The fight is almost never about the house
When their mother died, Ellen and her brother Paul agreed about the house in about ten minutes. It would be sold, the proceeds split, and a title company would handle the math. Three weeks later, they stopped speaking to each other over a gold ring with a green stone that had been sitting in their mother's dresser for forty years. Neither one of them was being unreasonable. Their mother had simply never written down who was supposed to get it, and each of them had spent years assuming it was them.
Why the small things cause so much trouble
There’s a few reasons why this causes such difficulties. These items carry sentimental and monetary value at the same time. An old vinyl record collection might be worth four hundred dollars and still be the first thing a son remembers when he thinks about his father. There's also only one of each. Two kids can split a bank account down to the penny, but they cannot split a wedding ring. And then there's surprise, which people underestimate. A sister who always assumed the ring was coming to her, finding out at the worst possible moment that her brother assumed the same thing.
They aren’t actually arguing about jewelry.
Timing doesn't help either. By the time anyone is dividing up a household, everybody is grieving and exhausted and often in a room with relatives they haven't really talked to in years. Decisions made in that room tend to go badly. Anything you can settle in advance is one less thing that has to get settled there.
California already lets you make a list
There's a tool for this in the Probate Code that doesn't come up much. Under section 6132, you can leave a separate written list saying who gets which of your physical things, and that list carries legal weight without being part of the will itself. The requirements aren't much. It has to be dated. It has to be handwritten by you or signed by you. It has to describe the items and the people clearly enough that somebody else can tell what you meant. And your will has to refer to it, which is what connects it to everything else.
You can also change it whenever you like without going back to a lawyer. Write it before your will or after, it doesn't matter. Write a new one next year, after you've given the ring to your daughter while you're still around to watch her wear it. If two lists contradict each other, the most recent one wins. The statute even says a list that isn't handwritten or signed doesn't automatically fail, and evidence of what you meant can still come in, but don't lean on that. Date it, sign it, and the question never comes up.
The limits that catch people
Two numbers do most of the damage here. The total value of everything on your list can't go over $25,000. And any single item worth more than $5,000 falls off the list entirely and passes under your will's remainder clause instead. So a painting in the hallway, if it appraises at $9,000, isn't covered by your list no matter how carefully you described it. Items that fall off don't count toward the $25,000, which helps the math a little, though it doesn't change where the painting ends up. Something like that has to be handled in the will or the trust itself.
Any single item worth more than $5,000 drops off the list and passes under the will's remainder clause instead.
There are also whole categories the list doesn't touch. Cash is out, unless you kept it for its collectible, historical, artistic, or investment value, so a coin collection counts and the envelope of twenties in your dresser doesn't. Property you use mainly in a business is out. So is real estate, so are mobile homes, and so is anything intangible, meaning bank accounts, securities and documents of title. The list is really for the physical things sitting around your house, which is where the trouble usually is anyway.
Now, one complication, and it matters for most Californians since most plans here run through a living trust rather than a will. Section 6132 lives in the part of the Probate Code that governs wills, and it works because an unrevoked will refers to the writing. If your plan is built on a trust, your list has to connect to your documents correctly before it does anything at all, and plenty of trusts are drafted with their own provision for this kind of memorandum. Find out which situation you're in instead of assuming. Writing a careful list that none of your documents points to is a very common mistake and an easy one to avoid.
Probate Code section 6132 is a will provision. It works only because an unrevoked will refers to the writing.
One small administrative note, since it affects how long an estate stays open. Whoever administers the estate has to file the list along with the inventory and appraisal. If it isn't available by then, it has to be filed no later than 60 days before the petition for final distribution. So keep the list with your other estate documents, and tell whoever will be handling things where to find all of it.
The steps you can take
Most of this is a weeknight's work, and you don't need anybody's permission to start.
Walk your house with your phone and write down the items that would cause an argument.
Describe each one so a stranger could pick it out of a room. Just saying "Mom's ring" doesn’t work, because there were three. "The gold ring with the green stone, top left drawer of my dresser" is much better.
Photograph the items while you're at it, since a picture settles more arguments than a description does.
Date the list and sign it, then tell at least one person where it lives.
Flag anything you think is worth more than $5,000, because that item has to be handled in your will or trust instead.
Check whether your will or trust actually refers to a list like this, and get that fixed if it doesn't.
Then, if you can stand it, say some of this out loud while you're still here. If the record collection is going to one child and not the other, that lands very differently coming from you at Thanksgiving than it does from a document six months after your funeral. You don't owe anybody an explanation, though people who give one usually find the conversation goes better than they expected. When you're ready to get it on paper, our team at Laurel Trust Law can help.