He’s also my business partner. He kept his watch collection with me since his wife doesn’t allow him to buy watches and made me promise not to ever tell his wife about them. Not only because she doesn’t like it but also because she will definitely ask him to sell them and probably spend the money on clothes and traveling like she often does.
He lets me use the watches in the condition that I don’t cause any damage. But now that he passed away it doesn’t feel right any more.
His watch collection is worth about 200K$ in todays market. I think the lawful and ethical thing to do is to break the promise and tell his wife but I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do since he made me promise not to tell her.
First, I’m sorry for your loss.
Second, the only good piece of advice I’ve seen in here is that you need to talk to a lawyer in your state who does this sort of estate work. There’s a moral philosophical debate to be had over whether you should tell his family or keep the secret posthumously, but that debate is secondary to the legal question of what has to be done with this, as you’ve described it, $200k asset.