H’s family went through this. His grandparents owned a (winterized) house on Lake Michigan in a resort town. After they died, it was owned jointly by the two sons, my FIL and his brother. Eventually, the brother wanted to sell out, because he and his wife were buying a place in FL instead. After they took a bunch of nice furniture and heirlooms from it, FIL and MIL decided to buy them out instead of selling. Then MIL, and subsequently FIL, died. House now owned by H and his 2 brothers. They formed an LLC to hold it. It was rented a good deal of the time to cover property taxes, utilities, repairs, etc. During this period, we were largely unable to use it, because we live so far away. Brother based in Michigan and his wife used it quite a lot, also oversaw renting, renovations, etc, but all was paid for by the LLC. Third brother is fairly nonfunctional, did nothing much. There was a local cleaning service, but not a rental manager. (BIL’s choice.)
Ne’er do well brother’s house was foreclosed on during the recession. Third brother would not consider selling to save his house. Our S went to college. We discovered that MOST schools counted H’s 1/3 share of the place as a disposable asset, although we had no power to realize its value unless other brothers agreed to sell, brother in charge refused. He also refused to buy us out, which he could have done. Our EFC was therefore judged to be about equal to our gross income at that time. (Luckily, we found two schools that understood the situation, and took the asset out of the equation.)
I said to H, just wait, nothing will happen until X and his wife want to sell it, and then it will go. Sure enough, X and wife decided that they wanted to buy a condo in the area where their best friends have a place. They INSISTED on selling the place, even though H offered to buy them out. Nope, the whole thing had to go. It wouldn’t be “safe” for the third brother financially. What a joke. We had actually taken the third brother in when he lost his house, and were prepared for him to live with us indefinitely, something the other brother would never do! But the place had to be sold because we would rip him off or something??
H viewed it as a potential retirement home, and moreover it had enormous sentimental value for him. (We went there for our honeymoon, when he thought it was being sold, before his parents changed their minds. We went a number of times in those years.) He told his brother that he would hire a local management firm. No dice.
I’m sure that BIL and SIL felt that they had the right to decide, because they were mostly “in charge” and responsible. But the fact was that, except for calling on me to help them by doing the online rental listings that enabled it to break even, they didn’t want us to interfere.
It definitely damaged H’s relationship with his brother.