Who gets Grandma’s jewelry?
When one relative lays claim to all the good stuff

Question: When my grandmother died last year, she divided her money equally among my mother, my aunt, and my uncle. Grandma had several nice pieces of jewelry, none of which was mentioned in the will. My Aunt Sherry claims that Grandma often told her she wanted these pieces –two antique Navajo bracelets and a pair of sapphire earrings – to go to Sherry’s daughter Brianne “because they had the same coloring and the same sign.” But my mom and I never heard Grandma say anything like that, and this wouldn’t be the first time that Aunt Sherry lied about stuff like this.

So when Mom found the jewelry when she was cleaning out Grandma’s things, she gave one of the bracelets to me, one to my Uncle David’s daughter Greta, and the earrings to Brianne. My aunt is furious. Do you think Mom did anything wrong?

Answer: As a matter of fact, yes.
Just because your grandmother’s will doesn’t specifically mention her jewelry doesn’t mean the jewelry is up for grabs. Almost certainly her will entrusts someone with the responsibility for distributing her personal property. And if your mother isn’t that person, she was wrong to take it upon herself to divvy up the bracelets and earrings.

Just because Aunt Sherry’s claim seems implausible (and we share your skepticism), it doesn’t mean your mother was free to dismiss it out of hand and make up her own rules for who should get what. Rather, your aunt should have been given the chance to back up her assertion that the jewelry had been promised to her daughter.

Even if she couldn’t, she still had a right to expect a less arbitrary distribution of her mother’s jewelry. For example: Each heir could have been offered the opportunity to select one piece of jewelry, with the order of selection determined by cutting cards, drawing straws, or the like.

A luck-of-the-draw process may not be perfect, but it is fair. And it puts a stop to the shenanigans of the folks who think everything nice has their name on it just as effectively as your mother’s high-handed approach did.

Excerpted from the book Isn’t It Their Turn to Pick Up the Check? (Simon & Schuster, 2008) by sociologist Jeanne Fleming ’74 and her husband, Leonard Schwarz. The couple writes the Money magazine column, “Do the Right Thing,” on money, ethics, and relationships. They also write a blog with the same name that is featured twice a month on CNNMoney.com.