Guardians and Purveyors of Second Millennium Art & Artifacts
Serving Broward & Palm Beach Co., Florida
Guardians and Purveyors of Second Millennium Art & Artifacts
Serving Broward & Palm Beach Co., Florida
Preserving Estate Assets Due to Death or Downsizing
...The number of scholars who knew what to look for and who were competent to recognize what they had come to find, if they had the good fortune to stumble across it, was extremely small.
- Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve
Our Services:
- Estate Walk Through and Inventory
- Assessments and Valuations
- Remote Asset Guardian
- Decluttering, Preserving, Deassessioning
- Discretion Absolutely Guaranteed
What HWJ and Co. is NOT:
- An Estate Sale Company
- A Realtor
- A Cleaning Service
- An Estate Buyer
- A Law Firm
- An Auction House
What We Do and How We Do It:
Our primary purpose as an estate preservation and deaccessioning consultancy is to determine what estate items are kept or "preserved" due to confidential and/or personal reasons, and items due to their monetary or intrinsic value.
Personal/Confidential assets include:
- All paperwork: Insurance, credit card and bank statements, titles, lie
Our primary purpose as an estate preservation and deaccessioning consultancy is to determine what estate items are kept or "preserved" due to confidential and/or personal reasons, and items due to their monetary or intrinsic value.
Personal/Confidential assets include:
- All paperwork: Insurance, credit card and bank statements, titles, liens and other contracts, tax information, military records, social security information, health- care information, and personal correspondence. All electronic devices that enable email and messaging, contain contact lists and social media information. IDENTITY THEFT IS VERY REAL AND THESE ARE NOT THE TYPE OF ASSETS YOU WANT FALLING INTO THE WRONG HANDS.
Assets of monetary value may include:
- Collections of jewelry, art (paintings, pottery, glass, etc), books, ephemera, fiat money, guns, coins, and precious metals among others.
- Items of historical interest
- Family heirlooms.
To preserve an estate every effort must be made to retain all of the assets as they are until a professional and unbiased assessment can be made. Too often small fortunes are lost due to lack of expertise in evaluating assets and not knowing who to call for help. Small fortunes are lost due to theft by landlords and hired help. And fortunes are lost by "throwing out the baby with the bath water" and liquidating the site sight unseen.
When settling your estate due to death or downsizing, there is nothing we want except to ensure your peace of mind.
We will never offer to buy any of your assets - we are a consultancy only.
Our secondary purpose is determining what items have little or negligible financial impact should they be removed and disposed of as part of the "decluttering". These items typically include:
- Furniture
- Clothing and other personal items
- Off the shelf housewares.
- Disposable items.
Our experience tells us that the most expeditious route to dis
Our secondary purpose is determining what items have little or negligible financial impact should they be removed and disposed of as part of the "decluttering". These items typically include:
- Furniture
- Clothing and other personal items
- Off the shelf housewares.
- Disposable items.
Our experience tells us that the most expeditious route to dispose of low-value yet useable items is through donation to any number of worthy causes. It allows for a tax write-off if you have other deductions and items can be removed in one day. An estate sale is a second viable option but may hinder the closing of the estate to weeks rather than days due to sale preparation.
We do not endorse any charities or estate sale companies but could supply a list of those in the area if needed.
How We Do it:
We can work with you locally:
- A one-on-one estate walk-through to fully assess the estate contents.
- Most valuations are performed while on site with additional research completed in less than 48 hours.
- Discuss "end game" options for items to be kept, donated, sold or consigned through a third-party, or bequeathed.
We can work wi
How We Do it:
We can work with you locally:
- A one-on-one estate walk-through to fully assess the estate contents.
- Most valuations are performed while on site with additional research completed in less than 48 hours.
- Discuss "end game" options for items to be kept, donated, sold or consigned through a third-party, or bequeathed.
We can work with you remotely via our Remote Asset Guardian program if you cannot visit the site due to prior obligations, you live out of state, travel issues, emotional distress, etc.
- We walk through the site as though you were with us and capture the contents in real time via video recording and/or live stream. From the moment we open the front door until the time we leave, every single moment and every single item is captured!
- Real time assessments and valuations with additional research completed in less than 48 hours.
- Once completed, your nondescript video is uploaded to a password protected video server to which only you will have access.
- We can then discuss options for preserving and decluttering.
(Remote Asset Guardian is available only in Palm Beach and Broward Counties at this time.)