Liz Jones - I do feel a tiny bit sorry for her but she still has no self awareness

[QuebecBagnet]

Article in the DM today about how she's getting evicted from her rental cottage as the landlady wants to sell. Focus of the article is renters with no security - which I agree is an issue.

So she talks about how when she was made bankrupt she struggled to find somewhere to rent. Had to put all her nice furniture in storage. She has spent 59k "decorating" this cottage - new kitchen, underfloor heating, etc and has now lost all that.

I'm sorry but 59k would be a 50% on a 2 bed terrace in many cities in the UK. I don't know maybe she couldn't get a mortgage for the rest. Though surely she didn't spend all her savings on this cottage. And how did she have 59k if she was made bankrupt a few years ago?

Anyway the thing which really bugged me is she says women of her age have had it harder than "generation rent". Really? Had it harder when she had the opportunity to buy property (and did so) when it was a quarter of the price it is now. She spent years writing about her luxury lifestyle, her horses, trips to Paris, expensive skincare, expensive yoga classes.

I have limited sympathy for someone who has spunked a very good income on frivolous shit and moans about being skint especially when they continue to make shit financial decisions.

Still wish I knew who the Rock Star was. Was Jim Kerr the most likely suspect?

On her wiki page:

Jones wrote about an alleged current love interest, the Rock Star (RS), in her weekly diary in The Mail on Sunday's You magazine from July 2010. Despite dropping many heavy hints that the "rock star" was Jim Kerr of Simple Minds, in a November 2011 interview in the London Evening Standard, she finally admitted it is not Kerr.

Wow, well done on finding the link. I love the view from the windows.

She could take the kitchen with her, I suppose. However, it is more like a utility room and even then, middle of the price range. The underfloor heating will have to stay though.

Re Richmond, that must be the Yorkshire Richmond, surely?

I seem to recall her ‘essentials’ including £50 candles, and this was years ago. Her column used to be good for a laugh, but that was long ago, when we still took the Mail on Sunday. I particularly remember her saying that every night she ‘had’ to wipe all her bottles and jars of ‘unguents’ with a cloth that had been soaked in boiling water and wrung out. Even by MN uber-hygiene standards that’s going a bit far.

It's only four units - cost more to take it out and replace it than it will to leave it. It might have cost £12k with extremely swanky appliances but the whole article is fantasy.

It's clickbait.

I don't believe much of it.

I also definitely don't believe she has to move out so quickly as 'evictions' are taking up to 2 years as the courts have a backlog, and it is very hard indeed to get a tenant out of your property.

She doesn't mention anything about the responses from the owner when she surely asked if she could make all those alterations to the cottage. In some rentals you can't even hang a picture and have to make good any small holes in the walls etc.

It's a load of bollocks.

Gracious -many of these responses seem rather harsh. She might be a bit bonkers. But aren't the points that she is making - that you can be so easily thrown out of a rental property - and that landlords can seemingly be so random - ie requiring you to store furniture and then stripping the place of furniture - really valid points? Aren't we all a couple of bad mistakes away from the abyss?

Completely unrelated to her financial decisions but when you click on the rightmove link and look for similar properties, it seems all (or nearly all) the cottages in that terrace/Estate are for sale. I wonder if the same LL owns all of them?

She has a point that renting should be far more secure.

It is definitely one of the worst things about renting that you can have your home sold from under you. She doesn't represent this correctly though, if a section 21 has been issued, it may take months or even years to process. you don't have to move out within 2 months necessarily. Also, she does not have to allow people in to take photos or to view the property as she has a legal right to quiet enjoyment. She should take advice from Shelter on how to handle this period.

I'm with all the posters who say this a total fabrication. She's a writer.

No, most of us aren’t, or at least most who are sensible aren’t.

She chose to blow a fortune on the lifestyle she wanted, and she’s now seeing the inevitable outcome.

No way.
Absolutely not.
It looks very ordinary- The massive pink freezer is like a massive marshmallow.
Pretty cottage and very cheap - It looks like a very pretty area.
Gorgeous.

Do you think Jones paid £60 k for building work rather than those unremarkable units?
Underfloor heating feels great but is not cheap to run .

Who’s Liz Jones?

There is also that which i suspect is true!!

She mis-states her age for one thing.

Or maybe some hideous development will be spoiling the view..?
Maybe it is all one landlord.

I have read this thread with interest - I used to avoid LJ's columns because they/she just repeated the same stuff all the time. It looks like things haven't changed at all!

She's a vile person and deserves no support from other women after the way she has openly stalked and named women she suspected (often incorrectly) of sleeping with her husband.

It's hard to understand how confessions in her columns about her very sinister behaviour every got published, or how she kept her job.

YABU.

Separately, the risks of private renting are very sad and worrying.

I rented a house for 22 years, I was always aware that whilst it was my "home" it wasn't my house. Yes over the years I made improvements but never overspent. It was a cheap rental for the area as the owner was elderly there was no central heating and the kitchen was very basic and old. We put in second hand storage heaters and a cheap but functional fitted kitchen.
We eventually purchased our own property. I don't resent the work we did on our rental as it made our lives more comfortable but we certainly didn't go ott with spending.

For anyone who is remotely interested, the cottage is on Right Move at Easby Court, near Richmond for £350K and has been up for sale since June.

I've been entertaining myself for years reading her column. It got a bit boring at one point and that's when the 'Rock Star' appeared. She's a very strange person, so superior and self pitying at the same time. She's wasted millions, so no sympathy from me.

Oh, sorry @Moanycowbag I didn't spot your link!

So she could have easily bought it with the £59K she claims to have spent as a deposit.

Plus the Mail must be paying her a fortune.

I find the fact that she spent 59k on a place that wasn't hers so utterly shocking. The sheer stupidity of it and the fact she is happy to tell the world. I would be mortified. I rented once and the only thing I spent on it was an £11 shower curtain when I moved out as the existing one was mouldy.