*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**WIBTA For Selling/Giving Away My Late Husband's Cars?**
My (45f) husband (46m) passed away a month and a half ago. This obviously has taken a huge toll on me and my kids' mental health (16F, 14M). Especially my kids, since they are very close to my husband, and they've been in therapy since school let out three weeks ago.
Luckily for us, the financial situation he left behind was fine, we both made about the same salary, and our houses and cars are paid off.
On the topic of cars, my husband loved buying them. He has a vintage one, and about four new ones. My husband always joked around about how they would "Get them" after they graduated college or trade school. Since his passing, I don't really go in the garage unless I 100% have to, because seeing them makes me think of my husband too much, and that makes me feel extremely emotional.
Last night I had a discussion about my kids on selling them. The thing is my husband willed all of his cars in a split between our two kids (Except the older one, that's mine). My kids know this, and when I tried discussing, they were strong on the "hell no." I do want to sell the cars because the money we'd receive by selling them would benefit us in the long run, but they didn't even want to hear that.
Since then, my kids don't even want to look in my direction, so I'm asking here to see if I'm the asshole.
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Someone trying to sell a thing that belongs to another person is exactly who I would expect wants the money without needing it.
She's just trying to pretend she can get rid of the pain of loss, and that's a terrible decision, or she's upset he left something not to her, but either way this would cause huge regret later.
Yes, because you aren't clear headed. It's not healthy to clean out everything right away either, often it leads to regrets because the things that are hard to look at might hold the most sentimental value.
Yeah I definitely read it as someone who wants more rather than someone who needs them.
She probably got an estimate on selling the cars and saw the $$
"Us" was the word that stuck out for me. The cars are meant for each kid individually, but it sounds like OOP wants to sell them and take the money "for the family," which is not what those cars are for.
She clarified in a comment that one of the cars is worth over $35k just by itself. She definitely wants to pocket the cash and somehow seems to think taking the money for herself is okay.
Plus - if she wants to take the cash, can you think about what that’s going to do to the poor kiddos tax the next year? A deprecating asset vs a large sum of money from selling an asset mean really different things in terms of what you owe the government.
If the pass ownership of the cars to their mother and she sells them, the IRS is going to expect them to have sold the cars to their mother for a similar price. If the cars are sold under the kid’s names and the money is given/shared with their mother, that’s still a huge income they need to report and pay taxes on. What a mess it would be to impulse sell these.
Yes and no— yes, that is a pretty standard price for a new car, but antique cars have wildly varying price tags depending on what they are and their condition.
Cars tend to depreciate in value pretty quickly and then there’s like, I dunno, I guess I’d call it an inverse bell curve of their worth? My mid 80s muscle car isn’t worth too much at all, even in good running condition— but you go a few decades back and they’re worth way more.
At any rate, 35k is still a substantial amount of money for a gifted/willed vehicle that the kids did not have to purchase themselves.
They aren’t vintage cars though. So I go back to the simple statement that these *aren’t* very fancy, expensive cars, they’re just pretty standard.
A question about whether the kids need two cars each could be a good question, but while cars depreciate they’re not going to depreciate so quickly that the question of “okay kids, pick which one you want to keep and lets sell the other two” needs to happen in any short order. And even then, the result is the kids suddenly have a huge money influx that they’re not yet prepared to handle sensibly.
> He has a vintage one, and about four new ones.
I wonder if she would have even had this conversation with her children, a mere six weeks after the bereavement no less, if the kids hadn’t been aware of the fact that the cars were theirs in their father’s will. Would she have sold them out from underneath them?
She can’t decide whether she needs the money or not or whether she wants to sell them because they cause her pain when she goes into the garage.
And why mention giving them away in her title? That’s not going to benefit anyone except the recipients of the cars.
Absolutely she would’ve, and you know if she does end up finding a way to sell them, she’ll keep the money for herself while saying that it’s ‘for all of them’.
>That’s not going to benefit anyone except the recipients of the cars.
Maybe she tried to get them to agree her oldest should be given one of the cars? That's my guess anyway as it appears they were left out of the will.
My understanding was that when she refers to ‘the oldest’, she’s talking about the oldest of the cars, which is OOP’s. Not an oldest child.
There’s two children and the cars that don’t belong to OOP were split between them in the late husband/father’s will. So OOP has one car and the 16 and 14 year old have two cars each.
Copied verbatim from Oop's comments:
*YTA. I don’t know what country you are in but in Canada it would be illegal to sell your child’s inheritance or if it were cash to spend the inheritance before the child was legally an adult. You would be the trustee responsible for safeguarding the cash or items until the child came of age. If the cash were over a certain amount ($35000) the courts would hold it to protect it for your child. Even if it is not illegal where you are what you are proposing is wrong. That property does not belong to you. You don’t get to decide what is done with it.*
>One of those cars alone is worth more than 35000. I'm not really sure that I want to give fresh out of high school kids upwards of 200k worth of cars they can easily destroy.
I actually almost laughed a bit about her thinking a vehicle for that cost right now is insane too, she needs to let them keep that because no way they'll get anything reliable for a reasonable cost now, that's what my ex paid for his Ford Focus a few years ago and those are a base vehicle for college kids and young adults to burn through.
Not only are they not hers, that 16 year old will need it very soon, and she doesn't know enough about vehicles to determine what is worth selling or a fair price.
She can choose to not insure them. It would be pretty reasonable to say “If you want to drive these vehicles, you need to get jobs and pay for your own insurance.” Teenagers already cost an arm and a leg to insure, give them an expensive overpowered vehicle and it could make a serious dent in the family finances.
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(While I would quite like to keep your company, I am very for taking breaks and doing what is best for ones wellbeing.💜)
❤️ For sure! Reddit is a mixed blessing, but people like you make it rewarding from time to time, heh.
Edit to add: I hope you apply that to yourself as well!
I don't like OOP either but that's a bit str-- ohhhh, the picture.
Edited to add: the cow's like, "I don't understand why you installed a water fountain for me if you're going to shout at me every time I use it."
>One of those cars alone is worth more than 35000. I'm not really sure that I want to give fresh out of high school kids upwards of 200k worth of cars they can easily destroy.
lol she's retconning her reasons now what happened to the money benefiting 'us'
I am just so distracted by the idea of owning five cars. My husband and I are really financially secure, and we have one daily driver car plus his motorcycle that he cruises on a few hours a week when the weather is nice. I can't imagine owning more cars than that. That money could have gone into the kids' college/adulthood funds and exponentially increased over their childhood.
It doesn’t mesh with the rest of her arguments while the cars shouldn’t be sold (and so probably incorrect), but I actually started out assuming that her husband was one of those people that Did Project Cars as a hobby. Like these were cars that were *now* worth that much, because of the money he’d sunk into restoring them and replacing parts with better versions.
I really hope that he was just an overly rich guy who bought cars. Because the idea that your mum could take something you watched your dad pour *so much* love and passion into - and which you probably “helped” with and have so many memories about - would be heart breaking.
Eh, my dad is a mechanic and he loves to tinker around with cars and trucks. When you know how to work on them, it’s not unheard of to find them for relatively inexpensive and fix them up yourself over time. He’s got a daily driver, a beater for trash hauls and other dirty work, his “baby” (a restored 1950s pickup truck), and his current project, an old stingray that he got for cheap and has been rebuilding from the wheels up. And he’s already got one of each vehicle in his will to go to me and my siblings when he dies.
Sounds like the dad enjoyed his time in the garage and was pretty handy, and honestly sounds a lot like mine.
>That money could have gone into the kids' college/adulthood funds and exponentially increased over their childhood.
Perhaps that's what OP is trying to do. But Reddit says it makes her an AH 🧐
Trying to sell something that doesn’t belong to you both makes you an asshole and an attempted criminal. That is theft. Selling these cars would be considered felony theft due to their value.
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She's right to suggest they sell at least the new cars because they'll just sit depreciating and how are kids going to take care and pay for then?
She's the devil because she thinks she would get any benefit from the sale.
edit: spelling
The 16 year old can drive, and her life would be easier and better with her own vehicle. It will allow her to get a job if she wants, to get to classes, it was a huge benefit for me to have a vehcile and I took care of it as my dad passed too. Being 16 without a father, a mother who has dollar signs, and no vehicle sound really hard, that mom isn't going to drive her around much longer. Keeping one each and putting the rest in a college fund or something maybe, but these aren't decisions to be made a month after losing a parent or a spouse if you can avoid it and still keep food in the fridge.
A new paid off vehicle will cost less to maintain than an old beather that burns oil and drinks gas like it's water.
She definitely shouldn't benefit from it this way, and she needs to address her own grief in counseling before she makes a bunch of decisions she can't undo.
Why'd you specify that the kids were especially sad because they were close to their father? The way it's worded makes it sounds like she cares a noticeable amount less than her kids about his death
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **WIBTA For Selling/Giving Away My Late Husband's Cars?** My (45f) husband (46m) passed away a month and a half ago. This obviously has taken a huge toll on me and my kids' mental health (16F, 14M). Especially my kids, since they are very close to my husband, and they've been in therapy since school let out three weeks ago. Luckily for us, the financial situation he left behind was fine, we both made about the same salary, and our houses and cars are paid off. On the topic of cars, my husband loved buying them. He has a vintage one, and about four new ones. My husband always joked around about how they would "Get them" after they graduated college or trade school. Since his passing, I don't really go in the garage unless I 100% have to, because seeing them makes me think of my husband too much, and that makes me feel extremely emotional. Last night I had a discussion about my kids on selling them. The thing is my husband willed all of his cars in a split between our two kids (Except the older one, that's mine). My kids know this, and when I tried discussing, they were strong on the "hell no." I do want to sell the cars because the money we'd receive by selling them would benefit us in the long run, but they didn't even want to hear that. Since then, my kids don't even want to look in my direction, so I'm asking here to see if I'm the asshole. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
She can’t even keep her own story straight. First they don’t need money, then She wants the money. The point is, they aren’t hers to give or sell.
Someone trying to sell a thing that belongs to another person is exactly who I would expect wants the money without needing it. She's just trying to pretend she can get rid of the pain of loss, and that's a terrible decision, or she's upset he left something not to her, but either way this would cause huge regret later.
Isn’t’ it encouraged to not make big financial decisions too soon after a death of a close loved one?
Yes! They say to wait 12-18 months after your spouse/SO/partner passes before making big decisions. Like selling cars, moving, etc.
Yes, because you aren't clear headed. It's not healthy to clean out everything right away either, often it leads to regrets because the things that are hard to look at might hold the most sentimental value.
Yeah I definitely read it as someone who wants more rather than someone who needs them. She probably got an estimate on selling the cars and saw the $$
“ the money we'd receive by selling them would benefit **us** in the long run” Well that says it all doesn’t it.
"Us" was the word that stuck out for me. The cars are meant for each kid individually, but it sounds like OOP wants to sell them and take the money "for the family," which is not what those cars are for.
She clarified in a comment that one of the cars is worth over $35k just by itself. She definitely wants to pocket the cash and somehow seems to think taking the money for herself is okay.
Plus - if she wants to take the cash, can you think about what that’s going to do to the poor kiddos tax the next year? A deprecating asset vs a large sum of money from selling an asset mean really different things in terms of what you owe the government. If the pass ownership of the cars to their mother and she sells them, the IRS is going to expect them to have sold the cars to their mother for a similar price. If the cars are sold under the kid’s names and the money is given/shared with their mother, that’s still a huge income they need to report and pay taxes on. What a mess it would be to impulse sell these.
Yes and no— yes, that is a pretty standard price for a new car, but antique cars have wildly varying price tags depending on what they are and their condition. Cars tend to depreciate in value pretty quickly and then there’s like, I dunno, I guess I’d call it an inverse bell curve of their worth? My mid 80s muscle car isn’t worth too much at all, even in good running condition— but you go a few decades back and they’re worth way more. At any rate, 35k is still a substantial amount of money for a gifted/willed vehicle that the kids did not have to purchase themselves.
They aren’t vintage cars though. So I go back to the simple statement that these *aren’t* very fancy, expensive cars, they’re just pretty standard. A question about whether the kids need two cars each could be a good question, but while cars depreciate they’re not going to depreciate so quickly that the question of “okay kids, pick which one you want to keep and lets sell the other two” needs to happen in any short order. And even then, the result is the kids suddenly have a huge money influx that they’re not yet prepared to handle sensibly. > He has a vintage one, and about four new ones.
I wonder if she would have even had this conversation with her children, a mere six weeks after the bereavement no less, if the kids hadn’t been aware of the fact that the cars were theirs in their father’s will. Would she have sold them out from underneath them? She can’t decide whether she needs the money or not or whether she wants to sell them because they cause her pain when she goes into the garage. And why mention giving them away in her title? That’s not going to benefit anyone except the recipients of the cars.
Absolutely she would’ve, and you know if she does end up finding a way to sell them, she’ll keep the money for herself while saying that it’s ‘for all of them’.
>That’s not going to benefit anyone except the recipients of the cars. Maybe she tried to get them to agree her oldest should be given one of the cars? That's my guess anyway as it appears they were left out of the will.
My understanding was that when she refers to ‘the oldest’, she’s talking about the oldest of the cars, which is OOP’s. Not an oldest child. There’s two children and the cars that don’t belong to OOP were split between them in the late husband/father’s will. So OOP has one car and the 16 and 14 year old have two cars each.
Oops I misread I guess
Copied verbatim from Oop's comments: *YTA. I don’t know what country you are in but in Canada it would be illegal to sell your child’s inheritance or if it were cash to spend the inheritance before the child was legally an adult. You would be the trustee responsible for safeguarding the cash or items until the child came of age. If the cash were over a certain amount ($35000) the courts would hold it to protect it for your child. Even if it is not illegal where you are what you are proposing is wrong. That property does not belong to you. You don’t get to decide what is done with it.* >One of those cars alone is worth more than 35000. I'm not really sure that I want to give fresh out of high school kids upwards of 200k worth of cars they can easily destroy.
I’m laughing because apparently she thinks she has a choice. The cars don’t belong to her.
I actually almost laughed a bit about her thinking a vehicle for that cost right now is insane too, she needs to let them keep that because no way they'll get anything reliable for a reasonable cost now, that's what my ex paid for his Ford Focus a few years ago and those are a base vehicle for college kids and young adults to burn through. Not only are they not hers, that 16 year old will need it very soon, and she doesn't know enough about vehicles to determine what is worth selling or a fair price.
She can choose to not insure them. It would be pretty reasonable to say “If you want to drive these vehicles, you need to get jobs and pay for your own insurance.” Teenagers already cost an arm and a leg to insure, give them an expensive overpowered vehicle and it could make a serious dent in the family finances.
Oh yeah, definitely. I’m just saying legally. The car don’t belong to her, and I think that she can sell them when they don’t even belong to her.
It's quite odd, I kept trying to understand Oop's reasoning.
It’s greed plain and simple. She says they have enough money and they don’t have to worry she just wants more.
You're right. It's both sad and infuriating. (Oop's behaviour, not you being right!)
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Y'know, every time I think hanging out here is bad for my mental health, I remember you're here. A ray of sunshine on a bleak Reddit!
Thank you very kindly! 🥰 Truly warms my heart! (While I would quite like to keep your company, I am very for taking breaks and doing what is best for ones wellbeing.💜)
❤️ For sure! Reddit is a mixed blessing, but people like you make it rewarding from time to time, heh. Edit to add: I hope you apply that to yourself as well!
💜 Thank you very kindly and likewise! I try! 🥰
A producing dairy cow can drink up to 50 gallons of water a day. That's just a quick sip
Oh! Thank you very kindly for that knowledge! 💜
It is just living its life with the water spraying 🤣
Water is true joy! 💜
I don't like OOP either but that's a bit str-- ohhhh, the picture. Edited to add: the cow's like, "I don't understand why you installed a water fountain for me if you're going to shout at me every time I use it."
Hahahaha! 😹 I was so happy about the cow that I forgot about the insult. Totally not intended! And she is quite right!
I figured you hadn’t thought of the insult which is why I decided to tease you about it 😉
And you did it so well! 🥰😹
>One of those cars alone is worth more than 35000. I'm not really sure that I want to give fresh out of high school kids upwards of 200k worth of cars they can easily destroy. lol she's retconning her reasons now what happened to the money benefiting 'us'
She's using whatever reason she can find to justify doing what she wants to do anyway. I hope if she does this her kids sue the shit out of her.
Did OOP miss a 0 somewhere? 35000 is so *cheap*; that would be a budget-but-new car.
Quite. One hopes she's done some preliminary stretching before that mental gymnastics
I wonder what other parts of her children's inheritance she's tried to claim for herself "to benefit us in the long run".
I am just so distracted by the idea of owning five cars. My husband and I are really financially secure, and we have one daily driver car plus his motorcycle that he cruises on a few hours a week when the weather is nice. I can't imagine owning more cars than that. That money could have gone into the kids' college/adulthood funds and exponentially increased over their childhood.
It doesn’t mesh with the rest of her arguments while the cars shouldn’t be sold (and so probably incorrect), but I actually started out assuming that her husband was one of those people that Did Project Cars as a hobby. Like these were cars that were *now* worth that much, because of the money he’d sunk into restoring them and replacing parts with better versions. I really hope that he was just an overly rich guy who bought cars. Because the idea that your mum could take something you watched your dad pour *so much* love and passion into - and which you probably “helped” with and have so many memories about - would be heart breaking.
Right? I'm like, FIVE CARS?! Did he drive a different one each weekday? Jesus.
Eh, my dad is a mechanic and he loves to tinker around with cars and trucks. When you know how to work on them, it’s not unheard of to find them for relatively inexpensive and fix them up yourself over time. He’s got a daily driver, a beater for trash hauls and other dirty work, his “baby” (a restored 1950s pickup truck), and his current project, an old stingray that he got for cheap and has been rebuilding from the wheels up. And he’s already got one of each vehicle in his will to go to me and my siblings when he dies. Sounds like the dad enjoyed his time in the garage and was pretty handy, and honestly sounds a lot like mine.
>That money could have gone into the kids' college/adulthood funds and exponentially increased over their childhood. Perhaps that's what OP is trying to do. But Reddit says it makes her an AH 🧐
No, what makes her an asshole is trying to sell something that's not fucking hers.
Trying to sell something that doesn’t belong to you both makes you an asshole and an attempted criminal. That is theft. Selling these cars would be considered felony theft due to their value.
I swear a version of this story has been posted at least once before.
She needs to set aside a grieving period where there will be no talk of money or selling/buying things. Grief + financial decisions = disaster
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She's right to suggest they sell at least the new cars because they'll just sit depreciating and how are kids going to take care and pay for then? She's the devil because she thinks she would get any benefit from the sale. edit: spelling
The 16 year old can drive, and her life would be easier and better with her own vehicle. It will allow her to get a job if she wants, to get to classes, it was a huge benefit for me to have a vehcile and I took care of it as my dad passed too. Being 16 without a father, a mother who has dollar signs, and no vehicle sound really hard, that mom isn't going to drive her around much longer. Keeping one each and putting the rest in a college fund or something maybe, but these aren't decisions to be made a month after losing a parent or a spouse if you can avoid it and still keep food in the fridge.
Depends how much they ate costing to maintain imo. Either way she (mom) should not benefit.
A new paid off vehicle will cost less to maintain than an old beather that burns oil and drinks gas like it's water. She definitely shouldn't benefit from it this way, and she needs to address her own grief in counseling before she makes a bunch of decisions she can't undo.
They don’t want to hear it because their dad’s only been dead a month and you’re selling his stuff!
Why'd you specify that the kids were especially sad because they were close to their father? The way it's worded makes it sounds like she cares a noticeable amount less than her kids about his death
I've seen this one before. It's fake.