sold by duress

What is the name of your state?California
Over ten years back my mother passed away leaving property 50-50 to my sister and I. Income property holding as tenents in common.
Three years ago, I wanted to refi and pull out some money. I am single, my sister married for 14 years. I was in financial trouble, to many cc bills, lost my job after 9/11, etc. I told my sister I wanted to refi and she could take equally the amount of money as I did. Being the property was always rented and not over incumbured, it was money we could take out without personally
paying back, the income from the rents would cover it.
My sister's husband said no. He was not on title or had any vested interest besides being married to my sister. My sister stood by her man and said no to the refi. This battle went on for two months or longer making what family I had left strained. My bother-in-law said he did not want to take on more debt. This was his reason. So he told my sister just to sell.
I did not want to sell I only wanted to refi but my bills were piling up and my mortgage was late and I was borrowing from every source I had. I was in trouble. So I conceide to sell. While in escrow with the buyer, my brother in law then decides he wants to buy it, I am so angry and so running out of time, I told him fine but he needs to pay for the legel help needed to cancel the escrow. He went though with it! I was so angry, he wouldn't let my sister refi with me because he didn't want any more debt but now he was buying me out!
Question: Do I have any recourse to recover or do I just live with being black balled by my brother in law?

[nextwife]

Whether your BIL or anyone else, if you were not happy with a given offer amount, you were not obligated to accept it. It is NOT your BIL's responsibilty to assume any debt on your behalf. AS the place was obviously unaffordable for you, you evidentally needed to sell rather than eventually lose it to foreclosure. Hopefully, you stashed away any remaining equity and can eventually use that as a downpayment on a place that would be more affordable for you.

Get over it. You got it sold, and got out from under what was an unmanagable debt for you at the time. Win-win.

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

My response:

Here's the reasoning and what our writer is thinking - -

"Yeah, but the property values have shot up through the roof since 9/11, and now my brother-in-law is much richer as a result. That new property value could have been mine if my sister just refinanced with me! But now, I'm out in the cold and my sister and BIL are much, much richer today. I got screwed - - and I don't care if I got money to pay off my bills. It's the damn principle of the thing, goddamnit!"

IAAL