Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Virginia

My aunt passed away back in June of 09 while living in MD. She was legally seperated for approx 30 years. They had one daughter of age 35 that is living in CA. The daughter is in CA in search of an acting career. Some relatives flew the daughter back to MD to be with family and to attend the funeral. The daughter gained some type of power of attorney and had to make the mortgage payments. The daughter has informed us that the home is in foreclosure proceedings. All the relatives helped my cousin clear out her mom's home of some of the possessions to make it viewable when she put it in the market. While clearing out the home, the cousin/daughter was taking loads upon loads of trash bags full of clothes, shoes, etc to Goodwill and other charities. Me and my sister volunteered to take some of the belongings to my brother's home to sell at a yard sale or Craigslist and to just hold until our cousin had decided what she wanted to do with them. We told the cousin we'd send the money to her or she could fly out and sell all the items with us at the yard sale. I/we told her that since she had no money of her own, she may as well make some off her mom's belongings. I informed her that the yard sale would be held at my brother's since that's where the belongings were going to be stored. I told her that the yard sale would be in Sept 09. From June 0 -Sept 09, I had sent her one or two emails informing her that the yard sale was not going to take place because my brother's community would not be having its semi-annual yard sale. I informed her that my brother did not want to do it out of cycle/on his own because their are county rules about yard sales and he said that he preferred holding them when there was the community sale because we'd get more traffic. I got no response on the matter from my cousin. Approx 3-4 months later I get an email from her accussing me and my sister of stealing her mom's belongings. I mean this was a very nasty email from no where. She never acted angry, never said please sell my mom's stuff ASAP, NOTHING. I sent her back a very professional email stating that her mother's belongings were still in her cousin/my brother's basement never having been touched. How does a girl that said she could care less about the items and money and that all she wanted was her mother back, and wanted to give them to Goodwill turn around and accuse me of stealing! This girl grew up in my parents home, visited us every summer, is in all of our family pictures, and accuse us of stealing! So, it's now yard sale season 2010 and come May is my brother's community yard sale...All the relatives were all set to gather May 1st to sell my aunt's belongings, when it hit us, If our cousin is this off the wall NOW and there is no money involved, what will she be like when she thinks we should have made $2000 in a yard sale and we only make $500. She will then be accusing us of stealing money. Right now all the possessions of her mom are sitting and that's our proof, but once it's sold, we have no proof. So, do we sell, or have her come get her mom's stuff? In her last very belligerant email to us she said since we had stolen the stuff to just keep it. And she also called back and left word that she was going to sue me and my sister. Is an email a legal document? I want to send her an email with a dated jpg of the boxes of stuff and tell her come get it by a certain date OR we are selling it May 1st and that we will send her the money. I'll also include that the items that don't sell will go to Goodwill. What do you recommend?


Asked on 4/20/10, 5:06 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Michael Hendrickson Law Office Michael E. Hendrickson

I would recommend that you follow through with what you've recommended.

Read more
Answered on 4/25/10, 8:05 pm


Related Questions & Answers

More Real Estate and Real Property questions and answers in Virginia