Money & Inheritance·
THE INHERITANCE HEIST
A daughter fights to reclaim a $100,000 inheritance her father used to start a family business, dragging the family through a tense legal battle and questions of fairness.
Should she have considered the younger kids too?
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When her mother died, a 10-year-old was left more than $100,000 in inheritance, and her father spent it to start a business.
The money was supposed to be hers. Her mother had put it in her will, and the father was in charge of it after the death. For years, the poster grew up knowing there was a sizable inheritance waiting in the background, even as life moved on and the family changed.
Then the father remarried.
According to the poster, he and his new wife used the inheritance to open a business. By the time the poster was 15, the issue finally blew up in an argument. The father defended what he had done by saying it was for the family, and "better used to help everyone than being thrown away on random shit."
The relationship never really recovered. By 18, before moving out, the poster was done trying to pretend the money issue could be smoothed over.
After leaving home, the poster started digging into getting the inheritance back. That turned into a legal fight: they pressed charges for stealing and sued the father.
The case dragged on.
The father repeatedly told the court he couldn't pay, saying, "I can't pay, I don't have the money anymore." The poster says the process took a long time and kept coming back to court because the money was gone and the father claimed there was nothing left to repay. Eventually, the business was given up and sold so the poster could be paid back. The father also had to pay more money out of his paycheck, and the parents' savings were emptied so his wages would not be garnished anymore.
While the case was moving through the legal system, the family split over it. The poster says their maternal extended family supported them, along with some relatives on the father's side. But other paternal relatives pushed back, telling the poster to think about the father's other children. One line they heard again and again was that "the kids are innocent and are still my siblings technically."
The poster did not accept that argument. "I feel like that's just really unfair to me and locks me into never being paid back," they said, adding, "I don't think I owe those kids that."
By the time the money was finally returned, the poster says they were completely done with any possibility of reconciliation. Still, some people on the father's side now think the poster was wrong to focus only on the father's actions and not the effect on the younger children.
The poster disagrees, and is asking whether they were wrong not to take the children into consideration while suing for the inheritance their father had spent.