A creditor can sell its 'asset' with all rights attached to whoever it pleases, including the right to continue any related legal action and enforce as normal, but this would still be subject to all the requirements and regulations that applied to the debt when taken out, including the stay on your particular case. I'm not sure but the new owner would have to apply to transfer the action to their name, and this might technically require permission from the Judge, which I imagine would be granted if the transfer is otherwise in order. It's not directly relevant but it might be interesting to know why the stay was granted, if it's not too personal - is it awaiting a test case or something?

If he's lodging in your own home then you have every right to make reasonable rules about how he and his guests conduct themselves, including to request that he is present at the same time as any guests. If he doesn't want to live by your reasonable expectations then he would need to find somewhere else to live. Lodgers are entitled to reasonable peace and privacy but their rights are far more restricted than those held by tenants of separate property.

If it would have been unsafe to continue because your wife was feeling unwell, then clearly she had to stop where safe. Since a taxi rank is better than in the flow of traffic, it sounds like a reasonable decision to me, especially if there was no parking space apparent. I think you have a good basis for an appeal on this alone, and if there are procedural issues as well then all the better (you could anonymise and upload your ticket for the experts to review). Congratulations on the new arrival and I hope common sense prevails.

You always have the right to choose a Magistrates' Court hearing as an alternative to paying the fixed penalty. The risk is that you could receive a larger fine, number of points, or both. The copper you had the misfortune to encounter could well have given you a rectification notice but he obviously felt he had good reason to issue an FPN. He could probably make a case in Court, with supporting evidence, that a 25cm crack is very large and undermines the stability of the windscreen, regardless of location, so it was only a matter of time before it shattered dangerously. Unless there are significant irregularities with the FPN, I think it would be difficult to argue that he had not complied with the law in issuing it to you for the offence in question. Don't forget that most insurance policies include glass replacement, often with a special excess, and that it usually doesn't affect your NCB.

People here will of course do their best to help but many students' unions have advisors who specialise in student housing problems, and will hopefully be able to get involved directly with your case. They might even be familiar with the particular agent in question. Otherwise you could go to the local CAB. Your letting agent is not acting reasonably by refusing to admit the replacement tenant - they are effectively deliberately making the situation worse and you would have a good chance of arguing this part of the argument if they ever went ahead with a claim against you. Hopefully you can reach an agreement with them and it won't go that far, although if not already paid, you will certainly need to pay the rent for the period you lived there, even if on a longer timescale to ensure payments are affordable.

Once the minimum term (no less than 6 months) passes on an AST, it just continues as a periodic tenancy unless a new agreement is signed. So since your original agreement said four weeks' notice, you are in the right. If your landlady never commented on the decorating despite being aware of it, this is not necessarily the same as prior permission but you might reasonably have inferred that she was happy with it. Unless you painted the walls black or neon pink, it doesn't seem reasonable to withhold money but this is a grey area - before tenancy deposit protection came along, bad landlords routinely kept deposits for 'cleaning' or 'decorating'. If you tell her that you're going to be asking the Local Authority's Housing Department about the obligations of landlords to have a competent person conduct an annual safety check under Section 36 Part 3 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, she will hopefully start listening to you.

Well since you say you've given notice in accordance with your tenancy agreement (a month is normal but by no means always the case), by her own admission you've left the place in good order (maybe even better than you found it!!), it sounds like you've every right to your full deposit back. If she won't return it then she needs to provide a statement of why and what needed to be covered. I think after nine years that decorating would be well overdue maintenance that is her problem, not yours. Failure to provide a new Gas Safety Certificate every year is not relevant to the deposit situation but it is a legal requirement and the certificates have to be kept for two years. Failure to ensure the safety of gas appliances is a criminal offence carrying a substantial fine (£1000s), and if people were killed in an gas-related accident, landlords can be prosecuted for manslaughter. Maybe you could point out to her that returning your deposit immediately and in full would save everybody a lot of bother?

If your income is very low during BR, you wouldn't be expected to pay anything, but you'd have to keep that up for at least the standard BR period of 12 months, *assuming* you get an automatic discharge (although see previous posts). It would also raise obvious questions after the 12 months over the gap in your medical training, and you'd still have to support yourself somehow. There are no restrictions on your personal freedom while BR or in an IVA, apart from in respect of your finances, but regardless of your location, you'd be expected to cooperate with the Trustee appointed by the Official Receiver and make any payments required of you. Being outside the UK would not make communications and payments any easier, and if a Court found you to be uncooperative, your discharge could be suspended. To live and work almost anywhere outside the EU, you'd need a visa, hardly trivial for the USA, and bankruptcy past or present could well affect your application. It sounds like your best first step is to try to renegotiate affordable terms with your creditors, and people here are very good at providing advice and materials for this, noting that your loans will presumably have been made under Irish jurisdiction. You could propose a longer repayment period with reduced interest, and consolidation if the creditors are the same group. You owe a lot of money but you should earn a lot of money if all goes to plan, and this may well be why they lent it in the first place!

Apologies for the slightly off-topic/frivolous post - I'd heard about Kerry Katona going BR but not about the discharge being suspended for so long, and with the 100% rather than 70% of disposable income, it seems BR has been tightened up a fair bit! Although I imagine the income of freelancers and media people goes up and down like a yo-yo, and would warrant extended surveillance.

ABC is right, even if you have a family, on a doctor's salary you *will* be expected to agree to an Income Payments Agreement (or Order - IPO - if you don't), although these actually last *three* years from inception. They have to be set up before discharge, i.e. before the 12 months is up and you should expect >70% of your income after *reasonable* living costs to be taken up - but fair enough if you've benefitted from medical training that will hopefully see you for a long and successful career. I'd suggest that you take some advice from the BMA or other doctors' representative body on potential professional consequences, although you'd be junior staff and it's not accountancy or law so I personally don't see why it should be a problem. You will also need to check the law on Irish student loans if these were not simply plain old bank loans, e.g. are they government-backed? UK student loans are indeed exempt from all forms of insolvency but they're lent under their own legislation directly by the government' and collected through the tax system. If BR makes yours unenforceable in the UK but not in Ireland then that's not going to be ideal if you ever want to work there! People on here could advise on whether this is a good or bad idea but once you've established your 'centre of interests' in the UK to enable you to petition for BR, you could go and work on a low/zero income for Medecins sans Frontieres or the like. At best, you might avoid the IPA and still help people in need, and at worst it might result in suspension of your Automatic Discharge for non-cooperation.

I think if your landlord is willing to put in writing that you're up-to-date with your rent so far, that the (evidently unprotected) deposit will be set off against the last payments in the tenancy (presumably ending soon), and you make sure you keep sensible records of any remaining rent payments, then you should be safe from any accusations of non-payment. Although it seems like you might have a case for a judgement requiring immediate return of the deposit with costs and possible compensation at the Judge's discretion, you'd still have to pay the rent anyway and it's always better to remember that Court action is a last resort after all reasonable attempts have failed to resolve the matter amicably. The fact that such a last resort exists should be enough to lever a written commitment from your landlord if he or she has any sense, but let's hope it doesn't go that far.

I'm not sure this is a good idea, especially if your landlord has otherwise acted reasonably and returns your deposit promptly at the end of the tenancy. The Localism Act 2011 reset previous judgements effectively allowing landlords to protect deposits late, but also made the penalty (not strictly a fine!) a maximum of three times, at the Judge's discretion. So you might not gain anything at all for your time and money, especially if it was a mistake. I negotiated with a previous landlord who had failed to protect my deposit, the result being that I got the last month free (the deposit being equal to one month's rent). She genuinely wasn't aware of her obligations and the threat of action made her aware, and made her listen.

Although worth pointing out that if an IPA/IPO HAD been set up pre-discharge, a higher or lower income arising from a new job would be picked up on review, and payments revised accordingly.

The insolvency rules require an IPA to be filed, or an IPO to be proposed, before discharge. If there were evidence of non-compliance, such as failure to provide info about new income (which would be hard to hide), then discharge could have been suspended by the Court to allow for further investigation and therefore more time to sort out an IPA/IPO. But once discharge has taken place, automatically or otherwise, it is absolute and cannot be reversed.

In a word - no. An IPA/IPO can only be placed before discharge. Presumably they didn't consider it necessary to do this because your income was too low. Congratulations on your discharge and I hope you get well soon!

Germans have a reputation for being litigious but even they would have to recognise the potential expense of obtaining an appropriate judgement in Germany, followed by further action in the High Court applicable to you in the UK, all for the sake of €100. Writing a letter as suggested, disavowing the debt, seems a wise first step. Hopefully that will be the end of it. If you get chased again with a threat of further action, you can note that any case will be vigorously defended in the UK, in person, with evidence that you severed the relationship when the fraud took place and received no joy in getting it sorted out the easy way, and that you will be applying for all your reasonable costs of defending the claim. It sounds like you've been as reasonable as can be expected, and they have not, thus giving you an advantage.