, high-end items can serve as replacements for other items. For example, if someone wants the entire house for themselves, you can take the expensive car and deduct its value from the house’s value – for a fair distribution. 

Asset Liquidation

If siblings are faced with a lot of assets that they don’t know how to share equally, they can rely on the easiest thing ever.

Namely, if they’re not valuable assets – both in terms of dollar value or sentimental value, they can be sold, and then the proceeds split between the siblings.

This is one convenient way to solve estate battles as it ensures the fair distribution of assets – in this case, the cash value of every single item. 

Mediation

In some cases, siblings will not see eye to eye and fight over the very last thing in the house – even if it’s a squeaky old chair. In such scenarios, please hire a mediator and let him/her split the estate.

The mediator will handle the distribution process personally and act as an estate planning lawyer but after death. Naturally, a mediator will not be influenced by any emotions or states that may make the siblings argue or fight over the estate.

The Bottom Line

Even though there are many ways to solve estate battles – many more than were mentioned here, siblings will often end up in court. In fact, there have been some cases when the entire estate was lost due to trials, lawsuits, and court fees after brothers decided to sue each other.

Therefore, before you throw harsh words towards your siblings and determine that you are entitled to most of your parents’ estate, it is recommended to consider avoiding disputes or resolving the ones that are already in place.