The five siblings and their inheritance.

"Wait, I am the eldest and therefore I make the decisions in this house now that father is no longer around," the biggest of the children told the others. The others looked at each other, unhappy with the situation, yet fearful of saying what they had in mind. Silent, that is until one of them felt he had to have his say or be pushed out of his rightful part of the inheritance.
"But the decision is not fair. You have been enjoying yourself, disappearing from this shop most of the time, leaving the four of us doing the work around here," the second son protested.
"What's that? Do you understand that the eldest is the one who takes over and become the head of the family. The head of the family makes the decision and everyone else must agree to it. Do you understand that?"
There was a lot of grumbling and unhappy faces with the second son the most vociferous about the injustice of sharing the shop with the eldest who had always been away somewhere else. This eventually lead to a quarrel among the siblings and the latest was the possibility of the matter being taken to the court.

What has transpired? Their father has just passed away without a will and not sufficient wealth to make every son happy. All he had left them was a big electrical shop. How could a shop be shared among five brothers, four of whom were already married. How much can the shop provide in a day or a month? Could the earnings from that shop be enough to feed the brothers and their families when they have to get dwellings of their own. Certainly, they cannot continue occupying the already crowded top floor.

What had happened? It was actually the father's fault that the five siblings had to face such a predicament. You see, the children were not exactly stupid. If they had been given the opportunity to strike out on their own as soon as they stopped their schooling, most of them, if not all, would have been able to find good jobs or develop their own businesses. Unfortunately, the old man had conventional ideas that the family must be together and work together for the wealth of the family. In those days, the sons were usually made use of and they become the unpaid workers in the shop. Of course, in return they have a secure job, a sense of belonging as they are also the bosses in their own shop and life was easy as the family or staff was sufficiently big to make everyone's job easy.

The problem only emerged when the father passed away and the question of who the rightful boss was arose. Even if everyone of them is the boss, someone had to head the organisation and manage the money. Who is going to trust who to control the money and divide the earnings? When it comes to money, even members of the same family will face some problems. And such problems are practically insurmountable. Brothers become no longer that close especially when a court case or some authority finally decides how the property is to be divided.

That is why a will is important, especially when the property is big enough to fight for. It will stop any misunderstanding and even if there is disatisfaction, it can only be directed at the one who has passed away and that is harmless as that one is no longer able to suffer anything more.

Another thing is the allowing of children to go out and establish their own future, no matter how much wealth is at stake. And this is how the story came to my ears. I met a relative of one of those siblings and he was repeating the mistake of his father, not allowing his child to further his studies but made to concentrate on his business. This relative told me he had no alternative but to point to that sibling's problems at the time of his father's demise as a lesson. The relative did not wish to have him make the same mistake.