The sequence of events...

The sequence of events;

Late last year I had signed a document agreeing to joint carriage of sale of the house by the 2 solicitors and an estate agent to be appointed by them. The agreement finally arrived back at the house via snail mail/carrier pigeon/ slow boat to China addressed to himself. He refused to sign it. Doesn’t see why on earth, when there is no dispute whatsoever, two solicitors should be given the power to sell our house for whatever they deem fit, or an estate agent appointed by them, sees fit.  He sees costs ratcheting up between the 2 +1 and us losing all control over our situation. He’s right. He told his solicitor he wasn’t signing it. His solicitor informed my solicitor. My solicitor got on to me stating that proceedings would now be issued to force him into court over this.  No, I said, there are to be no proceedings issued whosoever. I agree with him. Well, you were happy to sign it, I was told. No I wasn’t happy, I signed it because I thought I had to, because I thought I was obliged to, that this must be the way the Court works.  

He wanted me to take back the deeds of the house from my solicitor, who had requested that I give them to her to check the title etc. and hold them in trust. I know he’s thinking of all the rogue solicitors who abused their clients’ trust and played merry hell with the deeds of their clients’ properties, to say the least. It’s not that he thinks our legal representatives are not ok, just that he doesn’t trust the profession. Nor does he see any reason why we can’t just keep the damn things at home as we have always done. The stress of all this was now getting to me big time. The insecurity of not having the house documents/sale proposal under my control was shredding my nerves. I was waking every day feeling as if there was a chainsaw tearing up my intestines.

The solicitors were not happy to hear that the agreement to have them jointly sell the house was not going to be signed... Stalemate. We discussed the fact that it is now nearly a year since the process started and we as yet have no Court date, no Terms of Settlement, and in the meanwhile every email, call or letter is sending the costs skyward.

The misery is dragging on, and we have no certainty about anything. So we called a halt.

I made an appointment and went out to my solicitor to retrieve the deeds of the house. I left clutching the manila folder as if it were a baby.   I found out I had to formally instruct the solicitor to cancel the proceedings. Only my solicitor could cancel the court application, apparently.  In the meanwhile, the bills arrived. Stunned is not the word... My solicitor had felt that we were nearly there, the process was almost complete. The bill included a reference to  proceedings to force the Respondent into court re the sale of the house. That hadn’t happened, and we weren’t nearly there.  The paperwork wasn’t completed, we had no court date, and as far as we were concerned we weren’t nearly there, by a mile. The solicitors had done nothing wrong, they followed their methodology but as we were to discover, there was more than one way of obtaining what was needed.

Someone advised that we go to a sort of DIY divorce service. So we did. In a small, well worn house in a little estate, we sat and were told that all could be done via their service once my solicitor had cancelled the first application. I found this hard to believe; No solicitors required by law to do this work and attend on the day? No requirement to have a barrister draws up one particular document and attend the court hearing? Was she sure about all this? Yes, she was. They had helped hundreds of people through the process already. The cost? €500.00, €250.00 now and €250.00 when the divorce proceedings were finished.  We had paid the two legal practitioners many multiples of this…The paperwork arrived via email two days later to be printed off, signed and lodged in court.   There was apparently no problem with it; we have a court date; June.

Hard lessons, for both of us. I’m on the floor mentally, physically and emotionally.  There’s only one way of dealing with this; try and put it all behind me.

New Mantra; Don’t look back. Don’t look down.