I spent 4 years begging my siblings to sell our $300K inherited house

My parents had three sons, with me being the eldest. Our house is located in an alley in downtown HCMC. The house, built by our parents a long time ago, has deteriorated over the years and is no longer spacious enough for all three of us now that we have our own spouses and children.

In 2008, I contributed VND90 million, which I spent years saving up, to help our parents rebuild the house into a four-story one. My father passed away in 2011, followed by my mother in 2016. Neither of them left a will, so the house was owned by all three of us.

After our parents passed away, the bond between us siblings eroded. Though we live in the same house, each of our families resides on a different floor, and we rarely communicate with one another. We previously agreed to rent out the ground floor to a neighbor so they could open an eatery. We decided that the rental income would be used to fund our parents’ annual death anniversaries.

However, my younger brother’s business prospered and he bought a car, so he demanded to use the ground floor as a parking space. My youngest brother's family disagreed, saying that it would cost us a source of income. Due to this disagreement, our families often quarrel and scrutinize each other’s spending habits and lifestyles.

Space also becomes a problem as all three families now have one or two children each. In 2019, my son planned to get married and invited his in-laws to visit our house. They were not happy about the number of people living in our now cramped house.

This has also weighed on my mind as I do not know where my son and his spouse will live once they get married. Hence, I called for a family meeting with my siblings in 2023 to propose selling the house and dividing the proceeds equally among us three. I believed that each of our families would be financially capable of affording a comfortable house or apartment to move to. At that time, the market price of the house was VND7.5 billion.

While my brothers agreed at first, they later changed their minds. I have been pleading with them over the last four years to agree to sell the house, but to no avail.

Sometimes, I just wanted to move to the house that I had already bought long ago in the city outskirts, but then I remembered the VND90 million that I contributed to the house’s construction. I feared that if my family moved out, I would basically be forfeiting that money and, to some extent, my share of the inheritance. This kept me hesitating and unable to resolve the issue.

I feel like our three families are always fighting and just waiting to see who gives up first. I do not know how to convince my brothers to sell the house and get rid of my problems.

How should I navigate this situation?

Reader Phu An

*This opinion was translated into English by AI. Readers’ views are personal and do not necessarily match VnExpress’ viewpoints.