It is truly a heartbreaking experience to lose your parents, but most people would also have loving relatives to help them through the saddening situation.
That, unfortunately, wasn’t the case for Sam (*name changed for privacy purposes), as her aunty and uncle decided to cheat her out of her inheritance (including property that has sentimental value for her) to live a luxurious lifestyle.
Taking to the IIUM Confessions page, Sam recalled how she went from painfully losing both her parents and the life that she knew because of her greedy uncle and aunty, to gaining back a majority of the inheritance that rightfully belongs to her.
It all started when Sam’s parents had passed away in an accident at work when she was only 11-years-old
“I grew up with my mother, father and I, the 3 of us. Long story short, my family was well-off, my mother and father both had a car and my father had a Harley Davidson motorcycle. On top of that, my mother, she has rental houses in 2 flats, every month it was RM400.”
“It was fate that my mother and father had an accident at work. Because they both worked for the same company. I was only 11-years-old at the time.”
Sam shared how her uncle and aunty had sent her back to their hometown in Kelantan to live with her grandmother and another aunty immediately after her parents’ funeral.
“At that time, I was in a blur from losing both my mother and father at the same time. I had to move states, change schools. I said I wanted to stay at home but my uncle and aunty got angry and told me to go back to Kelantan.”
“The first year my aunty and uncle sent me there, no one came to visit. Every day, the money I spent to eat and everything, it was because of my (other) aunty and grandmother who sold breakfast in front of the house every morning,” she said.
Eventually, the year after, the greedy uncle and aunty finally came to visit during the Hari Raya celebrations, and lo and behold, they arrived in Sam’s parents’ vehicles
“They were using the cars of the my late father and mother.”
“When I said ‘eh, that’s ibu’s (mother) and abah’s (father’s) cars‘, they got angry and said it was theirs because they helped pay for it to not be towed. They also mentioned that my late parents had lied that both cars have been paid off.”
Sam felt unsatisfied as she noticed her uncle and aunty, and their children, suddenly living a luxurious life, but had only given Sam RM100. Sam didn’t even get new clothes unless it was for Hari Raya celebrations. The daily clothes that she wore were donated by the residents of their village.
Fast forward to after Sam had finished the SPM examinations, her uncle and aunty told her to pursue her higher education in Kelantan itself
“But, this time, I lied and said that I applied to Kelantan and Terengganu.”
“When in fact, I applied nearer to the South side of the country, so that I could return to my (childhood) home in Johor. When I was accepted, I went quietly with my document bag and some money I had saved up. Nobody knew where I was studying. I went back to the old house and saw another family living there,” she added.
During this time, Sam studied and worked so that she could earn a living for herself and soon, when she turned 20-years-old, she stumbled upon a Facebook posting by a lawyer, recounting a situation identical to Sam’s.
Sam then decided to reach out to the lawyer, who agreed to help.
“I could only afford to give RM200 for the consultation even though the actual payment was expensive. But, the lawyer said that it is okay for the payment to be done later. So, for 2 to 3 days, I showed the lawyer the house of my late parents. Then I showed the rental houses, the cars and the motorcycle. The lawyer said that they would do some calculations,” Sam explained.
2 weeks later, they had met again and the lawyer clarified that Sam’s childhood home was built on private land and was sold 7 years ago for RM820,000.
As for the rental houses, the lawyer explained that Sam’s mother had rented them out for RM400 each but the year Sam’s parents had passed, the rental was increased to RM500 and 2 years after that, it was increased again to RM550. Now, it is being rented out for RM650 a month.
In regards to Sam’s late parents’ cars, they, in fact, did not lie about having paid them off. One of the cars had been completely paid off whereas the other only had 7 months of payments left when Sam’s parents had passed. The Harley Davidson motorcycle, though, was long gone as Sam could not remember the plate number.
But, that’s not all, folks
Due to the fact that Sam’s parents had passed away in an accident at work, Sam was supposed to be compensated an amount of RM720,000 in insurance. The uncle and aunty were supposed to hand over the money to Sam when she came of legal age, but they didn’t.
“My aunty and uncle never told me. Can you imagine, a year after my late parents had died, my aunty and uncle got that much compensation money? I didn’t get it at all. What I got was RM100 every time they came back (to Kelantan) for the holidays,” Sam said.
Armed with all this information, Sam and the lawyer decided to pursue legal action against the uncle and aunty, and soon after, they had won the case!
The court had ordered the aunty and uncle to return to Sam the insurance compensation money (RM720,000) with an additional RM50,000, the money from the rental houses which totaled up to RM150,000, and the total amount from the sale of Sam’s childhood home (RM820,000). And, they had to do it all within 5 months.
The aunty and uncle also had to return Sam’s late parents’ cars to her.
“It was then that my uncle and aunty started begging me with all kinds of things, but I didn’t care. Because the money that they’ve been using was supposed to be my money.”
“Imagine, from the age of 11 to 23, the money that I was supposed to get from the total amount of the house, cars, insurance compensation and rental houses was amounting to RM2 million, but I only got RM1,000. Their family lived easy, decking their children out in gold, living luxuriously with the money that was supposed to be mine,” Sam shared.
In the end, the aunty and uncle only managed to pay off 80% of what they owed Sam, after they had pawned everything they owned and had gone bankrupt. The aunty and uncle also ended up in jail.
Sam’s cousins also bombarded her with curses and other unkind messages but Sam continues to stand her ground with the truth of the aunty and uncle crimes.
She has since moved to Selangor with his grandmother and aunty that had taken care of them and has also gotten married.
We wish Sam nothing but the best after the ordeal they had to endure. We’re happy that it’s finally over and Sam can live peacefully while honouring her parents’ memory.
