When you hear stories about land inheritance between family members, fairly often, they're about people disputing it. It's almost as if fighting over land is in human nature.
Well, today's story is about this topic, too. In this case, it's about family members who didn't own the land and didn't want it for themselves -- they wanted to sell it. And when the owners refused, it led to name-calling and even possible cracks in a marriage.
More info: Reddit
Is it fair to ask someone to use their inheritance in a way that doesn't benefit them directly?
Image credits: Pixabay (not the actual photo)
Before his death, a woman's husband left their daughter the land he inherited from his mom
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)
Years after his death, the woman's now-husband expressed that he wanted to sell the land to pay for his chronically ill son's hospital bills
Image credits: Anna Shvets (not the actual photo)
Since it was her daughter's inheritance from her late dad, the woman refused the deal, making her husband angry
Image credits: u/WW39707
He called her selfish despite the fact that the majority of her salary goes to covering his son's hospital bills
Before the OP’s husband died, he left their daughter land that he inherited from his mom. At the time, the girl was only 10 years old.
To talk about land ownership and inheritance, Bored Panda talked with Jurgita Kasinavičiūtė, a judge’s assistant from the Kaunas chamber of the Kaunas district court in Lithuania. She said that while there’s no official statistic available that she’s aware of, it’s quite common for land and other kinds of properties to be left to a person's children, no matter if they’re over the age of 18 or not.
Often, such inheritance helps the family preserve its legacy and maintains the environmental and cultural value of the land. But sometimes, it can also cause disputes between family members. Well, that’s what today’s story is about.
At the time the post was written, the original poster’s daughter was 15 years old. Also, the author herself had a new husband and a 17-year-old stepson, who is chronically sick. What he has exactly wasn't specified, but overall, chronic illnesses are those that last a long time and cannot be fully cured. So, it’s natural that the hospital bills are expensive.
Since the new husband isn’t doing well financially, the OP helps him with the hospital bills. In fact, she said that a big part of her salary goes to her stepson’s needs. Also, a couple of months before the post, she helped to get him quite a costly medical device. Unfortunately, that’s only a temporary solution to his illness.
For example, he also needs surgery. So, to get money for it, his dad started wondering about the possibility of selling his stepdaughter’s land. He brought up the question to his wife, but she told him she wouldn’t do anything with it, as it was her daughter’s and not hers. So, he seemingly dropped the idea.
Then, a week before the post, he got into a fight with his family, who refused to fund his son’s surgery. So, he asked his wife again if he could sell the land, use some of the money, and give the rest to the stepdaughter. Just as before, his wife was against the idea. This caused an argument between them.
Image credits: Timur Weber (not the actual photo)
In his eyes, the wife is a parent and wouldn’t get into legal trouble. Our interviewee said that, at least in Lithuania, the mom would be able to sell the daughter’s land. To do so, she should go to court to get permission to sell the property that’s in the minor’s name and provide reasoning on how this sale would benefit her. “Then, the court would decide if this sale doesn’t infringe on the daughter’s rights and interests.”
She added that, in her opinion, in the case of the story, the court likely wouldn’t issue the permission. After all, selling her inheritance to pay someone else’s bill doesn’t sound like it's in the best interest of the girl. Yet, it’s just a theoretical perspective.
The wife answered that she’s not planning on selling, not because of legal troubles but because it’s the land that the girl’s late dad left her.
This explanation led the husband to call his wife selfish for prioritizing her daughter over her stepson. And those words hurt her. She helped him financially so many times, and now, the one time she refuses, he goes around spewing things like that and pressuring her to sell something that technically doesn’t belong to her.
People online were appalled by the husband’s behavior. They talked about how pressuring the wife to sell something that technically doesn’t belong to her is a jerk-ish move. And how even his being worried for his son doesn’t really excuse this behavior. Basically, they encouraged her to stay strong against this pressure and not do something that might hurt her daughter in the long run.
Jurgita kind of agreed with the opinion, at least from the legal side. Since the land belongs to the girl and he isn’t her first guardian, in court, his opinion wouldn’t really matter. After all, as it was pointed out before, the court would consider the daughter’s interests, not the third party’s.
So, there’s nothing much left for us to do other than to hope that the mom ended up not giving in to the pressure and that her husband found another way to fund his son’s surgery. This way, everyone ends up happy.
Internet folks were disgusted by the man's behavior and encouraged the women not to give in to the pressure
