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Nigella Lawson and the High Cost of divorce

Celebrities

Nigella Lawson Eats A Banana
Nigella Lawson Eats A Banana (Photo credit: Kaptain Kobold)

Heartache and heartbreak are hard enough to endure but imagine having to go through the loss of a relationship while the world looks on. Such is the high price of celebrity divorce and the latest victim is the beautiful and talented television chef, Nigella Lawson. Shocking photos of Nigella apparently being choked by her husband, Charles Saatchi, surfaced in the media following the June 9th dinner at Scott’s restaurant in Mayfair, London, where the incident occurred. Saatchi’s advisors urged him to humble himself and admit a public apology for the assault. Saatchi denied any wrongdoing, saying he never assaulted her and in fact, was actually removing mucous from his wife’s nose. Nigella was stunned by the admonition of “nose-picking” and his refusal to apologize. She left Saatchi and their family home in Chelsea.

The two sides continued to disagree about the pictures; Saatchi claiming it was just a “playful tiff” and Lawson hurt and humiliated by the public’s assumption of her as victim of domestic violence and her husband as her tormentor. Insult was added to injury on July 7th, when Saatchi announced his intent to divorce his wife in the media instead of directly to her. Lawson, who had been waiting for a public apology, was blind-sided by his cruel divorce announcement. Lawson and Saatchi have been married for 10 years; Saatchi has claimed that the couple had become “estranged” the last few years. Saatchi claims that he had no choice but to act publicly since his wife “failed to defend” him with a statement to the media. In fact, Lawson has remained silent at the advice of her publicist so as not to further affect their children. Lawson (53) and Saatchi (70) have three teenage children from previous marriages that they were raising together.In addition to the “he said, she said” controversy, Lawson and Saatchi will have to fight over $150 million in shared assets, including their $12 million Chelsea, West London home. Both brought substantial assets into the marriage. Charles Saatchi is worth $100 million from the high-profile, highly-successful New York advertising firm, Saatchi and Saatchi. Nigella Lawson is a celebrity chef, bestselling author and television star with a net worth of $15 million. By the time lawyers for both sides duke it out in court and attempt to untangle the shared assets, those net worths will be considerably less.But it’s not just a monetary cost to this celebrity divorce. Saatchi had grown increasingly resentful of his wife’s high-profile career that he helped established. It’s a common theme in celebrity couples; one partner becomes the higher earner or the more recognized celebrity and the other gets bit by that green-eyed monster, jealousy. In Nigella’s case, there is the public humiliation at the hands of someone she loves to endure. It seems that Saatchi is determined to do whatever he can to make her suffer in the media. And then there are the children; children always suffer in a divorce. It can be lessened when parents work together to keep it private and amicable. But it’s incredibly painful to have your lives dragged through the media. In this case, it is Nigella and Saatchi’s children that are paying the ultimate price.

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What is a Mechanic’s Lien?

Finance

Newspaper Ad for the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company
Image via Wikipedia

When you hire someone to work on your property or provide material to build or improve it, they are entitled to get paid.   A mechanic’s lien is the method of enforcing that payment.

Here is what you need to know about mechanic’s liens.

A contractor must usually give you written notice of intent to file a lien if the contract isn’t paid.  He needs to do this within a short time of beginning the work.   The notice will include text to the effect that subcontractors also have the right to file a lien if they are not paid.  This notice gives you two methods of defense: You can pay the subcontractors directly and withhold that amount from the payment to the contractor, or you can withhold the final payment until you have received a lien waiver from each of the subcontractors.

If the notice isn’t given correctly, the contractor forfeits his right to file a lien.  Also, in most places, if a contractor is supposed to be licensed to do the work, but isn’t, he’s not able to file a lien.

Subcontractors must also provide notice on intent within about 45 days–depending on the state–of the time they first provide services or material, or the lien is not enforceable.

Protecting Yourself

First, you only have to pay once. If you pay the contractor in full before getting the notice of intent from the subcontractors, you can’t be forced to pay again.

Next, make the contractor provide a list of all subcontractors and keep track of any notices of intent you get.  Get lien waivers from everyone involved before you make the final payment to the contractor.

Finally, you have the rights defined in the notice of intent to file a lien.  You can either pay the subcontractors directly, or you can withhold the final payment until you receive lien waivers from each subcontractor.

Resolution

The lien holder has 120 days to file the lien and 1 year to enforce it.   Enforcing simply means that it a suit has been filed.  Once that happens, you can either pay the contractor, attempt to settle with the contractor, or you can take the contractor to court to determine the “adverse claims” on your property.   There aren’t too many choices at this point.

Do yourself a favor and get lien waivers before you make the final payment on any work done on your property.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-04-24

Misc

  • Watching Gamers:Dorkness Rising #
  • Charisma? Weee! #
  • Tweeting a dork movie? I'm a bit of a geek. #
  • We just met and the first thing you do, after boinking a stranger in the presence of the king, is to murder a peasant? #
  • Every movie needs a PvN interlude. #
  • Everything's better with pirates. #
  • Waffles? Recognize. #
  • The Spatula of Purity shall scramble the eggs of your malfeasance. #
  • Checkout clerks licking their fingers to separate bags or count change is gross. #
  • Watching Sparkles the Vampire, Part 2: Bella's Moodswing. #twilight #
  • @penfed was a waste of money. $20 down the drain to join, wouldn't give a worthwhile limit, so I can't transfer a balance. #
  • @JAlanGrey It's pretty lame. The first one was ok. This one didn't improve on the original. in reply to JAlanGrey #
  • RT @tferriss: Are you taking snake oil? Beautiful data visualization of scientific evidence for popular supplements: http://ping.fm/pqaDi #
  • Don't need more shelves, more storage, more organization. Just need less stuff. #
  • @BeatingBroke is hosting the Festival of Frugality #226 http://su.pr/80Osvn #
  • RT @tferriss: Cool. RT @cjbruce link directly to a time in a YouTube video by adding #t 2m50s to end of the URL (change the time). #
  • RT @tferriss: From learning shorthand to fast mental math – The Mentat Wiki: http://ping.fm/fFbhJ #
  • RT @wisebread: How rich are you? Check out this list (It may shock you!!!) http://www.globalrichlist.com/ #
  • RT @tferriss: RT @aysegul_c free alternative to RosettS: livemocha.com for classes, forvo.com for pronunc., lang8.com for writing correction #
  • Childish isn't an insult. http://su.pr/ABUziY #
  • Canceled the Dish tonight. #

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-05-01

Misc

  • RT @Dave_Champion Obama asks DOJ to look at whether AZ immigration law is constitutional. Odd that he never did that with #Healthcare #tcot #
  • RT @wilw: You know, kids, when I was your age, the internet was 80 columns wide and built entirely out of text. #
  • RT @BudgetsAreSexy: RT @FinanciallyPoor "The real measure of your wealth is how much you'd be worth if you lost all your money." ~ Unknown #
  • Official review of the double-down: Unimpressive. Not enough bacon and soggy breading on the chicken. #
  • @FARNOOSH Try Ubertwitter. I haven't found a reason to complain. in reply to FARNOOSH #
  • Personal inbox zero! #
  • Work email inbox zero! #
  • StepUp3D: Lame dancing flick using VomitCam instead or choreography. #
  • I approve of the Nightmare remake. #Krueger #

Saturday Roundup

Life, Misc

First, the shameless self-promotion:

If you want to see the glorious wisdom that is my Twitter feed, follow me on Twitter. I’m @LiveRealNow.

Please take a moment to subscribe to Live Real, Now by email.  You get a choice between having all of the posts delivered to your inbox, or just occasional updates and deals.   Both options get my Budget Lessons, free of charge, including exclusive access to articles that are not published anywhere else.  Woo!

If you prefer to get all of you information and interaction on Facebook, become a fan!

And of course, there is always the wonderful RSS subscription.

Next, for the part you’re here for…

The Cute War.

Budgeting In the Fun Stuff guest-posted here a few days ago.  The post was about her dog.  Nicole asserted that her kittens were cuter than BFS’s pug.    There is some personal risk involved for me, but my pets are cuter.  The proof:

Revoked Man Card
Revoked Man Card

The Best Posts of the Week:

Frugal Dad discusses What to Do When Your Beneficiaries are Minors.  We settled this by not making our minor children the beneficiaries.   If we both leap off the mortal coil at once, my Dad gets the money.   I trust him to take care of my kids with it.   No, Dad, you can not work on my brakes.

Marko found a fascinating photo series of WWII war photos overlaying modern pictures of the same location. It’s kind of creepy in places.

My favorite dinosaur has a child has been reclassified as a child itself, not an actual dinosaur.  That makes youthful me very sad.

Finally, a list of the carnivals I’ve participated in:

Both the Carnival of Personal Finance and the Yakezie Carnival included Selling Your Home: For Sale by Owner.

The Festival of Frugality has It’s Better to Buy a House than Rent.

If I missed a carnival, please let me know.

Beat the Check

Finance

Wheel of fortune. Shot wide open using 50mm/f1...
Image via Wikipedia

Have you ever played a game of “Beat the Check”?  Your rent is due tomorrow, but you don’t get paid until Friday, so you write the check today an, on payday, you run to the bank to get your paycheck deposited before it has a chance to clear.  To stretch out the time, you write yourself a check from another account to cover the deficit, knowing that will take a few more days to clear. This is called “floating” a check.

Sound familiar?

I think most people who write checks have tried to rush a deposit in before a check clears.

In 2004, the Check 21 act went into effect, which turned the game on its head. This law gave check recipients an option to make a digital copy of a check, slashing processing time. Instead of boxes of checks being transported around the country, the check began getting scanned and instantly transferred, along with all of the encoding necessary to keep the digital checks organized. This dramatically cut the amount of time it took to clear a check. What was once a week was reduced to as little as 48 hours.

Now, as technology improves and banks update their infrastructure to match, the “float” time has been reduced even further. Many banks are using image control systems to instantly convert all incoming checks to digital format. Within a couple of hours, these images can be transmitted to the Federal Reserve, to be transmitted nearly instantly to the issuing bank. If both the issuing and the receiving banks are using modern image control systems, it is impossible to float a check. “Beat the Check” is a thing of the past. It’s like betting on purple at the roulette wheel.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the funds are instantly available. That would eliminate the banks being able make use of the funds during that time. Don’t expect the banks to make a habit of allowing you the use of your money before the federal regulations demand it.