Not doing very well, too much stress

[OhWesternWind]

Well, I am not doing very well at the moment. It is now almost a year since ex left us and I don't know if anyone remembers us but after he left the two children have disclosed a lot of physical and emotional abuse that went on when he was looking after them and I was at work.

Since then, I have moved 100 miles away back to my home town. We are living in horrible rented accommodation but I am in the middle of buying a house and frantically trying to scrape together a deposit after I was let down by someone very close who said they would lend it to me and now can't. I am being dragged through the courts by abusive ex to try and get access to the hcildren who are petrified. I am also proceding against ex as we have a rental property which he will nto let me have a key for so this can't be sold and I have to pay out for the mortgage every month. To top it all my old job where I have been 18 years is back 100 miles away so I have had to give that up and luckily have found a new job nearer by but I will have to leave all my old friends and colleagues. I am desperately short of money. Children play up and give me all sorts of trouble.

There just seems to be so much going on at the moment. In three months or whatever it will all be okay but at the moment there is so much all coming to a head all at once and I am feeling very low and alone, no-one really to turn to to help me deal with all this.

(There are a load of positives but they are mainly for the future!)

Sorry, moan over now.

Sorry OWW I don't recall your previous thread but sounds like you are having an awful time. Just to pick up on one thing though, you mention a rental property that you haven't got a key for? Does it have tenants in that are paying rent? If so, you can approach them for a key as a landlord; if it's empty and in joint names there is nothing to stop you changing the locks, giving ex a key and putting it on the market. You mention paying the mortgage on it so presumably it's in joint names. If not stop paying the mortgage.

Again, sorry you are going through this,

Hi and thanks for your message. I have been told on the legal board that he has to consent to sell or to put tenants in and he won't (due to being a prick) so even if I get the locks changed I am not really further on. Mortgage is in joint names so it will affect my credit rating if I don't pay which in turn will muck up the house I am hoping to buy at the moment. I just feel trapped and nowhere to turn with any of this. He is still managing to control us through the courts and financially and I feel like we will never be free of him. I hate him.

You'll find listening ears here + shedloads of advice gleaned from bitter hands on experience, and friends onlne virtually 24/7 to pull encourage you through the next few months, honey - and take heart, the end IS in sight!

How old are your dc? They've disclosed to you - have they disclosed to any other party/parties such as social workers, school counsellers, teachers?

Are CAFCASS involved in any court proceedings relating to your dc?

Do you know that there's a legal board on mumsnet and that you can get free legal advice from women barristers and solicitors by calling the Rights of Women helpline? see www.rightsofwomen.org.uk

What a nightmare, I have no advice of knowledge but I really hope that things get sorted very very soon for you all.

Hi thanks Izzy - we are in the middle of court proceedings for access, judge thank goodness has denied ex's request even for interim indirect contact, so we are waiting for full CAFCASS report. Children have done video interview for police a few months back (case dropped which played right into his hands) and they have also spoken to counsellors and CAHMS about it. Total nightmare for all of us, left the children with lots of emotional problems and it can be very difficult to deal with. They are 9 and 6.

Thanks for your kind wishes Random, I keep holding on to the fact that things WILL get better - have been saying that for a year so it has to come true soon!

Off to bed now, too late for me. Thanks all.

I cross posted and am glad to see that you have found mumnet's 'legal department'.

To paraphrase Gordon Gekko - Hate is GOOD! Hate is an energy that can inspire us to 'find a way'. And where there's a will, there's always a way and there's nothing like winning to lead us back to loving those we hate

If you change the locks and put tenants into the property I very much doubt that he will be able to summarily evict them.

It occurs to me that if you were to embark on a path to which he does not give his prior consent in relaton to the disposal of the property you hold in common, he may need to commit more of his finances engage in a costly legal dispute against yourself, and possibly said tenant(s)

Providing that you have scrupulously reserved half of the rental income minus the usual deductions to be paid to him (preferably in an account set up solely for that purpose) as and when required/ordered to do so, and have ensured that any lease/tenancy agreement stipulates a reasonable period of notice in the event that the property is sold (which, given his intransigence, seems unlikely in the near future), I doubt that any county court will sentence you to be hung, drawn and quartered - more particularly, not in this present economic climate when it's every wo/man to the treadmill of providing properties for rent to those who've fallen foul of the cap on HB in need while keeping themselves from the workhouse adding to the annual bill for state benefits.

Ignorance is no defence in the eyes of the law but in the civil courts which, thanks to one Alfred Thomson 'Tom' Denning 1899-1989*, retain some vestige of the principles of common law for the common wo/man, it can serve to mitigate in the interests of those who through no fault of their own are moribund, as it were, with a party who may be described as a 'vexatious' on a good day.

Disclaimer: I am aware that my legal genes are not dissimilar to those of a bull mastiff which is why I don't post in a certain section of this site. Even so, I rarely advise throwing caution to the wind but in your particular case I see due cause for needs must when the devil drives.

*One particular judgement of Baron Denning may resonate for others as it does for me: 'What is the argument on the other side? Only this; that no other case has been found in which this has been done before. That argument does not appeal to me in the least. If we never do anything that has not been done before, we shall never get anywhere. The law will stand while the rest of the world goes on; and that will be bad for both'.