My brother turned on me after my inherited land sale brought unexpected profit

I was born to a modest farming family in a poor rural area. I got married at age 20 but unfortunately, my husband was a gambler and womanizer with no intention of changing. Our marriage ended in a divorce that left me with nothing. After several years of working and saving, I managed to take out a loan to buy a small house, though it was quite far from the town center and inconvenient for my children’s schooling and my own work.

My parents in the countryside decided to pass down their assets in 2022, seeing how they were growing old and I was struggling after the pandemic. They gave me a small plot of land and everything else to my brother. Although my share was much smaller, I was grateful and raised no objections. However, my sister-in-law seemed displeased though she never confronted me directly.

Since we do not live together, my parents told me to just ignore her. Everything would have been fine if I had not later decided to sell both my house and the land my parents gave me to buy another home more convenient for my children’s education. To sell my old house, I needed a large sum to settle the loan, so I asked my brother and his wife for help, promising to repay them soon. They said they had no money to spare, so I told them I would manage on my own.

I consulted my parents before selling the land even though it was already under my name. They then asked my brother if he wanted to buy it, but my sister-in-law scoffed, saying, "You did nothing to help your children, and now you want them to spend money to buy your land?" My brother again claimed he had no money and turned down the offer.

Hence, my parent gave me the go-ahead and even helped contact one of my cousins, who agreed to buy the plot. We settled on a price and he paid a deposit. I planned to give part of the proceeds to my parents once the full payment was made.

Upon learning that I had sold the plot, my brother seemed unhappy but said nothing. Two weeks later, our cousin flipped that property for a hefty profit.

That was when my brother snapped. He started pressuring our parents to demand more money from our cousin, insisting that the land was the fruit of their hard work and that they deserved a bigger share. He even demanded they return the deposit and reclaim the land, but my parents refused and honored the original agreement.

My brother then turned his frustration toward me, saying he now wanted to buy the land himself and could pay a few hundred million dong (VND100 million = US$4,000) upfront, even though he had earlier claimed he had no money when I needed help. He accused me of valuing outsiders over family and of not thinking about our parents.

I argued that since the land had already been transferred to me, I would be the one to bear the "loss," not our parents. He had no argument against that.

Seeing how unreasonable he was, unwilling to help me before but now suddenly eager to profit, I refused his request. Since then, family relations have become strained, and my elderly parents are heartbroken over the conflict.

Have I done anything wrong? What should I do to keep our family from falling apart over property?

*This story was submitted by a reader and translated into English with the assistance of AI. Readers’ views are personal and do not necessarily match VnExpress’ viewpoints.