Stealing is wrong, but what happens when the stolen property ends up helping people who would be homeless otherwise?

Do you take the money back if you can regardless of the consequences for others? That’s the question in today’s story.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

WIBTA for suing for money I’m owed even though it would put two disabled people on the street?

I’m not going to go into specific details of the case, but the short form of it is that my great-grandfather had a significant amount of land stolen from him by a man we can call Jack.

He was unable to fight back or stop this.

Jack ended up using that land to make…a lot of money, and that money was passed down through the generations.

The money from the land is now being used by two disabled people.

Decades have now passed, and the only descendants Jack had were two granddaughters. One is severely disabled and one got married and had a child.

The married one’s husband absorbed the entire estate when she passed under the agreement to take care of the child and the other granddaughter, which he did.

The husband also passed, and due to both women’s disabilities, he put all the money into trusts that basically just give the one monthly allowances, pay for the care of the other, and keep up the house.

They live entirely off of the trusts. The adult child can sort of mentally live on her own but can’t work, the other is completely dependent.

If OP is able to prove the land was stollen, it could leave the disabled women homeless.

We have proof that at least half of the land that Jack made his money off of was stolen from my great grandfather, and we believe we’re owed a significant amount of money from that family.

At this point, because of how it is set up, to recoup what we’re owed, we would have to have those trusts opened and discarded(?), which would leave those two women homeless.

The other one can’t have guardianship of the other, and there wouldn’t be a way for either of them to afford housing and care.

Disability would take years to get and still wouldn’t help.

OP’s family doesn’t know whether to try to get the money or not.

My family is very split on what to do.

On one hand, these women shouldn’t just get to keep stolen money because they need it, and we can’t afford to just give it to them as some kind of charity as our family needs the money too, but some of us think that it won’t end well to do this.

This isn’t a small town, but people will know about this. It will be an entire scene for years if not the rest of our lives.

WI(we)BTA if we do this?

That is quite a dilemma. It’s nice of OP to consider the consequences of taking what rightfully belongs to their family.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story…

This reader thinks the first step is to call a lawyer.

Another reader thinks it’s been way too long to sue.

This person calls OP “greedy and heartless.”

Another person tells OP to survive without the money.

If there’s a way to talk to a lawyer about the situation, that would probably be the best first step.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.