Is this going to cause a massive family rift?

[Whatdoyoudowiththedrunkensailor]

Sorry for length of this -

I have an older brother who is a little bit of a moocher - I’ve posted about him before under a different name. He has had a great education and many opportunities in life and has ended up, in his mid 30s, with no money and financially dependent on my mother. He never pays for himself and works a couple of hours a day, and that’s it. He is always feeling sorry for himself due to having no money, and therefore my mother/other siblings bank roll him as they worry he is depressed. I think he’s just playing on their emotions/using them (but I can’t be sure of this).

He is always asking us if he can do odd jobs for cash. We let him dog sit last year whilst we were away - fridge full of food for him at ours, 25£ a day etc, and he fucked off for 10 hours a day to see friends and left our dog crying (we could hear on camera after neighbour messaged asking if dog was alright)/had to get mother to intervene as we were abroad. Came home to a fruit bowl full of rotting fruit and fridge full of off milk etc.

Anyway we are expecting and he’s due to be god father as he is an extremely fun brother/uncle. We offered him 200-300£ to paint a wardrobe for the baby as he’s very talented artistically and his hobby is art related. He agreed. We set a deadline of 1 week for the work to be finished. 3 weeks later. 3 weeks of him lying (I can’t do it today as I’m working - turns out he was just at home chilling etc), showing up hours after he said he would, us waiting around for him….what he has painted is shockingly bad - he didn’t put the tape on properly and it needs totally clearing up/the non painted bits will need to be repainted to fix it. Anyway we basically said “if you don’t want to do this please just say as we had another person lined up”. No, he’s sorry but he’s not motivated. Ok, fine. So we have to get the other person to undo all his shitty work and the deadline was weeks ago and this has been a totally maddening experience.

Today he messaged asking for money for the time spent on it. On one hand - maybe he is depressed (although he is never too depressed to see his friends and do the things HE wants to do - dinners, lunches, cinema trips, gym etc) and he did spend some time painting. On the other hand he totally fucking let us down and it’s going to now cost us MORE money than the other person originally quoted as she’s not starting from scratch.

I don’t want to cause a huge family argument if we don’t pay him so do we just pay him something? What’s fair?

I hope you answered and the second word was "Off"!! 🌹

Had you not already told him you wouldn't be paying?

I think a basic message will suffice, e.g. "That money has had to go to the person who did the job - this is how paid work usually works!" or " Not sure if you're joking but we had to use that money to get the job actually done, so it's gone"

Can you cover the cost of the paint, or did you purchase that yourself?!

I would reply something along the lines of…
We would have been happy to pay you for carrying out the work, even though it was for your own DN…. But you made a bodge job of it, and we have now had to pay someone to put right what you did and to finish the job properly. I’m not sure exactly why you think we owe you any money?!
You know we love you dearly and one day we will laugh about this but please don’t ask to do any more jobs as the answer will be no!

If he was a professional decorator you wouldn’t pay him for that work. Stand firm. He sounds a lazy git and sadly your family have enabled him so much…. And he seems to be missing the point that your husband has worked extremely hard to get where he is today. While your brother can’t be bothered to finish painting a wardrobe….

I agree with just treating him in future.

Wtf did he do before you & your other brother "did well for yourselves"?

Oh my days! I'd reply, "Sorry there is no payment, because I had to hire another painter to rectify the wardrobe. You've actually cost me extra money!"

I think I would just say that he didn't do the job so won't be getting paid.

If you say that you've had to pay someone else he'll say so what that you can afford it anyway.

There is a distinction between assertiveness and agressiveness. You'll be very pleasantly surprised (and relieved, for a change!) to see how quickly and easily "others" begin to see your point of view, especially as you've been struggling to explain/elaborate your point of view for so long. Assertiveness benefits all parties even if you feel you're only 75-80% right. Worthy a try -- be assertive!! HTH

Respond to him with a question!

"Dear brother. Could you please explain what it is that you expect to be paid for? We offered you a job of painting the wardrobe for £XXX with a 1 week timeline. After 3 weeks you had not finished and what you had done was of very poor quality, which you agreed. We gave you the opportunity to complete the work to the standard you are capable of, but you declined this opportunity, therefore we had to pay someone else to do it. Therefore I am somewhat confused as to why you think we owe you money? "

Quelle surprise!

Right, so you have not been clear before to him, you have tried to do the softly softly non-confrontation WUSS approach and of course that doesn't work with chances!

You thought he'd feel too awkward to ask?

Cheeky Fuckers literally don't have the awkward bit in their personality - they USE awkward as a weapon to take from people like you.

You go back and say "there won't be any money, and actually when we have the quote in to do the job PROPERLY, YOU may very well owe us. and for the record, this will be the last time we ask you do to anything"

If I were you, I'd get rid of the wardrobe and buy something else. it would irk me to have it in the house to be honest.

You are never going to change the dynamic unless you change the way you treat him.

Oh and btw to those who think marying the son of millionaire mean anything, it does not.you have to make your own money/luck and sounds like OP DH has worked bloody hard to be so 'lucky'

This is your opportunity to tell him that you won't be paying as he did a piss poor job and it's costing you more to rectify what he did. Explain to him that if you had paid for the same service from a commercial enterprise that you'd also be refusing to pay.

He still sponged off us! I was a student with no money and he would do things like say (when we were living together) “ let’s go to the cinema”. On our way there he would say “I don’t have any money btw you’ll have to pay”. Or he’d say “I’m making lasagne do you want some?” And I/a friend would say yes and then we would eat it and he would ask us for 5£ each for ingredients. My mother left us at home once and he had the emergency money and he was so tight he used it on himself and when we ran out of loo roll bought cheap tissues.

it’s been a problem forever tbh.

DH replied as he messaged him but I’m yet to see what he replied as, annoyingly, DH very busy at work so hasn’t told me. We covered the cost of the paint.

Thank you for this - DH is the hardest working and least entitled person I know, and I’m incredibly proud of him!

Because that has never been the role of the godparent?

Godparents are there to lead you into the church (which to be fair he also would be shit at). Guardians are to look after the children if the worst happened to the parents.

However today, many people just have godparents to be a 'presence' in the child's life and at the moment he seems to be able to manage that

That puts a new spin on it, yes, he gets demoted.

And maybe you need to have WW3 or you are going to have a lifetime of this one way or the other

Op, does your mum and brother know that the godparent title is a token thing and that they wouldn't be guardians of the children?

DH asked DB how much he thought was fair; given we have paid someone 120£ to correct the work he’s done, and still have to pay the artist 300£ (maybe more) for the doors and drawers as they are by far the hardest bit. Plus the artist has been on holiday now so the whole thing is finished 6 weeks behind when we wanted.

DB thinks we should pay him 100£.

Reply :

£100?! You're very cheeky

Err, what do you think you should pay?

at most 50£. DH wants to pay nothing but it’s quite awkward now.

From the OP you offered 200-300£

Has he done a half or a third of a job?

Well in effect he has done a negative job as it needed correcting.

Perhaps it would be worth the 50£ for a lesson finally learnt?

Give him £50 and make it clear why. Very tricky.

He’s done the easiest part of the job (so let’s say 1/3) and done it very very poorly/just gave up on the whole thing and messed us around which is why I think 50. But it’s obviously embarrassing quibbling over it with him - he’s just so shameless.