First: nothing has to happen this week
Unless there is a lease ending or a closing scheduled, the contents of a house can wait a month while you grieve. The things that can't wait are small and specific, and we'll get to them. Everything else — the sorting, the selling, the arguments about the dining table — goes better when nobody is making decisions in the first raw days.
If you're an out-of-state child who flew down for the funeral and has to fly home, that's fine. Do the short list below, lock the door, and handle the rest from a distance. A great many Naples estates are settled that way.
The short list — do these first
- Secure the house. Change or collect the keys, make sure the alarm works, tell a neighbor. Empty houses in season attract attention.
- Find the paper. The will or trust, deed, insurance policies, bank and brokerage statements, safe-deposit keys, car titles, tax returns. They tend to live in a desk, a filing cabinet, a bedroom closet, or a freezer bag in the freezer — check all four.
- Find the small valuables. Jewelry, watches, cash, coins, stamps, and anything in a safe. These are what disappear when a house has many visitors. Gather them, list them, and keep them somewhere other than the house.
- Photograph every room before anything moves. Wide shots and the insides of cabinets. It settles arguments later and it's what an appraiser or a dealer will ask for anyway.
- Call the insurer and tell them the house is unoccupied. Many policies change terms after thirty or sixty days.
- Don't throw anything away yet. Not the boxes in the garage, not the papers, not the "junk drawer." The dumpster is where value goes to die — and, more often than you'd think, where the will goes too.
Who has the authority to decide
Before things are divided or sold, someone needs the legal right to do it. In Florida that's usually the personal representative named in the will (once the court confirms them) or the trustee, if the house and its contents are held in a trust. If no one has that authority yet, you can sort and plan, but you shouldn't sell. An estate attorney can tell you where you stand in one phone call; it's worth making. More on how the process works in Collier County.
Then: sort into five piles, on paper first
Walk the house with a notebook — not a truck. Everything goes in one of five columns:
- Keep. The things you or a family member genuinely want. Be honest about space: a dining table for twelve is a hard thing to love in a two-bedroom condo.
- Family. Pieces promised to someone, or that obviously belong with a particular person. If the will lists them, that's settled. If it doesn't, decide by value and sentiment together — an honest evaluation of what things are worth prevents the "you took the good stuff" argument that outlives most estates.
- Sell. Furniture, silver, art, porcelain, rugs, lighting, collections, and anything you suspect has value. You don't need to know what it's worth — that's what the next section is for.
- Donate. Serviceable clothing, kitchenware, books, everyday furniture. Naples charities will collect, and the estate gets a receipt.
- Discard. Genuinely worn-out things. This pile is always smaller than it looks on day one.
Find out what's actually there before you decide anything
Most families are wrong about which things are valuable — in both directions. The "antique" dining suite from 1965 may be worth a few hundred dollars; the dusty flatware chest in the sideboard may be sterling worth thousands; the unsigned landscape in the guest room may be by a Florida painter collectors chase. Nobody should feel bad about not knowing. It's a specialist's job.
That's why we recommend one free walk-through before the family divides anything. A dealer who does this daily can tell you in an afternoon which pieces are worth keeping for their value, which will sell well locally, which belong at auction, and which are simply furniture. That walk-through is what our estate service starts with — but whoever you use, get it in writing.
The mistakes we see, so you don't make them
- Selling to the first person who knocks. Cash-for-everything buyers who show up unasked are counting on your exhaustion.
- Polishing the silver. It lowers the value. Really.
- Refinishing the furniture. Same — original surface is most of what makes an early piece worth anything.
- Letting a helper "take a few things." Every estate has a friend of the family who is happy to clear the garage. Value walks out that way.
- Running a public sale in a condo. Most Naples buildings and HOAs forbid it, and you'll find out when the fines arrive.
- Waiting for season. If the family is up north, the temptation is to "deal with it in January." The house sits empty for five months, insurance lapses, and a closing date arrives anyway. Much of this can be done remotely now.
Choosing how to sell
There are four honest routes for the things you're not keeping: sell them outright to a dealer, consign them, send the best to auction, or hold an estate sale in the house. Each has a different speed, ceiling and cost, and most estates use more than one. We compare them plainly here.
The sentimental things
Keep a few. Not the furniture — the recipe box, the reading glasses, the one painting that was always over the sofa. The rest of the house will be a burden within a year, but a small box of the right things is a gift to yourself. Photograph what you can't keep; the photograph is often what you wanted anyway.
When to call for help
When the house is more than a car load. When there's a deadline. When the family disagrees. When you're out of state. When you simply don't want to do it alone. Any of those is reason enough, and the first conversation costs nothing.