Ex-husband is ordered to support wife who blew £230,000 on dodgy deals FIFTEEN years after split… it’s ex-tortion!
Maria Mills' financial troubles shouldn't be the concern of her ex-husband of 15 years ago, who has a new family now
ROUND my way there’s a beauty therapist called Maria Mills. She is unique.
Fifteen years ago Ms Mills pocketed £230,000 in a divorce settlement and invested it in the property market.
You would have thought she would have made a fortune. Wrong. She lost the lot and today lives in rented accommodation.
That takes some doing. Her first house was an attractive three-bed property in Weybridge, Surrey, where I live.
Had she held on to that house, it would today be worth £1million. A rise of 400 per cent. Not all that unusual.
Instead she sold up, bought a three-bed flat in Wimbledon then a mansion block jobby in Battersea.
But because she was stupid she lost it all due to “over-financing” the places.
Quite what that means is not clear to me as I know people who have done that and made a killing.
Not to make money in the property market in London and the South East this last 15 years shows a special kind of dimness.
The reason I know any of this is that Ms Mills’ story was unfolded at the Court of Appeal where unbelievably — despite the fact they divorced in 2002 — her ex-husband Graham was made to increase her monthly payments from £1,100 to £1,441.
Quite rightly Graham, a surveyor who has since remarried with a new family, said he should not be the insurer against his wife’s poor financial decisions.
He had gone to the court to stop the payments but instead they were increased. How awful.
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Even when it came to the evidence, the husband was deemed “reliable, truthful and frank” while the judge was “less impressed with the wife”.
I am puzzled at 51-year-old Ms Mills. She only works two days a week. Could it be she doesn’t bother with the other three as she is being subsidised by an ex of 15 years ago? I think we should be told.
There are too many payments for life being handed out by the divorce courts and it’s time that there was a time limit put on them.
After all, women are equal in all respects and that must include finding work and paying their own bills and not bludging off the ex until they reach old age.
As it stands, Ms Mills picks up a handy £17,200 a year from a bloke she now hardly knows. Has she no pride?
Perhaps she should try working a full week — although my advice would be to keep away from estate agents.
Loyalty doesn't pay
EVEN the sharks at Halifax now say loyalty doesn’t pay (they put it a different way) and it’s up to the customers, not them, to check premiums against the market.
So surely it’s time to follow the money-saving route of column reader Jackie Dowdeswell.
First she went on my price comparison site , switching from Aegon who wanted £843 for home insurance to Axa for £305, a handy £538 back.
Having got the bug she changed both her car insurances then her energy providers, saving £1,400 in a year overall.
She is now going to look at her broadband. Things are clearly going to be tight this year so get switching.
Do send your saving stories to [email protected].
Time bank paid out
LLOYDS Bank took my advice and have finally said sorry to the little guys who saw their businesses wiped out by the criminal behaviour of their employees at HBoS.
Yet they added a “but”. They always do.
They are going to set up a new investigation to see what role the bank had in leaving small businesses bankrupt and their owners skint.
Didn’t Lloyds follow the court trial? The evidence was clear to the jury.
One senior manager got 11 years and his deputy got ten.
And £245million went down the plughole.
Why should the bank be allowed to wait another minute before handing out compensation?
The little people have been waiting ten years for justice.
Lloyds CEO Antonio Horta Osorio should act today.
Let's see 'em, Becks
DAVID BECKHAM’S response to the avalanche of bad publicity about his knighthood-seeking behaviour is quite odd.
His brown-nosing PR briefs journos that the emails were selective and had been edited in a manner to make Beckham look bad.
Look bad?
The quotes were quite clear. The Establishment were “c***s” for not giving him a K.
Beckham could solve this wholly unfair slur on his good name by issuing all his emails unedited and unselected. Why wouldn’t he do this? Is there much worse out there?
Perhaps the real “c***s” are us for being handled by Beckham down the years.
Cowards in uniform
READ this and weep.
A Tunisian marine guard took off his uniform and pretended to be a bystander, a navy commander fainted, armed police took 30 minutes to arrive despite being three minutes away and officers simply watched without firing a single shot.
This shocking evidence of abject cowardice was told to the inquest of the 30 British tourists who died in the massacre at the Imperial Marhaba hotel in Tunisia.
Why would anybody take a holiday today in Tunisia or any country in the Middle East? You can see their uniforms but you can’t see into their souls.
Money wasted
IF you have the misfortune of having your pension with the charlatans at St James’s Place Wealth Management, you might wonder why they charge up to six per cent to withdraw your funds.
I have learned that part of the reason they need the money is they paid former Chancellor George Osborne a whopping £40,567 to make a speech to their people a couple of weeks ago.
Why as a public company they would squander such a huge amount of cash on a politician who lied, lied and lied again to scare off the public from voting for Brexit is beyond me.
Perhaps he felt he was in good company at St James’s.
Shop's core values
COMPUTER repair shop in Penzance, Cornwall – Apple Crumble.
Barbers near Bunbury, Western Australia – Hair Razors.
Garden services van in Deal, Kent – Avant Gardener.
Bike shop in Forest Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne – Cycle Logical.
Landscapers in Worthing, West Sussex – Art And Soil.
Car wash on the A5 at Hinckley, Leics – The Best Hand Job In Town.
Virgin Media vans in Grantham, Lincs – Dick Van Dyke and Van Diesel.
Plumbing van in York – All Cisterns Go.
Church sign in Southampton – We Are Soul Agents In This Area.
Lawn care van in Sheepy Magna, Leics – One Man Went To Mow.
I do love a punny Valentine. Send them to [email protected].
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Quirke of weight
HAVING seen the pitfalls that befell TV favourite Pauline Quirke when she lost 5st then put the whole lot back on, I am pleased to report that after five weeks at Slimming World I have lost . . . just 6lb.
I know it’s poor but I don’t want to end up looking like Ms Quirke.
No offence meant to the gender fluid among us.
Thick patients fill NHS beds
I WAS in A&E recently with a family member when the fat and dim guy in the next bed was asked by a polite and intelligent doctor what his problem was.
He replied: “I’m not feeling well,” adding helpfully: “I was feeling even worse yesterday.”
Instead of BBC News spending their entire lives finding people to run down our excellent NHS, why don’t they put together a documentary on the thickos who are clogging up A&E?
It would make fascinating viewing.
MY hero of the week is Nick Boles, the Tory MP who defied a brain tumour to vote in the Brexit debate while that piece of work Diane Abbott had a lucky-as-you-like migraine. Hurry back Nick.
CLEARLY not embracing his own paper’s five-star review of This House in the West End, Daily Mail proprietor Lord Rothermere and his entourage did not return for the second half of the hit political play on Wednesday night.
I know because I was sitting right behind them. Unless, of course, I was the reason they left.
WITH new Manchester City star Jesus being a headline writer’s dream, it reminded me of the sign back in the day outside a Liverpool church which said: What shall we do when the Lord comes?
A wag had added: Move St John to inside right.