How to divide a parent's belongings among siblings without a fight

The will handles the house and the accounts. It almost never handles the things. The piano, the ring, the truck, the dining table, the photo albums. Those have no number on them, three people want some of them, and the person who could have settled it is gone.

Every family invents a method on the spot, usually in the kitchen, usually tired. This is a comparison of the five methods families actually use, where each one breaks, and the one that has a proof behind it.

1. Taking turns

Oldest picks first, then the next, and around again. It feels fair because everyone gets the same number of picks. It breaks on the first pick. If the piano is worth more than everything else put together, whoever picks first wins and the rest is consolation. Families patch this with a snake draft (first picks last in round two), which helps, and with drawing for the pick order, which moves the unfairness to a coin.

The deeper problem is that a pick says nothing about how much you wanted it. The sibling who picks the ring because it was Mom's and the sibling who picks the ring because it appraises well look identical.

2. Colored stickers

Everyone gets a color and walks the house putting stickers on what they want. Anything with one sticker is settled. Anything with two or more goes to a pile for the real argument. The method is good at the easy part: in most houses, most things are wanted by one person or nobody. It does nothing about the pile, and the pile is why you needed a method.

3. Drawing lots

Names in a hat for each contested item. Nobody can complain it was rigged. Everybody can complain about the result, because a coin does not know that one sibling learned piano on that piano and the other one has nowhere to put it. Lots are fair in the sense that nobody chose the outcome, and unfair in the sense that the outcome ignores everything that matters.

4. Sell everything, split the cash

The estate sale. Clean, equal, final, and everyone loses the things. The ring goes to a stranger for a tenth of what it meant. Some families do this on purpose, as a way to avoid the argument, and regret it for years. It is the right method for the items nobody wants, and the wrong one for the items somebody does.

5. Sealed bids

This is the method with a proof. It was published by Bronisław Knaster in 1945 and is taught in college math courses under “fair division”, which is why a Google search for it returns homework. It deserves better.

1. Everyone bids in private.Each person writes down what every item is worth to them, in dollars. Nobody sees anyone else's numbers.
2. Each item goes to the highest bid. The piano goes to whoever valued it most. So does the ring. So does the table.
3. Each person has a fair share.Add up a person's own bids and divide by the number of people. With three siblings, a third of what you said everything was worth is what you are owed.
4. Cash evens it out. If the items you won are worth more than your fair share, by your own numbers, you pay the difference into a pot. If they are worth less, the pot pays you.
5. The pot is split evenly. There is always money left in the pot, because every item went to the person who valued it most. That leftover is split equally.

The result: every person gets their fair share, plus a bonus, measured by what they themselves said things were worth. The sibling who wanted the piano gets the piano. The sibling who wanted cash gets cash. The sibling who took the truck and the ring pays the others for them, at prices they set themselves, which is the part that ends the argument.

A worked example

Anna, Ben and Chris. Five items. Their private bids:

Anna gets the piano. Ben gets the ring and the truck. Chris gets the table and the albums. Anna received $4,000 of things against a fair share of $2,900, so she puts $1,100 in the pot. Ben received $8,500 against $3,667 and puts in $4,833. Chris received $2,300 against $3,267 and the pot pays him $967. That leaves $4,967 in the pot, so each gets $1,656 back.

Final: Ben pays $3,178. Anna receives $556. Chris receives $2,622. Everyone has more than a third, by their own count.

You can change any of these numbers in the sealed-bids calculator and watch the result move.

When nobody wants to talk about money

Some families cannot put a dollar figure on the ring, and some have one sibling with much more cash than the others. The fix is points. Everyone gets the same budget, say 100 points, and spends it across the items. Each item goes to whoever put the most on it. No money moves and the wealthy sibling has no edge. The cost is that someone who bids low on everything can end up with nothing, so points suit a house with many items and people who want different things. A family in a Next Avenue story did this with 500 poker chips per sibling and called it the best decision they made.

What makes it work in practice

• The bids have to be sealed.If Ben knows Anna bid $4,000 on the piano, he bids $4,001 to spite her or $0 to avoid her. The method only produces honest numbers when nobody can see anyone else's.
• Somebody neutral collects them. Traditionally the executor, or a family friend. It also works with a tool that keeps the bids sealed until a deadline and shows only the result.
• Net the cash against the estate account.Nobody writes a check. The executor adjusts each person's share of the financial assets by the amount shown. Ask the estate's attorney first.
• Do the stickers first. Items only one person wants do not need a bid. Use sealed bids for the pile.
• Unequal shares are fine. If the will gives one person 50% and two others 25%, the fair shares and the leftover pot are split in those proportions.

Doing it without the paperwork

RealBid runs the sealed-bids method as a set of private links. You list the items and the people. Each person gets their own link and a deadline, bids in private from their phone, and nobody, including you, sees anyone else's numbers. At the deadline the math runs and everyone is emailed who got what and the cash that evens it out. Dollars or points, equal or unequal shares. It is free and nobody needs an account.

How dividing an estate works on RealBid, or set one up in about two minutes.

This is a fair way to decide who gets what. It is not legal advice. Anything the will or state law dictates comes first; talk to the estate's attorney.