I'm going tonight! Have a meeting for some difficult conversations about my supervision so am VERY excited to have this treat to look forward to!

Theft - i think we all understand the basis, if not the reasoning, for this already.

I think that sounds like a plan.... mostly because they're likely to take the whole amount as income (lets just hope they don't want bank statements!).... with stipends the maximum anyone seems to be doing is counting 60% of them as income, which even with both of us getting stipends means our 30k income is reduced to less than 20k x 3.5 = not very much!
Good luck with your hunt too. Looks like the market is picking up in our area at least. 3 of the 6 houses we've seen in the last fortnight sold within 3 days of us having seen them, including two that we were interested in! Argh!
S

It sounds like we'll get somewhere in the end using my in-laws premium banking for their business. Megara - I completely agree, but my husband is a trained teacher and has always been able to get supply work on demand. Our guarantors also have a large amount of assets..... so there's virtually no chance of them not getting paid!

We're quite limited on the house share front. There are very few schemes and we're limited to 1/2 towns as we need to live slap bang in the middle of where my husband commutes to and where I do. There's the further issue that most of these properties are flats and as we're planning a family we really would like a house with a garden.

Ejc,

I'm told that you're best having a mortgage lined up before you find a house you buy as putting in an offer before knowing what you'll be leant is a touch unethical....
I went to a whole-of-market broker, who basically said we were stuffed. We've also had meetings with several banks to the tune of 'you're stuffed'. It's beyond ridiculous when my in-laws, who are in the middle of a 1.5 million (self funded) development, are prepared to guarantor us but that seemingly counts for nothing. It's just been suggested we raise the cash, which is near impossible given that we have none and there's it tied up in assets (not that we'd want to drain them of cash anyway)......

I think we're all suffering for banks idiocity in the past tbh. But given the government have bailed them out, credit doesn't seem to be coming any more easily....

Thanks for the advice SH... unfortunately we've already been to see an independent financial advisor and he told us that pretty much everything has dried up due to the credit crunch, so what might have worked before doesn't any more :-(

I forgot to add, we also have a 50k deposit!

My husband and I both have research council funding amounting to c.30k tax free. And yet, for some reason unbeknown to me, mortgage providers refuse to accept that it is '"income". The one that will will only provide a mortgage at 60% of what we get, despite the fact we don't pay tax (meaning they'll only give us a mortgage of c.65k which is good for nothing).
I know there's a credit crunch, but given we have guarantors who could cover the mortgage many times over if we defaulted, it seems ridiculous. We've no debt between us of any sort... Sorry this is just a bit of a rant but I think one that's indicative of the low esteem that PhD students are held in. I got the 'the situation will change once you've finished your course and got a proper job' grrr.... I neglected to point out (a) a PhD isn't a 'course' and (b) there is nothing 'improper' about what I do ,)

Is there any way that you can either (a) ask someone to guarantor the rental or (b) pay a proportion of the rent up front? We've had this problem too (though the imbecilic letting agents didn't tell us until two days before we were supposed to move in!) and there is usually a way around it.....
Sx

If this happens anything like last year you can probably expect to hear around the middle of August. Letters are sent out without a discernible pattern.
If it helps, even the BGP letters (which only require rubber stamping) haven't begun to be sent out, despite the fact that the online registration procedure begun almost a month ago.

How close to finishing your PhD are you?

I think this is getting rather farcical to be honest, so I won't be leaving another post after this one.
You seem to have chosen to taken my advice to seek help with anger management/ stress management as a dig; in fact it was meant as constructive help (from someone who suffers from stress and has realised that sometimes it's best to seek help from a trained professional!). I think this probably underlines your issues; you are being decidedly over-sensitive, you continue to insist that your supervisor had some sort of direct responsibility for the (very sad) death of your baby, and you seem very angry with your supervisor, to an unhealthy level. Whenever anyone has tried, however sensitively, to point this out you become irate, and I have more than a slight suspicion that you are double posting under multiple usernames.

I feel a little bit sad that you chose to make the responses you did, after I sent you a sympathetic private post at 7.00am this morning, when I was in a rush to go out, because I thought it might be helpful.
I quote the following as you may otherwise delete it:
"I believe when you were scolded unreasonably by someone in the lab, then you felt you were really angry and your heartbeat fast, abdomen became increasingly painful, and immediately you had some fluid coming out from your vagina, and finally checked out it was blood! And a day later, the baby coming out after another an hour of intense pain. Should this miscarriage not the atrribute of the people in the lab, I wonder what would be the cause. "
This is really rather symptomatic of the cause-effect relationship you've chosen to draw. It's rather like saying (a) I ate chocolate today and (b) it rained therefore (c) it rained because I ate chocolate. There isn't necessarily a link. As I have, to my sadness, learnt, many many women have miscarriages in the early weeks of pregnancy. I'm not saying you being stressed wasn't an issue, but I don't think you can attribute it solely and directly to the behaviour of the people in your lab. I am very sad that you had this experience, but please try to step back and see the bigger picture.
I think the pregnancy issue is separate but relevant. It's important that you understand that the amount of time you've taken out might nark your supervisors; I say this, as I told you in my PM, as a married woman who fully intends to have a baby during her (arts based) PhD.
The second issue is of your supervisor's behaviour. Again I'm a bit concerned that you might be creating chocolate-rain equations. But if you're not, I've already given advice as regards what I think you ought to do. Quickly.
Finally, I think it might be worth you trying some anger management/ stress avoidance techniques.

I think Monkey's points are valid. I'm equally thinking about having a baby during my PhD, but I don't expect all congratulations -- despite the fact that alot of my work can be done from home.
It is very sad that the OP had a miscarriage (I had one 6 weeks ago) but I don't think that this is wholly attributable to the lab situation. I think the 'help yourself first' tenet comes into play here. And it doesn't help that she seems to have descended into hyperbole about nearly everything....