AITAH if I reported my uncles to the government for breaking the law.
Long time lurker, first time poster. I apologize in advance but there is a lot of backstory. Names are changed and such to protect identities. I tried to summarize best I can but am more than willing to answer questions if something isn’t clear.
Clarification: I haven't actually reported them yet but want to know if I'd be the asshole if I did.
I (F28) was born and raised in the USA but my mother (F60s) is from a small European country. She is one of eight siblings and the only one to immigrate to the USA. My parents through hard work and no small amount of skill built a very successful life by any standard despite inheriting nothing from their parents. My whole immediate family spent a lot of time traveling back and forth from the USA to my mom’s home country when I was a kid but now it is mostly just me and my mom who travel there. We make sure to visit each of her siblings each time we visit the country and for the most part are close (well as close as you can be when you live on opposite sides of the world).
This tale begins over twenty-five to thirty years ago (I’m not sure exactly the dates as during the early parts as I was either not born yet or a young child) when one of my mother’s brothers let’s call him Jonathan (M60sish) was struggling financially. My mom offered Jonathan a very low interest loan to help him. There is a thing about pride in her home country that prevents them from accepting gifts of that nature and it was a large amount of money, think like $200,000.
Fast forward to just over twenty years ago when my grandfather died, and his property was inherited by the various siblings. The youngest son (M 50s) who we will call Ro, inherited half of the family farm and Jonathan, inherited the other half. Shortly after he inherited the property, Jonathan went through a messy divorce and as part of the settlement had to give his ex-wife a house to raise their son in. He was not in a financial position to purchase a house at the time and so was considering selling the family farm (his part included the several hundred-year-old farmhouse that has been in the family for generations and their mother was still living in). In order to keep the farm in the family my parents purchased the house and land from Jonathan so my grandmother could remain living in the house, and it would remain in the family. For ease we will call the purchase price $250,000. This sale included $150,000 cash and the forgiveness of the remaining $100,000 on the loan mentioned before. Please note that at the time $250,000 was likely more than the property was worth, as it was old and most of the outbuildings were derelict. $250,000 was however, the number needed to forgive the loan and enough cash to purchase a new house for Jonathan’s ex-wife.
Over the following ten years my family completed vast renovations on the house including but not limited to, replacing the roof, adding an extension to add a modern bathroom and laundry room, completely overhauled the yard, removing the collapsing out buildings and landscaping the entire lawn area, renovating the kitchen, adding handicap fixtures for my grandmother and redoing all the flooring and painting. Sadly my grandmother passed away during this time so we rented the house out to a local family while they built their own place a few miles away.
We jump again to two years ago. Jonathan is in a much better financial situation and is nearing retirement. He wants to retire to the country and fixes his sights on the family farm which he wants to buy back. He offers $250,000 to my parents for it. In the area this house is located derelict houses of the same size and acreage are listed for nearly $350,000.
So ,in summery he offered the same amount that my parents bought it from him ten years earlier before the renovations were completed. My parents countered with perhaps meeting in the middle between the $250,000 and the nearly $400,000 that the house was currently worth. Jonathan declined stating that he had only the $250,000 to offer and that we should sell it to him for that amount so it can be “brought back into the family”. While it’s not completely clear what he meant by that the only conclusion that my mother or I could come up with was that he didn’t consider us part of the family because we have my father’s last name. He also stated that we only bought the house for $150,000 so $250,000 was completely fair, conveniently forgetting that loan forgiveness.
Ignoring the obvious insult, my mother countered with she would sell it to him for the $250,000 on the condition that she could carve out an acre plot near the road so she could one day build a house of her own there. So far on the land that was originally my grandfather’s (totaling about 40 acres), there is the old farmhouse, Ro’s house, one of my aunt’s houses and plans to build another house for one of Ro’s sons. My family’s section is about 10 acres, all of which were purchased from Jonathan as my mother did not receive any inheritance from her father.
In this country it is extremely difficult to get permission to build from the government, especially if you are not a current resident which no one in my immediate family is. So, in order to build on the plot my mom suggested keeping one of us would need to live in the country for a min of five years but typically closer to 10 years before we would be granted permission to build.
Jonathan was very pushy that we do the sale quickly. As quickly as possible. During the process of getting the sale agreement drawn up we learned that a huge section of the land had not been registered with the government correctly during the sale ten years before, so it was technically still in Jonathan’s name. Which was something we needed to get remedied before we could sell the property back to him. His response to this was “well if it’s in my name then that’s that.”
He refused to go through with the sale stating that he wanted all or nothing as he didn’t want to “have neighbors looking in his windows” (this will be important later). My mother refused to sell as there was no way she would sell the whole lot, land and house for $250,000 as that is complete insanity.
Jonathan threw a fit over not getting his way and ran to Ro, who owns the half of the farm which abuts with the farmhouse directly. Ro had been watching over the house and keeping the yard nice while we are away. We of course pay him the going rate for the maintenance as it can be quite a bit of work. Jonathan convinced Ro to tell my mother that he would no longer be able to take care of the house if we refused to sell it to Jonathan. Things turned nasty during this conversation, and it ended with my mother crying, but she stood her ground and refused to sell the house. We hired someone to take care of the yard while we were away and moved on with our lives. We also hired a lawyer to get the land put officially into our name even though were weren’t going to sell it as at this point it seemed as though Jonathan was going to try to take it instead of buying it.
Ro and Jonathan have refused to speak face to face with my mother since then. A trailer home appeared on Ro’s side of the fence basically overnight. We learned that Jonathan is living there. Not full time but sometimes. It is about a hundred feet from the farmhouse. The back windows look almost directly into the front windows of the farmhouse (refer back to when this man said he didn’t want neighbors looking in his windows). We finally got the land officially into our name after no small hassle going back and forth with the lawyer and the government.
Eight months ago, my mother, my fiancé and I traveled back and brought with us a CCTV system my father wanted to install at the house to watch over it since Ro was no longer willing to keep an eye on the place. This was the first time my fiancé had been to my mom’s home country and met her side of the family. I am the first in my generation to get married, not sure if that is important, but I want to give the most info I can. The first morning we woke up we looked out the front windows to see a whole herd of cows out on our fields. They were likely there the night before, but we arrived in the dark so we didn’t see. My mother immediately messaged Ro inquiring what his cattle were doing on our land. She stated that he was to remove them from the land immediately as it was trespassing but that she was willing to discuss allowing him to lease the land if he was interested. She probably would have just let him use the land for free if he hadn’t been such a jackass since the Jonathan situation. Ro gave no reply.
My fiancé was there for a week, and I introduced him to the family, obviously excluding Ro and Jonathan who still refused to speak with my mother.
After my fiancé returned to the states due to work, Ro’s wife reached out to my mother via text stating that for the mental health of Ro that all future communications would go through her and also requesting to lease the land from my mother for Ro’s farm. She insisted on a “Legal lease” for ten years. In an attempt to mend bridges my mother hired a lawyer from her home country and had him draw up a lease which clearly stated what the land was to be used for farmland and nothing else, example being you couldn’t dig though the ground looking for gravel to sell (I guess that’s something they do here). After the lease was drawn up Ro refused to sign it. I think that this whole lease situation arose from fear that my fiancé and I were going to move into the farmhouse and live here full time. One of my aunts who still speaks to both Ro and Jonathan asked me directly if that was the plan and I replied that it was not. Ro refused to sign the lease shorty after that conversation.
We were not able to get the CCTV cameras installed while we were there so my mother arranged to fly back four months later with someone familiar with the system to get it installed. There are strict rules about CCTV in this country about what you are and are not allowed to record. We followed the rules exactly, blacking out anything on the other side of the property line and making sure the only things in frame were on our property.
Directly after my mom returned but before the cameras were installed Ro reached out, interested in perhaps leasing the land again. My mom agreed again, thinking that they were finally on the path to reconciliation. However, a few days later, after the camera’s went up they sent her a message which contained very little except the rules about CCTV cameras.
It should be noted that Jonathan has not communicated with my mother at all since the house sale debacle, but it was becoming increasingly clear from the wording of some of the messages coming from Ro that Jonathan was behind them, especially the one about the CCTV. My mother invited Ro over to the house to see the cameras on the monitors and make sure that nothing besides our own land was on them. She also attached pictures of each camera and its view so he could be sure nothing illegal was going on. Ro declined to come look at the cameras. He also declined to lease the land. Another message was sent indicating that we should not contact Ro due to his “mental health.”
Things have remained “Status quo” since then. Neither Ro nor Jonathan are speaking to my mother. She is speaking to neither of them. Jonathan’s trailer house is perched right on the property line, and he’s put up a huge privacy fence that prevents anyone from seeing the trailer from the road but does little to stop the looking in each other’s windows issue. He’s also plopped the ugliest tank right up on the fence as close to the property line as he can get it. I’m not sure what it’s for but placing it there really couldn’t be anything but intentional to annoy us.
Two things have changed in the last few days to prompt my post. First, we learned that the trailer house is 100% illegal. They did not get permission from the government to place it there and the land is not properly zoned for residential space. The government here is very serious about their permission to build things. Even so my mother was adamant about not reporting them because they are family. Personally, I’ve seen no evidence of them being family in the last five years. They seemed to want to take advantage of my mom at every turn but that could be my bias speaking. Secondly, Ro’s wife sent a text message to my mother today, completely unprompted. I don’t remember the exact words but the gist of it was “We know you are back in town. We don’t want to see you. Don’t stop by. We have to protect ourselves and secure our mental health. Don’t contact us again.”
So now I have three options as I see it. 1. Do nothing. 2. Give them the invitations to my wedding like I was planning to in an attempt to mend bridges or 3. Report them to the government for an illegal house. (I am sure the trailer house is attached to the farmhouse well which would be questionably legal and I also have a sneaking suspicion that they have attached it to our septic field as well though we haven’t had someone come to check that but I cannot see a legitimate company putting in a septic field for an illegal house.) If it were anyone but family treating my mother in such a way I wouldn't hesitate but they are technically family so...
Personally, I am not a fan of the first option. It feels very passive. The second option I think might be morally the best as I can see how the rift between my mom and her brothers affects her. She is genuinely upset about the whole situation but also won’t let them take advantage of her. I am partial to option number three as I believe strongly in the “fuck around and find out” and “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes” mentality. But it also might make me an asshole, so I hesitate.