Don't Do Business With Family
By cjfoust
@cjfoust (614)
United States
September 6, 2009 10:53pm CST
I found out recently that doing business with family is an extremely bad decision. Maybe not all family and maybe not in all cases, but I'm hoping someone can relate. About a year ago my aunt and uncle decided to get a divorce after 22 years. I allowed my aunt to stay at my house for a month while they were working out the details of who would get what. My aunt ended up getting their house out of the divorce but decided she did not want to keep it. My husband and I offered to buy her house. After we refinanced the home we owned and traded in two vehicles to get qualified for the loan, things got messy. We finally closed on the house at the end of July. We gave her two additional weeks to get everything out of the house, after she knew this was coming for months. She pushed her limit and took her time drinking away all of her spare time instead of packing. My husband and I changed the locks and after much drama with the police being involved, and her having on of her alcoholic friends threaten my mother, we thought it was over. Unfortunately not only was she my aunt, the seller of the house, but she was also our insurance agent. After she finally removed the last of her belongings, she started messing with my insurance policy and spreading all kinds of crazy lies to all of our family members. To make an extremely long story short, we now no long have any contact with my aunt, my uncle, or even my grandparents. The relationship between my parents and my grandparents has been destroyed as well. I often ask myself if it was really worth it. If I would've known then what I know now, we would've kept our other house and our nice vehicles and still have family - or would we? Was this inevitable? Have you been in any similar situation? Please tell me I'm not the only one that has been hurt by someone you thought you could trust.
1 person likes this
4 responses
@eyesighting (30)
• China
7 Sep 09
Don't do business with familiar people, not just your family
Family can give warm, it's the rest place for you, not the money for you, on business you should refuse to have anything to do with all kins and friends.
Business is just the business.
@UmiNoor (4523)
• Malaysia
7 Sep 09
Very true. Not only shouldn't you do business with family but also with close friends. My husband hired his friend to renovate our house. Not only did he not finish the renovation, he ran off with part of the money. In the end, my husband just ignored him and went on with our lives. We sometimes bumped into him at the supermarket but he'd make a quick detour to avoid us. I don't care because he was my husband's friend but my husband kept cursing him and wish him hell. And a year later I heard his wife (still very young and seemed healthy) passed away. I don't know if this is God's way of punishing him or it's just a coincidence. But I always believe that what goes round comes round.
@sysdexlicwriter (1619)
• United States
7 Sep 09
Ours was a business with my parents. Big mistake.... BIG MISTAKE.... VERY BIG MISTAKE! Did I say it was A BIG MISTAKE! The old saying that time heals all wounds is pretty correct since this happened 30 years ago. My mother was still trying to get at me through her will or her grave, which ever way you want to look at it. It has taken a lot of forgiving, a lot of patience, and quite frankly - some of the participants passing away. I am glad that I am older and hopefully wiser. In the meantime, life goes on and we did patch stuff up as good as we could. My parents did talk to me after a couple of years but they did a lot of nasty stuff in the meantime. I wish you well in all of this.
@marguicha (223121)
• Chile
10 Sep 09
I think it all depends on the family you have. Sometimes family is a blessing, sometimes it is a curse. Fortunatly mine is of the first kind. Sp luckily I have other kinds of situations, exactly the opposite.
I hope the hurt goes away and things mend as they can.
@killersss (638)
• India
7 Sep 09
i am doing my family business, you can't say family though because it's just my father and me. :) and i love my business and there's no problem in that business it is going perfectly fine and i am enjoying my dad's business. and think there's no harm in the family business as well.
