Q: § 7-201. Duty to prepare and file inventory: Specifically, it states "The inventory shall include (#2) tangible personal

A: A lawyer can be very helpful in sorting these things out, but, generally, the clothing of the deceased has very little economic value. It is most often donated to a homeless shelter or Salvation Army, and the proceeds are insignificant. The leftover food in the house is worth even less, and you can't even donate open boxes. Expensive items like furs and jewelry should be appraised, but you will spend more appraising wearing apparel and consumables than they are worth.

A: BECAUSE NONE OF THAT IS WORTH ANYTHING. You do not list everything in the household (16 pencils, 23 blue ink pens, 6 pairs of white sox, 12 T-shirts, an empty shoe box, a pack of Juicy Fruit, 9 boxer shorts, etc.). You list valuables. That’s it. Most household personal property is divided among family or donated to GoodWill or trashed. You can hold an estate sale for whatever the family doesn’t want. Most times, it’s cheaper to pay a company to come take it all out and dispose of it for you. The time, effort and advertising expenses needed to catalogue and try to sell a lifetime of used possessions and clothing would far exceed what you’d get in return for anything that sold. Plus, if storing all that stuff waiting to sell it means paying the mortgage, property taxes, insurance, utilities and maintenance on the house rather than selling the home, you have to add that cost into it as well.