I am going to preface this with my brother has been a selfish jerk his entire life. He only ever contacts family if he’s in trouble or we can do something for him.
My car recently needed some repairs that it wasn’t worthwhile getting fixed, so I’ve been looking at purchasing a used car. I am taking my time doing this because I can use my husband’s personal vehicle while he uses his work van, and I want to make sure I am getting the right vehicle for me.
My brother was aware my vehicle was in disrepair because it broke down while I was on my way to his house to pick him up to take him to the food bank. He might be a jerk, but I’m not going to let him starve. I sent him some groceries through instacart instead.
He lives about an hour and a half away. He quit his job of 17 years last year because he didn’t get along with the foreman and hasn’t been able to find work since. His own car broke down a while ago, and he hasn’t had the money to fix it.
My brother called me up a couple of nights ago because he apparently got a job offer with a good pay and great benefits, but he doesn’t have a car to get to the work site. He’s offered to pay the amount the dealership offers for the car and he’ll repair it himself. The parts aren’t expensive, but the job is labour intensive and so the repair can get pricey.
I already asked my brother, who is mechanically inclined, if he would do the repair for me and I would pay him or wipe out debts he owes me (just over a thousand) but he said it wasn’t worth it. Now he is saying it worth it for him to do it if I basically sell him the car at a discounted rate, but he wasn’t willing to help me out when I needed it.
I feel like I don’t owe him anything, and that’s he’s just going to try to take advantage of me and put pressure on me to sell him my car before I’m ready. It might be months before I make a final decision on which car I want.
so reddit, WIBTA if I just told my brother no, and he lost this job opportunity.
UPDATE: I am beginning to realize this isn’t even about the car, but about the lack of trust I have in our relationship. Apparently IATA is this situation and have decided that I’m ok with that. There is a bunch of other stuff going on besides this and I don’t trust him enough to even have him in my life and will not only be not selling him the car, but cutting him out of my life completely. I let him back in after he had years of no contact with my family last year to see if we could repair our relationship, but all it’s caused me is undue stress. My family owes him nothing after the way he treated us for decades. This might make me an even bigger AH but back to therapy, I go.
ESH.
If he did owe you money and didn’t have a job then helping to fix your car for you would have been a reasonable thing for him to do.
Now though, he is offering to pay you the same as the dealer so you wouldn’t be out of pocket. It’s only spite that’s stopping you doing this.
Helping him now would also mean you’re a lot more likely to get the money you’re owed back.
Yeah, that money is from years ago. I don’t actually expect to get it back ever. I never ask him for anything but have helped him out many many times. I just figured I could help him out by throwing a bit of cash his way for the job of repairing my car, but he didn’t think it was worth it. Meanwhile, He couldn’t even afford food for his dogs, so I sent him some groceries and dog food.
>I already asked my brother, who is mechanically inclined, if he would do the repair for me and I would pay him or wipe out debts he owes me (just over a thousand) but he said it wasn’t worth it. Now he is saying it worth it for him to do it if I basically sell him the car at a discounted rate, but he wasn’t willing to help me out when I needed it.
To be honest, you didn’t “need” help, you wanted it. If you were desperate you could have sold it for the price you already have on the table.
Also it probably wasn’t worth fixing up to sell, he could spend days repairing it, for a few hundred profit. But he could fix it up just enough to get to work and back, cheaper than he could buy another car.
Why don’t you lend him the car on the expectation that he repairs and returns it as a way to pay you back.
You complain he owes you money, but are fucking up his chance to pay you back.
Set expectations that he returns the car to you in 12 months. Or a payment plan to cover the $1000?
YWBTA – This one is hard to judge anyone as being an AH because (of course, he should pay his debt to you), on the other hand, what are you going to do with the car if it doesn’t work? You’d have to have it fixed before you could sell it anyway, and if he’s mechanically inclined, it makes sense for him to do the work if the payoff is transportation to a good job opportunity.
What seems fair is that he does the work and has access to the car for transportation, but pays you back what he owes before he gets the title. This way, everyone benefits.
Trade it in for a reduction on my monthly car finance. It runs, it just needs repairs and I don’t want to further damage it by driving it.
I know my brother. He will not pay back this money to get the title. He has gone to jail in the past rather than pay traffic fines that he owed. The likelihood is he would rack up debt in the car that I would then be responsible to pay for
Fair, but he also held down a job for 17 years – which shows some stability.
It’s up to you, but it doesn’t seem like you would have taken the time to make this post if part of you didn’t still care about him.
He’s owed it to me for over 10 years. I doubt he’ll just suddenly decide it’s worth it.
I love my brother because he’s family, but I do not like him. He was abusive to me for years when we were children to the point that one of my teachers almost called CAS because I was covered in bruises and thought my parents were beating me. He hit my terminally ill mother.
The only reason we have recently been in contact is because I reached out to let him know our father was in palliative care last year. He didn’t visit and never attended the memorial. On our last conversation he basically said our father screwed him over by willing his entire estate to our step mom. This is after my father dipped into his retirement savings to bail my brother out of jail to the tune of 10s of thousands of dollars.
Unless he’s going to pay you more than the trade in price I don’t see how you’d be in the wrong here. This guy has been troubling you for years and being insanely selfish. I say play his game. Ask for more than the trade in value and watch him squirm. He shouldn’t be expecting you to do the harder option for less or even the same money but that’s what he’s always done. He could take his money and go buy a cheap car somewhere else but he’s bothering you to try and buy a car he knows is broken? I get that he knows he can fix it but he’s taking advantage of you an he’s not even being subtle about it
I’m not even sure where he would come up with the money to pay me to begin with. I could totally see this sliding into him saying he will pay me with his first pay check if I just lend him the car first and then he never pays me for it and doesn’t bother to change the ownership and I get dinged for tons of parking fines or something.
I’m having trouble to go ESH or NAHish. I’m leaning ESH, cause well you are probably right in your feelings vs your brother, in the way you made this post you don’t sound too great either. Which is probably due to you being angry/annoyed.
But regardless of our judgement if he can get the money sell it to him. Trade in value is higher than selling value often for a car, so if the value the dealer offered is ok, then sell it. It means you are free to choose another car dealer if needed.
Secondly, if he buys the car and fixes it you don’t have to drive him to the foodbank. You don’t have to buy him groceries if he gets the job.
Basically stop looking at it of doing him a favour while he didn’t want to help you. If he actually pays for the car you are doing yourself a favour of getting him out of your hair.
Just don’t sign over ownership until he has fully paid you. Unless you would be financially responsible for any damages he causes when not signed over yet. Then have him sign a contract or something that he is loaning the car till you are paid and that he is responsible for insurance etc. Just make sure you can’t get screwed.
He can repair his own car.
Yeah you know your answer. Go tell him…then us
YTA. He isn’t asking you to sell it at a discounted rate, but at is proven market value. You are the one who is trying to extract part of the value HE would add by repairing it and claiming it as belonging to you. You don’t suffer at all from simply selling it to him.
Why are you complaining that he places more importance on repairing it so that he can get a job than the money you would use paid him for his labour? Of course he does, as anyone ends would. The job is obviously worth a lot more to him than purely the value of the labour. If you’d offered to pay him to fix your car AND give you a job at the same time then it’d be a like for like comparison. But you didn’t, so it’s not.