Cazmanian_minx's MFi3 diary

cazmanian_minx

Gosh, I've dropped to the third page, definitely time for an update then

I spent Monday in court with my ex-husband (who at least had the courtesy to turn up this time) getting the matrimonial finances sorted out. Unfortunately we had a different judge this time and he decided to over-rule the first one's decision that short marriage rules should apply, as he said the 3 years we spent living together before the marriage should be counted as part of the marriage. Because of that he directed that the starting point should be a 50:50 split of assets, despite the fact that equal contributions (both financial and non-financial) had not been made. We also found out, the week before the hearing, that ex's house in the north, which he owned with an ex (confused yet??!), had suffered serious fire damage in early 2007 and they'd sold it for £20k to a property developer - who, three months later, had resold it for £90k. All a bit dodgy, especially since there was no mention of insurance money or the endowment policy that was backing the mortgage.

Anyway, my barrister did the best job he could under the circumstances when faced with someone whose idea of negotiation was 'We're not taking a penny less than 50%', and after all the flat-related payments I'd made over the past two years plus some of the costs of the previous wasted hearing had been taken into account, the settlement worked out at 56/44 in my favour. As long as the sale goes through at the current price, he'll get about £38,000, which is more than I hoped I'd have to pay and less than I feared.

The sale, fingers crossed, is still on track. The buyer has signed the contract and once the chancel search comes back she's ready to exchange. Hopefully we can complete ASAP after that and then, technically, I'll have completed that challenge and paid off the mortgage

Once it's done, I should have about £52,000 to offset against the £145,145 and then I can start making some serious inroads into that one

Caz

abouttimetoo

Hi Cazmanian Minx, great to see you back on-line again as your thread is one of the ones I love following - be great to hear how your new life is going and whether you have the post office whipped into shape for your business requirements

cazmanian_minx

abouttimetoo wrote: »

Hi Cazmanian Minx, great to see you back on-line again as your thread is one of the ones I love following - be great to hear how your new life is going and whether you have the post office whipped into shape for your business requirements

Aw, thank you

The local post office, which is a shed in the post mistress's front garden, has been fantastic. Margaret is really helpful and although she's only officially open for 6 hours a week, will open up for me if I'm in dire straits, though in practice what happens is that I buy enough stamps to tide me over the days she's not open. And deliveries are much easier too; if I know I've got a box coming and I'm going to be out, I just leave a door unlocked and the courier will leave it for me. I should have a big order from my US supplier arriving on Monday - Parcelforce sent me a letter saying that there was a VAT charge due on it and I could either pay it by card over the phone or send them a cheque or go down to the depot and pick it up. I was going to go and pick it up until I realised that the nearest depot, where it's being held, was 130 miles away in Inverness!

The first mortgage payment on the house went out today and thanks to us having £101 offset against it, we've paid off a mammoth 41p of capital :rotfl::rotfl:I know every little helps, but that's ridiculous! Never mind, I hope that the flat money will soon be stashed safely in there and then we'll start making inroads into it

Caz

PS: Don't know if this link is allowed - board guides, please tell me to remove if it isn't - but I'm blogging about my quest to learn more about Scotland's wildlife and improve my photography here: http://natural-scotland.blogspot.com/ if anyone's interested. Clicking on any of the pictures will take you through to my Flickr account as well, where there are more photos than get into the blog.

gallygirl

Wow, what fab piccies (1st was my favourite ) and glad you're enjoying life up there :T

cazmanian_minx

The estate agent thought we'd exchange this week, but still no news. How long does a chancel search take, for goodness sakes??

Feeling a bit despondent this morning. I hate owing this much money, I'm worried that the flat sale is going to go wrong at the 11th hour and I have a huge mountain of work to get through (which is why I'm sitting here in my dressing gown still, reading the MSE forums...)

I had a surprise yesterday. I got a letter from my bank about my overdraft. I've only ever used it twice; once about 12 years ago when I was finishing university and about 6 weeks ago to provide the last bit of house deposit since when, because the flat money hasn't come through yet, I've been anything between £400 in credit and £1,000 overdrawn. The overdraft facility is for £2,300 and since I only put £500 a month in there from my business, I assumed the letter was to say it was being cut back due to credit crunch, responsible lending, yadda yadda yadda. Nope, they've nearly doubled it to just over £4,000 :eek:

I shall now have to do some calculator bashing and work out if it's going to be cheaper to keep the card debt or pay some of them off with the increased overdraft. Technically since my personal account owes the business account £5k, I should really transfer it, but it's all about paying the lowest amount of interest possible isn't it?

Right, plan for today: Finish photographing the new stock (16 items left), list as much of it on eBay as I can and then go and bake apple & cinnamon muffins for the Lifeboat sale tomorrow.

Caz

setmefree2

cazmanian_minx wrote: »

I had a surprise yesterday. I got a letter from my bank about my overdraft. I've only ever used it twice; once about 12 years ago when I was finishing university and about 6 weeks ago to provide the last bit of house deposit since when, because the flat money hasn't come through yet, I've been anything between £400 in credit and £1,000 overdrawn. The overdraft facility is for £2,300 and since I only put £500 a month in there from my business, I assumed the letter was to say it was being cut back due to credit crunch, responsible lending, yadda yadda yadda. Nope, they've nearly doubled it to just over £4,000 :eek:

My bank are still upping the limit on my credit card too - even though I pay it off every month! Why they bother I don't know

Good Luck - the photos are fab:D by the way.

gingababe

Right, plan for today: Finish photographing the new stock (16 items left), list as much of it on eBay as I can and then go and bake apple & cinnamon muffins for the Lifeboat sale tomorrow.

Caz[/quote]


Wow great diary, wish my ebay would be as successful as yours & have you go the recipe for those muffins they sound yummy:D

Ginga

cazmanian_minx

Muffins were a disaster and had to be chucked! I'd done loads of squidgey brownies though, and they all sold. The whole thing raised £4,104 for the RNLI, which was a great result

Not such good news today though - I've been gazundered :rolleyes: I suspected this would happen. Basically, the buyer is ready to exchange but has waited until now to point out a few things in the survey and ask to drop the price from £135,000 to £127,950. Add to this the complication of now having a court order that says my ex-husband has to agree to any price reduction and it's been a stressful day - and that was without adding in taking my mother-out-law shopping this afternoon

Amazingly my solicitor managed to get hold of ex's solicitor who managed to get hold of ex who has agreed to the lowered price (I'm gobsmacked - why couldn't he have been this co-operative BEFORE the court case?!), so I was able to ring the agent back this afternoon and say that yes, I'd accept £127,950 on the condition that we exchanged by the end of next week and complete ASAP after that. Estate agent is going to tell the buyer exchange and complete by the end of next week, so hopefully this is the last bit of drama and by the end of the month that mortgage will be paid off :j :j

Caz

cazmanian_minx

No news from the estate agent, but OH's car died over the weekend - that's the second Jeep in 10 weeks :eek: That's what you get when you pay £300 for a 4.0l 4x4 I suppose...! We went to Inverness on Sunday to have a look at what the Jeep dealership had and agreed to buy the demonstrator (4 months old, £6k off list price), only for OH to get turned down for finance. So I'm currently car-less while we wait for the money to come through from the flat and then I'll lend him some of it to finally get himself a reliable car!

Just to add to the general financial woes, I have to take the cat to the vet this evening because she's making a horrible wheezy sound when she breathes. She's not struggling for air and she's not distressed by it, so I'm hoping she's just got a grass seed stuck up her nose, but I want them to have a listen to her lungs just in case. Fortunately OH can either bring the car home at lunchtime and I'll drive him back or leave work early, otherwise it's a £30 taxi journey each way :eek:

But the one piece of good news is that with the help of the people on the Electricity board I've managed to get my daily B rate usage down from 25.8kwh per day to 3kwh per day :j:j Quite how we'll keep warm in winter is a problem we'll think about when we get there... (I can put sweaters on, but the cat can't and she's arthritic).

Caz

cazmanian_minx

It's been a good day.

The cat is sounding better after a steroid injection (in case it's an allergy) and an antibiotic injection (in case it's a lurgy). The vet had a listen to her and said her heart and lungs are absolutely fine, the wheeze is coming from her upper respiratory system, but her glands are slightly up, so she's given us 5 days of antibiotics. If there's no improvement by Monday then we go back, but the next stage is a general anaesthetic and a small camera down her throat, which is not a good idea for an elderly cat.

As it's Thursday and I've been at my computer, I've been playing the free bingo games on the Gala site and won £50 :T I resisted the temptation to keep a tenner back to play with and withdrew the lot, so that's another small chunk of debt paid off.

I've also rung the estate agent; the buyer has signed her contract and her solicitor received it back on Tuesday, so we look set to at least exchange tomorrow and hopefully complete.

Oh, and OH has sold Jeep no.2 to someone who wants it for pulling a couple of cars out of a quarry and will then break it for parts, so that's a relief.

Caz