My parents spent over 25 years separated and both of them never sorted anything legal between themselves or their separation. They just lived apart. She remained in the family home with all of us kids at the time. My father bought a new place. They lived separate lives really. My mother was always afraid to move with a divorce because she knew it would cost the man money in legal fees and perhaps maintenance so she never went down that route.
Then a few years ago something came to light. He was in a lot of debt.
To be honest, he had money for a long time but it went in the wrong direction. He is an alcoholic and a heavy smoker. He had money for a long time.
He was in trouble with his second mortgage and he had other debt too.
We all got a fright thinking my mother might be in line to inheritance that debt some day and we were afraid the family home would be caught up in that mess too. My mother finally moved with a divorce because she felt safe to do so at that stage. We are all grown up and we have her back and his health his bad.
So my mother found a solicitor and started on a divorce. That was 4 years ago. A lot of it was slow due to the process itself and also because of covid. There was no sign of a divorce being done any time soon.
The family home was in jeopardy from my father's vulture fund. It never got as far as the vulture fund applying to the court but there was potential for that.
This summer one of my siblings came home from abroad and he forced a deal outside of court to save the family home. It was agreed the house would be signed over to our mother and we would pay a portion of the man's debts. The house was signed over in August.
We are still waiting to hear from revenue about paying his debt.
It looks like the divorce might be going ahead in November.
My mother's divorce solicitor rang her and wrote a letter requesting for more information about the house transfer. He's looking for a deeds of transfer but we don't have that from the other solicitor.
I was away for a week and when I came back my mother gave me the letter. So I suggested to my mother that I could phone the house solicitor on Monday and request for this stuff.
My mother gave me a snarly reply saying - 'don't phone anyone without consulting with me first'.
She's nearly 70 and I am suspecting maybe she's going senile and I am worried about next month and a legal environment and it might cause her stress and other issues to emerge.
Her response last weekend has me wanting to step back not wanting to help and I think she's ignoring her divorce solicitor and the documents that he needs. He requested the information about 6 weeks ago and she refused to phone the other solicitor instead she wrote a letter to the other solicitor which is gone ignored.
It's all just a mess.
There's a simple action of picking up the phone to the housing solicitor but she won't do it and when I suggested to help, she snarled at me.