You may not own your house!

That's the kind of scare headline that gets people looking at your blog, eh readers?

We've had two great examples recently of the razor-sharp reliability and attention to detail that has made the Irish financial and legal sectors the envy of the known world. I had a phone call from my solicitor asking for my address (yes, that's right, my solicitor has my phone number but not my address, despite the fact that he did the conveyancing for my house) so he could send me some documents to sign. Turns out that my ex-husband's solicitor lost the document that I signed giving my ex-husband full ownership of the house we used to live in. Who knows where this document went? Not that it's important or anything. Why would a document that proves you own a property outright be important?

Then yesterday a letter arrived here addressed to the person we bought this house from. No return address, obviously, because it's important to make everything as difficult as possible. It was from a solicitor acting on behalf of a bank, telling the previous occupant of this house that their mortgage on this house is three months in arrears and that if they don't pay what they owe soon, the bank will be forced to sell the house. That's this house. Which we own. Well, which we are making payments on, at least.

We emailed them to let them know they have the wrong address on file for this person, and to put them in touch with our solicitor, who might have an address for those people. I wouldn't be too hopeful though.