Mono Monday - ‘Ugly’

I had such good intentions for today, which were sadly thwarted.

An email arrived from my latest (hopefully final) solicitor, who is dealing with the transfer of what was my late parents’ bungalow into my sole ownership. Longstanding readers of my posts will know that I have been wading through various stages of legal meanderings for the last two years since Mum died. Each stage has been like pulling teeth - very tortuous, painful and eye-watering. Every time I’ve thought we were near the end, the three different solicitors have each found something new to torment me with. By the end of last week, I believed all the checks had been done ready to complete the matter today and send the signed and witnessed transfer deed off to Land Registry. But no, the solicitor still required confirmation emails to show her that I had paid the other beneficiaries of the trust in full. Unfortunately, after working on my case for five months, she is still confusing beneficiaries with trustees despite my having explained the difference to her several times on the phone and by email. I emailed a reply to explain once again who has received money from me to buy out their share, and who has not, and why they have or have not. Bear in mind this is the same firm which dealt with Mum’s probate and the trust the bungalow was placed in - they obviously don’t communicate between their probate and conveyancing departments! I also had to contact the three beneficiaries in my family and ask them to email me with confirmation of my payments to them, each of which then had to be forwarded on to the solicitor. Happily everyone was very quick to reply, so let’s hope this really is the end of it. Of course, I don’t know how long Land Registry are going to take changing the deeds into my sole name….. The champagne has been on hold for months now, and will probably have gone sour at this rate!!

So the morning I was going to spend doing some box sorting has been used up to’ing and fro’ing between family and solicitor. I could weep. The mere sight of a legal letter or email now triggers anxiety, and I’m not even joking.

After a late lunch I popped along to the car wash, where I queued up for 45 minutes and took this photo while waiting of a very ugly mobile phone mast next to a beautiful tree. A hideous blight on the landscape, but a necessary evil in modern life I suppose.

Many thanks to Heanku for hosting Mono Monday, with this week’s theme of ‘Ugly’.