Indyref 11. The home of good manners

[grovel]

!0,000 and counting.

Not a lifestyle you know is going to come about, either.

I think the young voters issue is particular to this one because they've let 16 and 17 year olds vote. Polling cards - I don't know.

Not sure at all TeamScotland. Well, we are sure about DH's job. But I'm pretty financially astute. I don't want to give my entire background but I learned from my parents' mistakes and have always been careful to ensure I make sound financial decisions about my future. I trust my instincts and I'm qualified and experienced in a related field. I don't tend to make mistakes. I don't tend to get things wrong.

I don't at all appreciate being thrust into a minefield of such risk and uncertainty. Why would I choose to remain living here if I could get out and live in a stable country instead? Selling the property is the main barrier, and since a lot of people might feel the same, that will obviously affect house values, and the number of buyers per property, as will loss of businesses.

Just look at the property markets and values in Iceland and Ireland now for an example of it in North Western Europe.

there have been inconsistencies with postal votes in general and local elections before. i must admit, unless voters are away, or physically incapable of getting to a polling station, I don't think postal votes should be offered.

TeamScotland not sure of your point if that was directed to me - it's not a lifestyle I'm looking forward to, with DH living away from home 5 days a week, OK? I'm not claiming it's definite, it's just a likely scenario come a Yes vote.

In that case, chelsy, with respect, why didn't you put your house on the market two years ago?

Scenario, that's all. All the things you've said may never happen.

TeamScotland stop being obtuse. We all love living in Scotland. Why would you choose to put your house on the market and move south when 2 years ago the likelihood of a Yes vote was small?

I've had this niggling feeling from day one that allowing salmond his manifesto wish for 16 and 17 year olds to vote on this was paving the way for some legality or technicality to make a yes vote null null and void.

It is my biggest worry of all too. Really keeping me up at night. House prices, especially in Edinburgh are set to plummet.

I read more on this last night and we could be talking decades. This is my retirement :(

I got myself in such a state about this last night at 3am. Our only solution would be for DH to work south (his job would have to move) so it breaks up our family. I will also lose my job but reckon I could perhaps find something if go full time.

The other option is we declare ourselves bankrupt!

It's absolutely dire for ordinary, mortgaged, Edinburgh folk like us.

This isn't worse case scenario - this is based on average predictions relating to property market changes in the capital.

Forgive me for feeling angry about this - but a best case option of splitting up my family due to the uninformed gamblers I share a country with?

R.e. the simple vs. absolute majority, I'm wondering if that was something agreed upon by David Cameron et al in return for Devo Max not being on the ballot paper (Salmond wanted it to be there), perhaps because they thought it would never get as close as it has.

It may also be to do with the fact that the last referendum held in the UK (the AV vote) was also a simple majority, so there may have been precedent there. I don't know what referendums previous to that required?

WhatWouldFreddieDo Chelsy we are beginning to have these conversations - DH's job will go south with a Yes vote, but we are assuming that we won't be able to sell our house without losing money, and the DCs are well settled at school, so we're thinking about DH weekly commuting for a while at least, to see what happens during negotiations.

The prospect of staying, alone, in a country which I no longer wish to live in, full of triumphant fanatics who had ruined my future, is an utter nightmarish scenario.

The alternative is of me getting a job in the same country as DH (thankfully a reasonable possibility for us) and paying a mortgage on a property we no longer want, while paying rent on somewhere to actually live. Or selling at a loss. Or not being able to sell. Or renting, but being subject to whatever controls the Scottish Government decided to put on absentee foreign landlords or on taking money out of the country. In other words I could see tax on renting such a property being 90% or so, which would negate the point of renting it.

but then the Scottish Government might bring in a law that you must rent your uninhabited property and so on and so on and so on

Don't tell me not to think about things - risk planning involves considering unfortunate but possible scenarios and considering how you might deal with them.

TeamScotland - sheesh, you don't have much compassion, do you?

We are real people, with very real concerns about the future of this country, our jobs, communities and friends, and 'It's just a scenario' - yes, one that is all too real with the Yes vote that you are so determined to achieve.

full of triumphant fanatics

It is possible to vote yes and not be a "fanatic".

I was always under the impression that people only opted for a postal vote in one of those scenarios.

I've been quite surprised to find out so many people ask for them.

I'd miss a trip to the polling station.

From the Telegraph article:

"One of their largest donors ran a campaign to keep the anti-gay Section 28. Their key business endorser is the man who promoted RBS’s Fred Goodwin!"

Roonerspism your anger is absolutely justified - do not feel you need to apologise.

I'm not being obtuse, just wondering why if you're the forward planner and worrier you say you are why didn't you put all your ducks in a row sooner?

chelsy cross posts with you. It's a bloody nightmare.

That we are choosing this?

And I agree. I would want out of this country than remain with the nationalists and there divisions. But we are effectively forced to stay?

It's like a bad plot from a horror film.

I'll have compassion for you if you show some for me if it is a no.

TeamScotland In that case, chelsy, with respect, why didn't you put your house on the market two years ago?

DH had a serious accident which negated all such thoughts until he recovered. I did actually want to do so and recommended that we did. Scottish independence was only one of the reasons for that, but it was the major one.

Bankruptcy is an option - clean slate and start somewhere anew and all that. Difficult to start with nothing in a foreign country and doubt we would get mortgages at our ages and not with a bankruptcy on record, so practically speaking, moving abroad and renting a place while renting our own house in Scotland and hoping that whoever had it looked after it, and possibly subsidising the cost of someone else living there, seems more likely.

Its not even in a part of Scotland we would be happy to retire in either!

For what it's worth I think it's absolutely right that 16 and 17 year olds vote.

I'd love to see that become part of our constitution. But it's not. And I'm worried that if yes wins that will bite us in the bum.

Me? Paranoid? Who said that?

uninformed gamblers

Really feeling the love tonight. C'mon, No voters - quite rightly - get angry and frustrated at being stereotyped as feart, or un-socialist, etc etc. There may be some uninformed Yes voters and there may be some over-cautious No voters, but for the most part I think both sides feature people who have done their reading and their thinking and come to an honestly-held opinion on the matter.

The polls have turned pretty dramatically in the last few months. Chelsy will no doubt have weighed up severity of scenario vs probability of occurring and thought it wasn't that likely. By the time the polls turned doing much about it would have been tricky in the short time frame.

LovelyRitaMeterMaid

If it's any comfort I think the latest breakdown of polls that I saw had the 16-17 bracket as more pro-No than Yes - so it may bite AS in the bum!