Splitting a physical asset, like a house or car, between multiple heirs is much harder than splitting money. Often, the only solution is one heir buying out the other(s) or selling the asset to a third party and splitting the proceeds.
A husband whose wife has been trying to get her share of a joint inheritance turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for feedback on a hypothetical “Would I Be The A**hole” (WIBTA) scenario.
SubsidizingSiblings asked:
“WIBTA if my wife and I were to force her sister and brother-in-law to move?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“My wife and I recently got married. We are both financially frugal people with decent paying jobs. We save our money religiously and use it to meet our financial goals, especially ones in the future for when we have kids.”
“My wife is DEEP in college debt. To the tune of about $200,000. She is starting her residency and we just got a bill in the mail for her private student loans. It’s A LOT.”
“Here’s the saving grace. When her grandfather passed away, he gave half of his home to my wife, and half to her sister. Her sister is older, and has been essentially making unilateral decisions regarding the home the moment she inherited her half.”
“She did things like renovate a kitchen, replace appliances, take over a room downstairs to be a work from home office, claim the master bedroom, and use the frog (fiinished room over garage) as her own personal storage space.”
“A frog is a room above a garage that’s kind of like a ‘do whatever the hell you want with it’ space. Usually it has two entrances, like from the mud room/laundry room inside the house, and then the upstairs if it’s an attached garage. The entrances are inside the garage and an outside set of stairs if it’s a detached garage.”
“People will turn it into spaces like a second living room, a play room for the kids, a man cave, a music room. Or even a bedroom.”
“Most frogs have an egress window and a closet which makes it legally qualify as an additional bedroom.”
“Many times, frogs can be the most useful space from a utility perspective.”
“Personally, when my wife and I buy a forever home, we’re going to look for a house with a frog, and convert the space into an efficiency apartment that our kids can use for college or visiting when they are young adults.”
“She did most of this while my wife was away in college 3 hours away. When my wife did move into the house, she was not given 50% or even 20% of the home to use for herself. She was relegated to a child’s bedroom and the shared upstairs bathroom.”
“When I met my wife, I took notice of this immediately. We discussed finances before getting married, and decided that since she would be moving out of the house to live with me, it would be prudent for her sister to buy her out of the rest of the house’s equity.”
“We notified her sister last June. We explicitly told her that she had the entire summer to figure out the finances. She said she would need a few months and would update us.”
“Within two months of that conversation, they decided to buy a newish car for her husband… who had a work truck already. Sister works from home, so they have a car just sitting in the garage.”
“It’s been six months. And now that the student loan payments are coming in, we reached out to her sister once again, and informed her that she would have to buy her out and we needed to get the process started NOW.”
“Her sister is now trying to encourage my wife to just have a conversation ‘Between the two of them’ because ‘It’s their business and not their husbands’.”
“I call bullsh*t. This effects both of us just as much. My wife feels exactly the same. We are a 100% unified front on this.”
“I won’t go into specifics, but her manner of texting has led us to consider just giving her the 30 days required by our state and then if she doesn’t have her sh*t together by then, forcing a sale through a partition suit.”
“If we are forced to do this, we will pursue rental income owed through exclusive use case law regarding shared homes. Which would give us approximately $15-20,000 more in equity. That’s substantial, and would essentially pay off our only car loan on top of wiping out my wife’s private loans entirely.”
“We aren’t trying to uproot their lives. But we have decided that it is in the cards if they don’t show some real progress towards rectifying this situation.”
The OP later added:
“My wife tried to address this with her sister when she was in college. She was shut down. She tried to address it during summertime. Shut down.”
“She’s at a point where after long and hard consideration, she is 100% okay with me addressing it. We absolutely know this will likely result in me being despised by her sister. We just don’t care anymore.”
“We did care. We gave them tons of time. But we just dont care at this point.”
“My wife doesn’t want to work it out one on one with her sister alone anymore. She has too much history of her sister not respecting her boundaries.”
“She’s at a point where she would rather sic me on them and light a bit of a fire under their feet. Which I am 100% open to doing to anyone who makes my wife cry.”
The OP summed up why they might be the a**hole in their situation.
“We are trying to discern whether or not we would be the a**hole if we were to force a sale of the home that my wife’s sister and brother in law are living in.”
“We are still unsure if we should give them another chance to pay us without court getting invovled, or if we should just jump into a partition suit and pursue every penny we are entitled to or could convince a judge we are entitled to.”
“If we take this action, it’s going to be very stressful on their end, as they would have to move out of the home and find a place to rent. It would end up costing them a ton of money in legal costs, moving costs, closing costs, etc…”
“But it is what we are considering if they don’t show signs of taking care of this out of court.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP would not be the a**hole (NTA/YWNBTA).
“NTA. Though the title is misleading—you aren’t forcing them to move, you are asking to no longer subsidize their lifestyle.” ~ MennionSaysSo
“YWNBTA and you need a good property lawyer.” ~ LowBalance4404
“Get a lawyer, force the sale of the house.”
“If SIL wants to own the house 100%, they can get a mortgage to buy your half of the house from your wife at its current market value.” ~ Turtle_ti
“SIL already considers the house 100% hers. Also, be ready for her to expect reimbursement for her personal enjoyment renovations. And don’t be surprised if she tries to slide 100% of the cost over to wife’s half of the profits.” ~ Mirabai503
“Good news is, that is not how the law actually works. The SIL is 100% wrong.”
“SIL may consider it 100% her house, but legally it is not.”
“Also OPs wife (a 50% owner of the house) is not responsible for any part of the cost of the renovations done by the SIL.”
“Not unless the SIL can prove that the repairs were needed to stop the house from deteriorating, and the SIL can also prove she alerted the other owners of the property of the issues, and the damage not repairing them world create. And then also coordinated those repairs & prices with the other owners of the property.” ~ Turtle_ti
“Lawyer now. There’s no way to do this in a ‘friendly’ way. Your SIL has made it clear she wants this house all to herself for free.”
“Tell her she can either buy your wife out at half the current market value, or the house is put on the open market and you can split the profits.”
“Her sister chose to play a stupid game, so she can collect on her stupid prizes.” ~ BeautifulChaosEnergy
“SIL wants to cheat her sister out of her inheritance.” ~ Lisa8472
“NTA. Your wife should just file for a partition sale at this point. Her sister could still get approved for a mortgage and buy out your wife’s share as part of the partition sale negotiations.” ~ teresajs
“You and your wife are making rational decisions, the sister is trying to just ignore the situation and keep doing what she wants with her taking 3/4 of the house it seems.”
“Even if it costs you some money, you need a lawyer to be the attack dog and let him/her do their thing through the courts. This won’t end well on a personal relationship status, so be prepared for that. Good luck, NTA.” ~ GirlDad2023_
The OP provided an update:
“We didn’t just talk to Reddit. We sought guidance from our pastor, and other people in our lives.”
“My older sister went through something similar with her dad. So I asked her to make sure I wasn’t being too a**holey about this.”
“We’re pretty much hearing a united front from literally everyone who knows us. And now we’re hearing the same from third party strangers without any personal relationship to us.”
“The message is clear now. It’s going to be up to them if they want to aknowledge it and do the right thing. Or drag all our lives into hell.”
The OP has seen the writing on the wall. His wife’s sister will never share their inheritance without being forced to do it.
Selling the house and splitting the proceeds seems like the best choice.