It’s never easy to lose a parent, and if there’s someone who is willing to help during that difficult time, it really can mean the world.

If your dad died and someone who knew him well offered to help in numerous ways, would you be willing to give them someone of monetary value in exchange for their help, or would you insist they pay for anything valuable?

In this story, one man is in this situation, and he thought a business owner who knew his dad was just helping to be nice. Now, he’s not so sure.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for not giving away a piece of heavy machinery in exchange for help when my dad passed?

There’s a few characters in this:

Cameron – the owner of Success Bodyworks

Tara – Works for Cameron, runs Success Bodyworks

Cameron sounds like a good guy.

My dad was a business owner who ran an automotive repair shop. He died some time ago and I was tasked with selling his business/property.

His business was literally across the street from Success Bodyworks. My dad knew everyone at Success as they were both in business for decades beside each other.

When my dad died Cameron was the first person to offer help, for which I accepted in a few ways. Cameron and his workers helped me take a few loads of junk from my dad’s business to the dump, they helped my mom with sending emails (she doesn’t internet), gave her rides when she needed to mail me things, Cameron always answered the phone when I had questions about selling a business, etc.

There was one thing Cameron wanted.

Very shortly after my dad died he also told me he wanted to buy a piece of heavy machinery that my dad owned.

I said sure and we agreed to work out a price when things had calmed down. I had other things to worry about like funeral homes, estate lawyers, cleaning up a business, etc. and Cameron drove the equipment back to his shop.

After quite a long time the property got sold. Cameron called me shortly after.

I told him all about how it was finally done and I was happy to have this part over with.

But there was one more loose end to tie up.

After we had hung up I remembered that we never squared up for the machinery so I called him back and asked to finalize that.

I even said “What’s it worth to you?” and would have just went with whatever he wanted to pay, but he put the ball back in my court and said to pick a number which I did based on a similar piece of machinery that I had sold earlier. I asked for half of that so I figured it was pretty fair.

Cameron agreed and we hung up.

This is odd.

A couple of days later Tara called my mom to Success to pick up the money. I couldn’t do it as I do not live in the same city.

So she went and she told me that Tara sat her down and told her that she was shocked that I had asked to be paid for the machinery.

My mom said there was an air of disappointment, the meeting seemed tense and that the relationship between us and them seemed damaged.

Cameron did offer to pay.

I fully understand that I did accept help from these people. However Cameron said he’d pay me for the equipment.

There was no agreement that Cameron would help me in exchange for anything. I thought he was genuinely there to help, not expect to get something in return. I thought they were being kind?

Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate their help but the help they did provide wasn’t worth the value of the machinery imo.

He feels conflicted about the situation.

On one hand I feel guilty, not only for what my mom had to go through but that maybe I shouldn’t have asked to be paid.

On the other hand, we didn’t agree to anything and Cameron told me he’d buy the machinery from me.

So AITA for asking to be paid or should I have let it go free of charge in exchange for the help?

It seems that Tara is the one with the problem. Cameron offered to pay and paid. Maybe he was being nice. Maybe Tara is the only one who is upset that they had to pay for the equipment.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person thinks Tara is the problem.

Here’s another vote for Tara being the only one who is upset.

Let’s break down what happened…

This is a good point.

When someone offers to pay, let them.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.