Friend evicting elderly tenant

[AppalachianWoman]

Would it change the way you felt about your friend if he evicted an elderly (70+) tenant so he could move into the house instead? The rent was paid upfront through a lifetime of agricultural labor from late childhood but the friend who recently inherited the estate feels they are owed cash payments and the property. The tenant cannot read or write and was widowed a year or two ago, has no children of his own but some step children from his marriage. The friend currently occupies another, smaller, property on the estate and was expected to move into the largest house which is very grand indeed but requires extensive renovation. He is daunted by the work and expense and has instead become fixated on the property the elderly farmhand lives in.

It feels emotionally immature of me to drop a friend over a difference in values but I am shocked that he would even consider this course of action. I don’t want to be friends with someone who acts this way, how can I exit gracefully or should I try to support him as he has supported me emotionally through decades of friendship?

And not just any “elderly personal”

One who can’t read or write.

i cant quite grasp how he has been living independently in a 4 bedroom house tbh

He's 72 so presumably still able to manage physically. You don't need to be able to read and write to live in a house of any size particularly if you have lived there your entire life.

Bills
Banking
Pension

i could go on

@CaptainMyCaptain I think @Feef83 I imagine his relatives help him with any correspondence. Still, such a large house will be expensive for a not-very-well-off pensioner to manage and especially to heat. He probably only uses a few rooms and keeps the rest shut up.

Presumably doesn’t drive as he would have had to renew his license at 70 with the DVLA… but if doesn’t or write.

if he hasn’t and isn’t already supported living in a 4 bed property in some shape or fashion by someone who can read or write…. Then he will do pretty damn soon with advancing years

So if relatives are involved in the minutiae of handling this gentlemen’s affairs… from financial to pension to utilities… then I expect they will have something to say about the situation

I can’t rule out the possibility that I’m envious of his good fortune and the opportunities it creates.

Not really opportunities OP. He's inherited an estate that he doesn't have the money for to do up - the grand house - and is so freaked out by the responsibility of it all, and egotistical that he wants to evict an old man who has had a right to tenancy for years on his inherited land. An empathy bypass, obviously.

I wouldn't want to be in his shoes at all and he must be a selfish man to want to upend a years-old agreement. He sounds even too dumb to check out the law in these cases.

He sounds awful. Glad he's not my friend. And yes, if I knew one like him I would dump him.

Cash? Family members help? People manage. There are more people than you think who can't read I've met quite a few parents of pupils I've taught who can't read.

I have a friend who since she has retired is learning to read and write properly. Her literacy was incredibly poor. I mean she could sign her name but struggled with anything beyond incredibly basic literacy.

It is a farming community. There will be another old farmer or his wife that may help out with basic reading and writing. It does not mean they will understand the law or know how to challenge the estate.

So let’s hope these people who are helping this man in RL…. Do something. Much more realistic than the Op, who lives thousands of lives away and doesn’t know him from Adam

Especially an op who “can’t rule out” her motivations behind this thread being envy

I know a farmer in a tied cottage. He goes to the bank to get his money for the week. They know him - he has a bank book. Never used a card. Never had a passport, nor central heating. His heating allowance is paid in coal tipped in a coal shed. He has a landline and can just about use a mobile. No broadband.
It was a big shock when he retired as he had to deal with utility bills for the first time in his life.

I am not of this world.

Terrible behaviour.
But I am enjoying reading about a large country estate and very grand house that needs doing up. With cottages. Bequeathed. Different world isn’t it.

Does anyone else think this might be a gigantic misunderstanding or otherwise not a true story?

I'm sort of wondering if the landlords heart will grow three sizes in the end and they'll all live happily ever after.

He's 72 so how was he working as an older child? Child labour was abolished in the 1930s in the UK. He would have been born in 1950 or 1949 if his birthday is later this year. Older child to me implies younger than a teenager and older than a young child so probably aged 11-12. That would then have been in the 1960s.

It's a similar time to when my parents were young yet from the description sounds like a Jane Austen novel in the 1800s.

How sad. Poor old fella can't live forever, can he?
Back in the 70s I met a pair of brothers who were trying to sell off farm equipment because they were being evicted from their tenant farm and house. Both were born in the house, worked the farm all their lives, they'd never known anything else, not a good grasp of money as they'd never been officially paid....they were losing the lot because the tenancy was in the name of their father who had died. I was astonished that this was legal, but back then it apparently was. Often wonder what happened to them. Dad must have been really ancient, they were no spring chickens.

He's 72 so how was he working as an older child? Child labour was abolished in the 1930s in the UK. He would have been born in 1950 or 1949 if his birthday is later this year. Older child to me implies younger than a teenager and older than a young child so probably aged 11-12. That would then have been in the 1960s.

After several years of working a Saturday job, my Dad left school and started full time work at 14. He was not considered an adult. I don't think they really used the term 'teenager' at that time so he might have been called an older child.

I'm sort of wondering if the landlords heart will grow three sizes in the end and they'll all live happily ever after.

like a mumsnet Scrooge. With the ghosts of mansions past, present and future.

He's 72 so how was he working as an older child?

School leaving age was 15 until 1972.

I suspect that it's an untrue story. It's a good one though!

Me

i think the OP has got completely the wrong end of the stick!

1800s? @Jijithecat was referencing medieval times and peasants in relation to this situation!! 😂

It’s a true story. The tenant first started working on the farm when he was 11 and my friend’s uncle was only a little older. They worked together with livestock. I don’t know his exact age but he’s 70 something now. He walks across fields to the nearest pub and home again which is several miles a day. My friend thinks he occupies only one or two rooms on the first floor but hasn’t actually visited him at home yet.

But children younger than that worked on farms in the holidays - I knew people that did. The fact that he is illiterate suggests to me that he bunked off school probably just helping his Dad without pay. I don't understand why this detail is presented as some sort of 'Gotcha! It can't be true'.