Who's being the jerk in this financial situation?

This is much like this guy I used to know, who paid to have certain scrap metal removed from his business. It took me months to get him comfortable with the idea that I could get him a deal where he’d get paid for the material instead. He went from having to pay 2k/month to receiving about 24k/month *, and was quite pleased. Until he found out that my company was making a comission on the deal, which he just couldn’t deal with (not sure what he was expecting there). Some people cannot help but look in your wallet, and those people are best avoided. I held him to our 18 month contract (to which I had committed on the other side of the deal), after which I wished him good luck doing a direct deal, and goodbye. He’s been calling me recently, but it’s not worth taking the call.

(*details tweaked to preserve some shred of anonimity, gist is unchanged)

I’m curious as to why you don’t?

Searching for property, in general, can take a lot of time and effort. Though I’m no expert, I’m sure searching for good property to flip can take at least as much time. My realtor wouldn’t do it for free, so I think it should factor in, here.

She pretty much did all the homework and lifting.

Really? No value is placed on her years of experience that lead to her recognizing this house had potential? Plus she found it and brought it to you, how does that have no value? Or the awareness that this house was prime for a reno that; a) she could manage, b) accomplish on time, and c) resell for a tidy profit.

(Also, offering to help with the hands on work doesn’t turn a transaction from a loan to an investment! She may well have declined (power tool remark aside!) so there would be no room for such confusion!)

If the person laying out the money either does not understand the difference between ‘making a loan’, and ‘making an investment’, or bother to find out which this is, that’s totally 100% on them. It was clearly a loan, and wishing it were otherwise doesn’t change it, in my opinion!

As long as the investors are first at the trough, getting their investment+20% before Sandra takes her cut, I’m cool with Sandra taking all the remaining profit.

Along those same lines, what exactly does “chanced to get a look at her books” mean? Did he actually see a total accounting of costs for the house (which I assume he’d have to get from Sandra), or did he just go onto the county tax assessor’s web site and find the purchase and sale prices?

Doesn’t really matter, as Sandra’s in the right either way. Just curious, really.

Same here. She did all the work and took most of the risk, so she deserves a much higher return than any of the passive investors.

It certainly would have been better to have had a written contract. Better still not to do business with family members.

I don’t know how he got a look at her books.

There WAS a written contract. Basically a promissory note.

No argument there. But it’s not like we had an ongoing concern. She does things like this often, and this once decided she would need help on the deal.

Oh, okay. Then if it was followed, there’s nothing to whine about. Judgment for Sandra.

Well then Jerry should have written something to his liking if he wanted to be an investor for x% of the profit.

And what was the wording? 20% return or a % of the gain?

She didn’t really come looking for help though, she came looking for money, so still just a loan!

The former, as I statedd upthread

If Jerry wants to challenge this, Sandra could present an accounting of the number of hours she spent in carpentry and painting and claim compensation for that. It’s possible that the market value of her labor would exceed whatever she made in profits.

If Jerry wants to challenge it he can take it to court and lose without any accounting. He was promised his investment returned plus 20% and he got it. Case closed. He’s clearly a jerk, and as I mentioned before if Sandra had lost on the deal he’d insist on all he was promised without regard for the family relationship. The world is full of people who think life is unfair because someone else has more than they do, no matter what someone else did to earn what they have.

Skald, you should use one of those giant brown lake trout, not just some little rainbow you pull out of a stream.

I agree that Jerry is wrong, but he might understand if he sees just how much her contribution was worth.

Take the cost of the trout out of Jerry’s cut.

Well, no, you have been rather coy about this “my understanding” , etc. Did the contract spell out a fixed 20% return or a % of the profit?

How has he been coy? From the OP:

“Thing is, my cash is tied up right now, and time’s a factor if I want to buy it. If y’all each invest X thousand dollars, I can give you a 20% return in about 12 months.”"

Jerry’s a jerk.