Helping family members is a nice thing to do. It’s good for family members to be there for each other, especially during times of financial stress. But what happens when those times pass and things start to improve?

When a man needed help, his brother quickly intervened. But as the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished. The penniless man had a windfall of sorts, but his brother barely received a thank you.

A man took advantage of his brother’s hospitality after winning some money.

a man on Reddit shared the story of what was happening with his brother, who has lived with him for about a year.

“He lost his job during the pandemic and couldn’t pay rent, so I let him stay with me rent-free until he got back on his feet,” she said.

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The brother’s kindness was not rewarded after his brother got money and refused to contribute to his living expenses.

Unfortunately, helping his brother when he fell on hard times wasn’t rewarded like it should have been.

“At first, I didn’t care because he was really struggling, but over time, it became clear that he wasn’t really trying to get another job,” the man wrote. “He just stayed home, played video games, and didn’t contribute to any household expenses.”

Somehow, during this time, this man’s brother got quite a bit of money.

“About a month ago, he received a windfall of $20,000. “I thought this would be the turning point where he would start helping, or at least offer to pay some of my bills,” she explained.

As it turned out, that wasn’t at all what his brother had in mind.

He continued: “But, when I brought it up, he told me that the money was his and that I wanted to save it for more important things..”

Tima Miroshnichenko | CanvaPro

This was a confusing answer for the man. After all, what could be more important than repaying your brother’s generosity and doing a good deed where it was done for him?

“I was quite surprised,” he admitted. “I told him it wasn’t fair for him to live rent-free with so much cash, especially since I’ve been covering all the bills and rent without asking for a dime.”

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The brother felt that it was time for his brother to start pulling out all the stops, so he gave him an ultimatum.

“I asked him to start paying a reasonable amount of rent.and he exploded, saying I was greedy and trying to take advantage of him,” he said.

He gave his brother an ultimatum: “I told him that if he couldn’t contribute anything, he would have to move.”

“After a few days of arguing, I finally gave him a deadline to leave,” the man said. “Now he’s calling me (expletive) for choosing money over family, and some relatives say I should let him stay a little longer.”

Not paying rent is a perfectly valid reason to evict someone.

In the end, this man wanted to know if he had made a mistake in kicking out his brother. He’s not wrong at all. In fact, it has legal precedent for doing so.

According to the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law SchoolThere are three main reasons why a landlord might evict a tenant. The first and most obvious is non-payment of rent.

It makes sense that a tenant not paying rent would lead to eviction. That is one of the most basic parts of a landlord-tenant agreement.

While one brother could be considered a landlord and the other a tenant, there was no mention of any official agreement making them that way. Instead of making this situation more difficult, you can actually make it easier.

The Martínez Legal Center said“If they don’t pay rent and don’t have a formal agreement, they may be considered licensees and the eviction process may be easier.”

Certainly, a tenant can be evicted for not paying rent, but there is a lot of legal paperwork to deal with. That’s not the case with this pair of brothers, where one can force the other to leave quite easily.

Hopefully, the brothers can reconcile once everything calms down and the unemployed brother realizes the selfishness of his actions.

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Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango covering entertainment, news and human interest.