We inherited the house we live in from our dad last year after he suddenly passed. I was living on my own in the same city but decided to move to live in my childhood home since we were inheriting it from our father. Completely paid off house no mortgage, when i was paying $2k/mo for an apartment, so it made financial sense and its closer to my work location.
My older brother (35) had been living there with my dad (and mom before she also passed), well, since birth. I had moved out at 22.
Since moving in, I’ve observed that my brother, literally does nothing all day. He lost his job during the pandemic and did not get it back, but never tried to get a new job either. I’ve encouraged him to apply for jobs, I’ve offered to take him to job fairs, to resume workshops. Even had our neighbor offer to put in a good word for him for a retail job so he can get hired but he didn’t want to apply. He only has a high school diploma and only experience is in fast food and retail.
I’m at work 40-50 hours a week at a corporate job so the hours and days i am home; i observe that he literally just watches TV, plays video games or works out. Often stays up to 2, 3am, sleeps into the afternoon. He’s like a 12 year old on infinite summer vacation. I do majority of the household and yard work. He does his own dishes and washes his own clothes but thats about it. He does help the few times I do ask him to, but he will procrastinate so most of the time i just do it myself or else it will take ages to get done.
I pay for all the utilities and food in the house. I’ve told him to apply for SNAP food stamps so at least he can buy his own food but he refused when he found out that our state requires he apply for jobs with getting SNAP because he is able-bodied adult.
He has no drivers license, no car. He rarely leaves the house and the few times he does he either asks me to take him or he uses public transportation.
He doesnt really have a social life, outside of “online” friends and our neighbor (the one who offered to help him get a job). He doesnt have a girlfriend and as far as i know havent been on a date in years.
i’m pretty sure he’s depressed but he hasnt made an effort to get help. I’m not sure what to do. Both our names are on the house deed/title from inheriting it, so it’s his house too, so its not like I can throw him out. And I dont want to because he’s my brother. But at the sametime, after a year of this i’m getting annoyed. I’m not sure what to do and need some advice?
30 comments
Try to be practical about it.
The food is where all your leverage is. Literally, just for a while, don’t bring any food home.
Right?
Tough spot.
At face value, the house was passed to you and him. Its equally both of yours.
The easiest thing to do, would be to sell it in agreement, split the money. Then go your sperate ways. No longer is he your problem.
At minimum… I know it may be hard because he is your brother. But stop enabling him. No more driving, no more food from your pocket. He is accountable for his own life.
People like that, will mooch until you cut them off.
You can only help him so much.
He needs therapy for sure. I would make that a requirement of you continuing to support him.
If he doesn’t want to turn it around, move out. He will eventually agree to sell you his half or he will agree to sell outright.
Talk to a lawyer about your options for either getting your equity out of the house or getting your brother out of the house.
You don’t really have any recourse here man. Aside from attempting to buy him out of his portion of the house, and kicking him out. But he has to be on board with that. You’re not a therapist, so you can’t really cure him of the issues that are causing this, nor can you force him to want to get help independently. All you can do is choose whether you want to live in that environment. Right off the bat you can stop enabling him and doing him favors.
Sounds like he has a mental health issue. Get the Splitwise app. Keep track of his share of the groceries, taxes and utilities. Let him know when the house is sold you expect him to pay his expenses out of his half. Perhaps take him to the doctor and get a formal diagnosis so he can go on disability and at least get some money, although ownership of a home may negate this option.
Since it makes financial sense even with you paying the bills, I wager that the main issue is that he doesn’t have ambition. Video games can seriously do that to a person. It’s not drugs but the dopamine pathway gets hijacked. He needs help or to realize he wants to do something useful and earn his own way through life. Video games give a sense of accomplishment but honestly they take so much energy that I would rather spend like a whale while keeping a full time job instead.
These are the events that often break families, when money is involved. Because that house is an inheritance, you may be able to talk to a lawyer and sell the house and each take your share of the sale. Brother is obligated to give you your share of your inheritance. If he can’t afford to buy you out, well that is his problem. If he needs to figure out another living situation, that is his problem.
I know how cold hearted that sounds, but he is never going to change. He has had a decade of adult life to get his life in order and he didn’t do anything of value. He is sadly hopeless. You are probably right about mental health issues, but you can’t force him to get help.
If this living situation is not working for you, you probably have no choice but to get a lawyer involved.
He needs an intervention, he may have depression or something. Maybe get some shrooms and talk to him while he’s tripping.
There’s no such thing as a “completely paid off house” because if you don’t pay the property taxes on it the state will take it away from you. So maybe tell him you need him to help pay that. Indicate your willingness to default to the point where you both get evicted (which will happen if no one is paying the taxes).
Did you inherit 100% of the house? Or split with your brother?
If it’s yours 100%, you could look into regulations regarding “boarding” in your area. You may be able to come up with an agreement whereby he pays rent. If he doesn’t do that, you can start the eviction process. A little tough love will be the only thing that helps here. It reminds me of when adult children won’t contribute and won’t move out of the parents home. Except now you’re the parent.
If you inherited the house 50/50 with your brother, just force the sale of the house and get your own place.
Either way, he will have to find a way to deal with his issues.
Get him sanctioned under mental health reason, he cannot continue like this, and he will bring your mental health down too. Stop paying for his food and the half of his bills, he already owes you a ton of money and can’t be even be bothered to look for a job? As soon as you can buy his half of the house and chuck him out, he’s useless, and needs to grow the fuck up.
Unfortunately, the best path might just be to sell the house, split the proceeds, and understand that he is probably going to waste his half of the money and end up in a bad place. And that maybe then he will be forced to confront real responsibility.
And that’s going to be really hard to do, but your other option is subsidizing your brother’s life forever. Like your parents did. They did him no favors allowing him to continue on like this.
He is not likely to change until he literally has to and even then, it will not be pretty.
If he’s gotten to 35 like this, I believe there’s more to it than mom and dad enabling him. Especially if they didn’t let him get a driver’s license all this time, it means they needed to exert excessive and unhealthy levels of control over him (with various excuses). Of course, does your brother bear some responsibility? Of course, he had the responsibility to at least find ways to help himself all these years even in vain (if your parents attempted to block him from having an independent life), but in all honesty it sounds like he may have given up in vain after your parents did some series of things or another to block him from getting a drivers license, going to college (even CC), getting some money, etc. The most you can do is walk him through getting some sort of online job (because he needs to have a way to get money without having to beg you to take him to and from work) so that he can at least start covering some of his personal expenses on his own.
It’s a bit of a chicken and the egg situation. Is his complete lack of responsibility allowing him to avoid social situations and stay in a comfortable depression, or does his depression prevent him from pursuing any responsibilities that would make him feel better?
He’d probably do well to get counseling and medication. You can’t force that on him, but you can begin to start the conversation. He may also benefit from some career counseling/ testing to find out what he’d be good at, or consider certification at a local community college, but all that is something that happens after a bit of therapy and potential medication, so there are some coping skills put into place.
Btw, a lot of people entered reclusive states during the pandemic and never fully came back out of them. It’s not uncommon.
But, given he’s lived a sheltered life & while alive your parents may have enabled him, he’s really lacking life skills. By inheriting the home, you also inherited their problem. You don’t have to enable him, but you can only tell him if the current situation is to work out longer term between you two, you need to see him get help. For social anxiety and/or depression, then start helping himself more.
If he’s completely resistant then let him know maybe it is best to sell the house and split the proceeds. Without any life skills he’ll likely blow through his in a certain amount of time. You’ll have to decide how much you want to help him in this life.
I think I’d approach it from the depression/grief standpoint and tell your brother that you’re really concerned about his mental health. See how he reacts/what comes out of the initial convo. He might need your financial/emotional support to get himself righted. Or you might decide he’s a lost cause and force the sale of the house.
Force him to buy out your half of the house. You will be compensated, allowing you to move to your own house (hopefully?), he will have to get a mortgage which means he will have to get a job.
The simplest (and probably cruelest) way to deal with this is to sign a quit claim deed and let him have the house. Then you walk away. Yes, you’ll be out money, but the fiscal hemorrhage will stop. Your brother will no longer have anyone to leech from.
Get in touch with a mental health organisation and get some advice. It sounds very much like depression to me too, the real clinical stuff which paralyses you. If that’s the case then he’s not doing things because he just can’t. I’ve had it myself, your description sounds achingly familiar. Get some professional advice.
Well, he has no motivation to get a job because he has free housing and food that you pay for. So, you can stop buying him any snacks he likes and keep your own snacks locked away. Stop giving him rides unless it’s for a necessity like a doctor’s appointment. Make it clear that you’re not going to keep doing so much for him.
That’s tough. Especially since it’s not like he’s living in YOUR house, you moved in when he was already residing in it, and it’s equally his house as much as it is yours, so he really doesn’t have to answer to you as far as how he chooses to live.
If you don’t want to feed him, or drive him places, then don’t. But you’re not his landlord or his parent and you really don’t have any say in whether he works or not, whether you like it or not.
I would just buy a mini fridge for my room and a locking cabinet, and then don’t worry about what he does with his life. You don’t have to like the way he chooses to live, that’s fine. You’re really just stressing yourself out over it and there’s no point.
Eta- other people have suggested forcing sale of the house, and that absolutely would be one solution, though your relationship with your brother will likely be damaged (or completely ruined) if you force the sale of a house that he equally inherited, especially if it’s of sentimental value to him. I’ve seen this happen firsthand, and it totally decimated the relationship between family members.
Maybe talk to him and see if he’s on board with selling the house. Have a respectful conversation about things.
Have you sat him down and talked to him about your concerns? Have you asked him the why conversation? Why is he ok just being a mooch?
If he loves games, get him into computer programming college. Tell him to work at a game stop. Do anything but being 31 and not actively contributing to your household is problematic.
Therapy, and tough conversations and decisions are in your future.
I am a lawyer but not your lawyer. Your state likely has a law that allows for “partition” of property. This is a way a co-owner of property can force the sale of the property. You likely need to talk to your brother about sharing costs (he won’t), and the ask if he’ll agree to sell and split the proceeds (he won’t). Then you move out, call a lawyer, and start partition.
Maybe consider giving him a responsibility to bear. If for example you had a dog I think it’s pretty likely he will bond with it. This would maybe motivate him to train and walk the dog and give him something real to interact with. It would just be a first step to get him out of the tv/videogame cycle but I can’t see you motivating him with another retail/fast food job
The older brother was already living there and obviously had an agreement with his parents as to what his responsibilities were. The brother who moved in is making good money and saving $2,000 per month on rent. The guy is obviously not in a good place emotionally and possibly mentally. The solution is to force the sale of the house and leave him to fend for himself with no offer of help? Is this what families have come to?
Failure to thrive. He’s not going to get much better, possibly in tiny increments. When he’s about 250yo, he’ll be able to manage putting gas in the lawnmower. Sorry, you’ve got a defective human for a brother
Talk to a lawyer to see if you have grounds to get the court to force a sale. If you do, use this information to negotiate with your brother. Tell him that you want him to sign on to you selling the home and splitting the proceeds. If he refuses, you will make sure not to bring any food into the home and will put a password on the wi-fi you pay for while you take him to court and force the sale. Tell him if he agrees, you will continue on as you have been and then will split the money when it’s sold so he has the funds to relocate. Make sure you work a clause into the negotiation that stipulates that if he is not out in time for the house to be turned over as agreed when it’s sold, he’s solely liable for all costs of his immediate eviction, and for any penalties or lost monies resulting from his breech of the contract.
I think your brother is suffering severe mental health issues.
– Dad suddenly died – did your brother get closure?
– He lost his job – was this because he is still at a loss without Dad?
– He has no motivation to do anything – does anything seem worth it anymore for him?
Do you think that you could organize a brothers’ trip to a place that means something to both of you? He might respond to a brotherhood and solidarity with you after the loss of Dad.
I’m just thinking about what you could do to help him get out of this rut.
Stop buying his food and anything else he requires. Sure, it’s half his house, he can keep on living there..but don’t make it an all expenses paid free vacation for him either.
If he has issues preventing him from working, he needs to get on government assistance. You can’t force him to work or force him to do that, but you CAN call adult protection services after you stop providing everything for him and he proves he’s incapable of providing for himself. That’s not mean or cruel, that’s looking out for him. You’re taking on the responsibilities of his legal caregiver but you’re not his legal caregiver, if you want to be they’ll allow it but they’ll also provide you with funds to do so (if you say you want that, otherwise “worst case scenario” he’s placed into a group home for adults – my province is very strict about how these have to be run and as somebody who works in one they’re getting better and better! Definitely depends on the staff too)
That’s just the worst case scenario, he may just be lazy and if you stop providing for him he’ll be forced to start “adulting”
You need to sit him down and talk. Like a “Hey, you’re my brother. I love you and I understand losing our dad is hard. However, you need to get a job. I cannot afford to provide for you. I will not buy food for you anymore. It’s hard enough keeping up with the bills. You need to get therapy as well because I’m not sure what is going on in that head of yours.” Because sure, you can hide the food, you can do this, you can do that. But it sorta seems like despite the encouragement, you haven’t really pushed back on it.
Talk.
Tell him you’d like to do a program with him for 6 months. Talk about it being healthy for him and helpful to you. And crucial for living together harmoniously.
Plan to do an exercise activity together 3 or 4 times a week.
Plan a house maintenance/chore schedule or you both.
Plan a cooking schedule for you both so you eat at least a few times a week together.
If he would agree to something like this it would lift him enough to start to tackle depression (if he is in fact).
If he doesn’t want any part of it tell him you are disturbed by the whole mess of your relationship.
That some change has to happen.
That he won’t be able to depend on your generosity .
Then let him talk about what will happen? Will he try this program?