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.
It was his stuff, but since he died without a will that stuff belongs to his estate. If he felt sentimental enough about them and wanted to keep them from her he could have written a will that did exactly that.
Yeah if you look at it from the standpoint of the law but consider your friend especially if you’re not gonna face any consequences for breaking the law. He couldn’t have written him into the will otherwise the wife would’ve seen it on the will and got upset
If any of my friends asked me to help hide 200k from their spouse, I wouldn’t have done it. I don’t have much sympathy for OP or his friend in this case (I mean about the watch thing specifically, I obviously have sympathy about the person passing away and OP grieving that loss). If his wife finds out, she should absolutely be upset about this. It’s a shitty, inexcusable thing for her husband to have done.