MESSAGE FROM JOANNA LUMLEY DATED 28TH APRIL 2009 "Thank you so much for your support of the Gurkha Justice campaign. We are overwhelmed by the support the campaign is receiving. As you may know, on Friday, the Government badly let down the Gurkhas. The new rules they have announced will exclude the huge majority of ex-Gurkhas who retired before 1997 from claiming citizenship in this country. They've given five bullet points that virtually cannot be met by the ordinary Gurkha soldier. It is so obvious that the treatment of the Gurkhas has been a great injustice. To treat them like this is despicable. The strong reaction by the public and press should show the Government that they simply cannot get away with this outrage. I'm ashamed of our adminstration. We will be challenging this decision in the courts and in Parliament. We will not stop now. This is not a party political campaign: it's simply one for justice. I am so grateful though for immediate support from MPs from all Parties, including amongst others Conservative leader David Cameron and Lib Dem Leader Nick Clegg. Nick Clegg has agreed to put a vote to Parliament this Wednesday calling for a fair deal for Gurkhas. This vote on its own won't change the Government's ruling, but would be an overwhelming signal to the Government that they need to think again. We need all MPs that support the Gurkha justice cause to turn up and vote for a proper deal for Gurkhas on Wednesday. Can I ask that you take a couple of minutes right now to ask your MP to do so? You can send a message to your MP directly at www.theyworkforyou.com - please ask them to support the Gurkha Justice motion on Wednesday. On Wednesday, there will also be a Gurkha Justice rally and protest against the Government's decision, starting at noon in Old Palace Yard, Westminster. Many MPs have already committed to support the vote and join me and others at the rally. I know it's awfully short notice, but if you can, please do come along as well to add your support. If you can pass on this message to others as well that would be fabulous - and if they sign up to www.gurkhajustice.org.uk we can keep in touch with them directly in future. Lastly, again, thank you so much for your support. It means so much to us. I spoke today to Lt Madan Kumar Gurung, who has been at the forefront of the campaign since it began. He said to me that he has no fear for the Gurkhas any more, as he knows the loving hearts of the British people will not let them down. With your support we won't. With warmest good wishes, Joanna www.gurkhajustice.org.uk This message has been sent to those who have signed up for the Gurkha Justice campaign by signing at www.gurkhajustice.org.uk or on a printed petition for supplying your email address. You can opt-out of further correspondence from the campaign at any time by email to optout@gurkhajustice.org.uk IF YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED THE PETITION YET PLEASE DO SO. PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON TO YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY, COLLEAGUES AND ASK THEM TO SIGN UP. IF YOU CAN GO TO THE DEMONSTRATION ON WEDNESDAY PLEASE DO SO. THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT. BB

Hello scarletspud and welcome! To start a new thread you need to go into the forum part of the site and not the actual (individual) threads (where you can comment on that particular thread). Thus if you have a general question you need to go to the "general" section of the forum - here General - The Consumer Forums and you will see a little blue rectangle on the left hand side called "New thread", it's immediately above "Threads in Forum". Whoops! I see I've been beaten to it! Good luck! Get into the right place and hopefully loads of people will help you out. bb

Fine, understand about the bank/credit check. But you haven't answered any of my questions.

What the agent wants, as you probably know, is anything "official" with your address on it - driving licence, bank statement, utility bill, benefits, council tax. Are you on the electoral role anywhere? Where does your college/school/whatever have as your address? Are you registered with a doctor - where does your NHS card say you live? Do you have a building society account? How old are you? I'm assuming you're quite young as you say you're been in full time education - but then again that's an assumption that could be rather wide of the mark - so apologies... If you are young I would have thought that it might be best if you use your parents address - most offspring don't pay bills whilst living at home. If your family are guaranteeing for you then I don't see why it should be a problem with the estate agents. As I'm sure you know they want guarantees for people who don't pass the credit checks - and I'm assuming (apologies for assumption) that you may not pass the credit checks because you are not known to the CRAs.

Yes you can complete the papers yourself and yes you can represent yourself in court (but I should warn you it's not a walk in the park). This is a quote from The Deposit Protection Service:- What happens if a deposit has not been protected? Where a Landlord fails to comply with Tenancy Deposit Protection, there are two sanctions:- Unable to use Section 21 notice Currently, a landlord can serve two months' written notice in the prescribed form under Section 21 of Housing Act 1988 on a tenant in order to terminate a tenancy at the end of a fixed term, or after a fixed term has expired. If necessary, a landlord can obtain an order for possession of an AST in the County Courts under Section 21 of the Housing Act 1988. However, where a landlord fails to comply with Tenancy Deposit Protection, no Section 21 notice may be given in relation to the tenancy until such time as the legislation is complied with. Payment to the Tenant Tenants can make an application to a County Court under Housing Act 2004 if they believe that their deposit is not being safeguarded, or where they have not been given the prescribed information about the scheme in which the deposit is safeguarded within 14 days of the landlord receiving the deposit. Where the court is satisfied that the landlord has failed to comply with these requirements, or the deposit is not being held in an authorised scheme, the court must either order the landlord to repay the deposit within 14 days of the making of the order, or order the landlord to pay the deposit to the custodial scheme administrator. The court must also order the landlord to pay the tenant three times the deposit amount within 14 days of the making of the order. The Deposit Protection Service Before you start I would strongly recommend you get advice and help from your local CAB and Shelter. They will help you fill in the claim forms, sort out what paperwork you need to exhibit, tell you how many copies you need of everything etc. When you are ready take the claim form, witness statement, exhibits etc to the court. The court will tell you how much it will cost to commence proceedings and the fees can be reduced to nothing if you are on various benefits. I hope this helps you.

30 month STA. Commencing 9 Feb 2008, expiring 8 Aug 2010. Individually negotiated term:- "The landlord and tenant are both able to issue 3 month notice in writing upon each other with notice being served on or before the anniversary of the tenancy commencement after the first six month period." LA issued an S21 in October 2008 with expiry date of 8 January 2009. CLAIM ONE LA issued "N1 Claim Form" (ie an all-purpose claim form) in December 2008. On the front of the page, under "brief details of claim", they have written "rent arrears" and on the reverse of the claim after giving details of the arrears they have written "notice of possession has been served on Mr X to vacate on 8 Jan 2009." This was defended because the claimant had made numerous errors on the claim and it was argued the S21 was wrong as it expired before the 12 month anniversary. A hearing date is set for May 2009. CLAIM TWO LA issued "N5 Claim form for Possession of Property" in March 2009. On the reverse of the claim form under "grounds for possession" they have marked "rent arrears". On the attached N119 "Particulars of Claim for Possession) they state "On 28 January 2009 the claimant's solicitors served a notice exercising the break clause terminating his tenancy on 29th April 2009 by first class post. The claimant's solicitors further served a notice pursuat to S21(1)(b) of the Housing Act 1998 requiring possession of the property after 29 April 2009." "If the Court must exercise its discretion in considering whether to grant a possession order, would the court have regard to the fact that if a possession order is not granted in these proceedgins then the claimant will commence new proceedings at the expiry of the S21 notice in any event which will result in unnecessary additional costs being incurred by both the claimant and the defendant. A copy of the letter date 28 January 2009 wtih attached S21 notice is attached." A hearing date is set for April 2009. 1. The defendant did not receive this alleged letter of 28 January 2009 with S21 notice attached. 2. The 28 January 2009 letter exhibited with the court papers shows an S21 notice and an S8 notice (but it seems there is no mention of the S8 notice int he court papers) 3. Is it right to issue an S21 and S8 notice together? 4. Is is right to start two actions, both for rent arrears, against the same tenant? We assume Claim 2 was launched because they did not like the date allocated for Claim 1's hearing. 5. We would like to get Claim 2 kicked out as it is anticipated that funds to cover arrears will be available shortly. Comments/ advice gratefully received.

Yes, I know it's compulsory to offer PayPal as a method of payment - but if you want to be paid another way you can state that. For example we recently sold some stuff that the buyer collected - why would we use PayPal when we could have cash on collection? I was just trying to help bartenzo by giving a suggestion to "attack" from the other end. The purchaser could, for example, say I'd like my money back because I don't like the way you're behaving with the vendor. PayPal may think they are above the law and can impose these ridiculous T & Cs - but are they enforceable in law? I doubt it. We once had some idiot buy a dishwasher on buy-it-now. He paid using PayPal and then read the listing properly and decided he didn't want it because a piece was missing (clearly stated). He opened a dispute saying it hadn't been collected - listing said collection only - and PayPal refunded him! I wouldn't trust PayPal further than I can spit.

How about contacting the buyer and asking them to get Paypal to refund them. The buyer should make the complaint that a vendor can't send (why should they) until Paypal releases the money ... If I was the buyer I'd be mighty narked at Paypal and would be happy to try to help. bb

Many thanks for all your help and advice peepe. It's now sorted - with extremely bad grace I might add from the bank...

Totally agree, just reads [above posts] as though people have already written them off - and thought I'd point out that reports of their death are a little premature... though eagerly anticipated!

It hasn't gone bust yet...

Nah, waste of time! Due diligence would be way too expensive and I'm prepared to lose £1.00 if the company goes bust (again). I'm not offering to guarantee their liabilities - just take on their existing clients.

If shares go to 1p and if my maths is correct that gives it a value of £5.26m - I think! That's too high a price for OH and me - though a bit of a drop from the 52 week high of £2.57 (per share) on 1st April 2008. But I'm prepared to stand by my offer of £1.00 to take over the business - subject to contract of course!

Do you mean to say you've worked out what PWC couldn't get to grips with? That must mean you aren't an accountant! You can't be a banker either! (I'm neither) Will you come in as the Finance Director - you obviously have a better grasp of the numbers than "the professionals".

Huh! That's not nice! I expressed my interest first!

I forgot to say we'd also get rid off the nasty call centre staff who harass people on the telephone.

OH and I are interested in buying it...for £1 from the receiver and with no responsibility for repayment of existing debts. We'll give a repayment holiday to everyone who needs one and reduce the interest rates to everyone.

There's a good article in today's Times Here's part of it:- Cattles, led by David Postings, its chief executive, said it would have to seek covenant waivers from its debt providers — a 22-bank consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland. Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC are also among lenders to Cattles, which has been struggling to refinance a £500 million loan due in July. Yesterday's suspensions meant that Cattles has removed six directors from their daily duties within the past seven days. Five of these have been at Welcome Financial Services, its principal lending business, which has more than 500,000 customers. Ian Cummine, Welcome's founding chairman and Cattles chief operating officer, was among those suspended yesterday. James Corr, group finance director, also had his duties put on hold, along with Adrian Cummings, Welcome's compliance and risk director. Last week Cattles said that John Blake, Welcome's managing director, Peter Miller, its finance director, and Mick Belcher, operations director, had been suspended pending the outcome of the inquiry. Cattles said yesterday that “significant progress” had been made with the review. A conclusion is expected in the next couple of weeks. It is understood that Cattles has breached covenants that necessitated interest payments on its debt being covered 1.75 times by earnings. Mr Postings has previously expressed hope that at least some of its loans could be rolled over. Although Cattles has admitted that internal controls and accounting practices have been breached, details of what took place are unlikely to emerge until the review has ended. Cattles has been targeting borrowers who want to renew loans and collects about £80 million a month in payments. The shares, which have collapsed from highs of 400p, fell a further 13 per cent to 2.13p as the company said that it would incur “significant losses” for the financial year 2008. The full article is at http://tinyurl.com/c2ru38

I was going to post this link but see you've got there first though I think they may have expanded the article since you posted...so here's the next bit "Cattles, which last month said that it was delaying its annual results while it reviewed its provisions for bad loans, has suspended three senior executives at its Welcome Financial Services division — which accounts for most of its credit business. John Blake, Welcome Financial’s managing director, Peter Miller, its finance director and Mick Belcher, the operations director, will remain suspended until the advisers Deloitte have completed the review. Cattles said that, based on work carried out by Deloitte so far, it believed there had been a “breakdown in internal controls” which had resulted in its impairment policies being applied incorrectly. In the meantime, David Postings, the chief executive of Cattles, has taken direct management control of Welcome Financial — which, only last week, said that it had stopped taking on any new loan customers. The company also revealed that the promotion of Robert East, its incoming finance director, had also been put on ice. James Corr, its retiring finance director, was asked last week to stay on and help with the review — but Cattles said yesterday that, due to ill health, he was currently unable to fulfil his duties. It added: “In his absence, Mr East has agreed to take on Mr Corr’s responsibilities, although his appointment to the board remains deferred until further notice.” Shares of Cattles, which has more than one million household customers, have fallen by more than 98 per cent this year. The company was forced in January to abandon its application for a banking licence — which would have helped it cut its dependence on wholesale funding by allowing it to take retail deposits." Share price dropped by 98% eh? Hope they don't expect govt bail-out. Does this mean that when they go bankrupt their debtors will be able to buy their debt for a small percentage of what is owed - rather than it being bought by a DCA?

Oh is receiving at least 10 phone calls a day from one company - landline and mobile. We've sent the harassment letter - by fax and mail - and still receive at least 10 phone calls a day... We've told them they are breaking the law and that we've sent this letter but it has not helped! The other day we heard one of the callers saying "I'm just winding and grinding" to one of their colleagues. I assume this means "wind them up and grind them down". Yesterday when they called for the 12th time I asked to be put through to a supervisor and was asked why. I said "because you have been faxed and mailed a letter regarding this harassment and I want to speak to your supervisor about your continued harassment." He said "we won't put you through until you confirm how you are related to X." I said "that's none of your f.....g business." That really upset him; he said if you use language like that I'll end the call. So I used the word again and another, worse word, and he hung up! Childish I know but it got a result... Can someone explain to me why, when they have been told about 100 times that they are harassing us, that they are in breach of the law and they have been sent the harassment letter we should be polite to these people? If swearing at them means they terminate the call why not swear at them?

Tony Blair was the leader of the Labour Party when it was elected. He stood down. Gordon Brown was not elected to be PM. And I am not the author of this letter.

I think it is terribly sad news and my heart goes out to the Cameron family. They have lived through six, nearly seven, very difficult years and have coped extraordinarily well. Most of us can not begin to imagine what their lives have been like over this time. And now Ivan has been taken from them. It is God's will: but acceptance of that is very hard for those left behind. Ivan is in a better place: he will be watching over his family, hopefully they will be able to draw comfort from that. Here are two pieces that I have found very helpful when trying to come to terms with berevement. ____________________________________________________________________________ All Is Well Death is nothing at all, I have only slipped into the next room I am I and you are you Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by my old familiar name, Speak to me in the easy way which you always used Put no difference in your tone, Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was, Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, Just around the corner. All is well. By Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918) Canon of St Paul's Cathedral What is dying? I am standing on the seashore. A ship sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean. She is an object of beauty and I stand watching her till at last she fades on the horizon, and someone at my side says, "She is gone." Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all; she is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when I saw her, and just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination. The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her; and just at the moment when someone at my side says, "She is gone," there are others who are watching her coming, and other voices take up the glad shout, "There she comes!"--and that is dying. ~ Bishop Brent

THIS LETTER WAS SENT WITH THE HOPE OF BEING FORWARDED TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE. THE AIM IS TO FORCE GORDON BROWN TO STAND DOWN AND CALL A GENERAL ELECTION. PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO AS MANY AS YOU CAN. _______________________________________________________________________ S T E V E N K A T I R A I B E L L A M O U R , L O N G H O R S L E Y , M O R P E T H , N O R T H U M B E R L A N D N E 6 5 8 R B e - m a i l - S t e v e n @ k a t i r a i . c o m The Right Honourable Gordon Brown MP 10 Downing Street London SW1A 2AA Sunday, 15 February 2009 Prime Minister An open letter demanding your resignation. Your position is untenable and, I as a citizen of Great Briton demand your instant resignation. You are unelected, have no popular mandate and lack the moral authority to be Prime Minister. Your terms as Chancellor and Prime Minister have been a total disaster for this nation and your attempt to cling on to power at all costs show a complete contempt for this nation and displays your absolute vanity and thirst for political power. I list below some of the mistakes made by you during your time in public office. If as a director of a limited company you had made similar mistakes you would be subject to criminal prosecution and banned from being a company director. As a Government minister the standards exercised should be significantly higher than those exercised by a company director, you have failed to maintain those standards and are unfit for public office.  Banking Supervision: You transferred responsibility for banking supervision to the Financial Services Authority from the Bank of England so directly laying the seeds of the current banking crisis.  Banking Crisis: The initial response to the Northern Rock crisis was so slow as to be glacial and ultimately led to the damage done to the whole banking sector. A strong Prime Minister would have provided depositors with a guarantee that their deposits were safe and the bank run would have stopped. Ultimately the same guarantee would have ensured that the HBOS and RBS debacle would not have been so severe.  Criminal Negligence: The entire UK banking crisis has been caused by a lack of supervision under the regulatory regime set up by you, any man of honour would have resigned upon seeing the damage caused. You however have tried to blame everyone else and accept no responsibility. You are criminally negligent.  Vanity: You have used the banking crisis to attempt to advance your personal standing and political career at the expense of the nation.  Lack of Judgment: You have made three serious errors of judgment in your appointment of advisers on the current financial crisis. 1. Your choice of banker to compile a report on ideas for improving public health was Sir Derek Wanless. a Northern Rock director when it imploded in 2007. 2. You appointed Sir James Crosby, the former HBOS CEO, to the board of the FSA who then had to resign after becoming embroiled in the row over failings of risk management at HBOS. 3. It now also appears that Glen Moreno will be forced out of his job, as chairman of UK Financial Investments Ltd, the company set up to oversee the government’s stake in the bailed-out banks, because of his links with a Liechtenstein trust accused of tax evasion.  You Fantasize: By clinging to the idea that, thanks to your genius British citizens are far better placed than competitors to handle this crisis. The following two facts demonstrate that this is a fantasy:- 1. The Office for National Statistics' revelation that while the number of foreign workers getting jobs in the UK continues to grow (up by 175,000 to 2.4 million last year), domestic unemployment is rising sharply. 2. According to Business Monitor International, a research company specialising in country risk, "Britain is facing an unprecedented fall in its economic world ranking… from 12th place in 2007 to 21st in 2010". "Despite enjoying 11 years of growth between 1997 and 2007, the UK ran a budget deficit of 1.7 per cent of GDP over this period, fuelling a fiscal time bomb. Faced with the financial burden of bailing out the banking sector and kick-starting the economy, the budget deficit will swell to an unsustainable 9.3 per cent of GDP in 2009."  Public spending: Your 2000 Spending Review presaged a major expansion of government spending, without any significant benefit to public services, directly leading to the UK being in the worst shape of any industrialised nation to weather the current financial crisis.  You have colluded in hiding the full extent of public borrowing by using PFI initiatives to hide the borrowings off balance sheet. PFI is the most expensive and inefficient form of finance possible, and you have saddled the country with a debt that you cannot even quantify. Jeremy Pocklington, leader of the Treasury’s corporate and private finance team, could only give a rough estimate to Richard Bacon that the total liabilities, but not debt, from the vast majority of PFIs, but not all, from 2006-07 to 2032-33, but not beyond, is £157.9bn. That is not only astounding but unbelievable.  Public sector Employment: The office for national Statistics shows Public sector employment was 5,846,000 (20.4 per cent of all in employment) in June 2005, 680,000 (13.2 per cent) higher than in June 1998, whereas from 1998 to 2005 private sector employment only rose by 1,241,000 (5.7 per cent). This growth is unsustainable and wrong.  Growth: An OECD report shows UK economic growth averaged 2.7% between 1997 and 2006, lower than in any other English speaking country.  Gold sales: Between 1999 and 2002 you sold 60% of the UK's gold reserves at $275 an ounce, close to a 20-year low, a disastrous foray into international asset management.  Your spectrum auctions gathered £22.5 billion for the government which caused a severe recession in the telecoms development industry leading to the direct loss of 30,000 UK jobs. Two auctions were run in the USA, the first being cancelled and re-run (for less revenue) due to damage caused to the industry. The Americans realised their mistake and tried to rectify it. The British and German chancellors copied the North American first auction; which had failed. To copy a failed economic model is normally considered a serious error of judgement.  Your East Coast Mainline franchise auction led directly to the demise of GNER, an excellent company, which was replaced by National Express who offer East Coast mainline users a significantly poorer service. Your duty was not only to maximise revenues, you also had a duty to the shareholders, employees and customers which you completely failed.  Anti-poverty: The Centre for Policy Studies found that the poorest fifth of households, which accounted for 6.8% of all taxes in 1996–7, accounted for 6.9% of all taxes paid in 2004-5. Meanwhile, their share of state benefit payouts dropped from 28.1% to 27.1% over the same period.  Tax: According to the OECD UK taxation has increased from a 39.3% share of gross domestic product in 1997 to 42.4% in 2006, going to a higher level than Germany. This increase has mainly been attributed to active government policy, and not simply to the growing economy.  You pledged to not increase the basic or higher rates of income tax however in all but your final budget, you only increased the tax thresholds in line with inflation, rather than earnings, resulting in fiscal drag.  You abolished the 10% tax band so that you could reduce the basic rate from 22% to 20%, to make it look like you were decreasing taxes. However in fact it led to increased tax for 5 million people, and, left those earning under £18,000 as the biggest losers.  Pensions: Your changes in 1997 in the way corporation tax is collected, directly led to the taxation of dividends on stock investments held within pensions, thus lowering pension returns and contributing to the demise of most of the final salary pension funds in the UK.  This act alone has single handedly damaged the pension of every person with a pension in the UK but also saddled UK corporations with a an ever growing pension liability, so much so that many companies futures are imperilled by these debts.  Falsehoods: You used the Laura Spence Affair to beat up Oxford and Cambridge about their admissions procedures, Lord Jenkins, then Oxford Chancellor and himself a former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, said "nearly every fact you used was false.  Inappropriate links: Given the finding that the government did not carry a proper public consultation on the use of nuclear power in its 2006 Energy Review, your brother Andrew’s is links to one of the main nuclear lobbyists, EDF Energy could be construed as inappropriate.  The father-in-law of your closest adviser Ed Balls, Tony Cooper (father of the Labour minister Yvette Cooper) has close links with the nuclear industry. Cooper was described as an "articulate, persuasive and wellinformed advocate of nuclear power over the last ten years" by the Nuclear Industry Association on his appointment as Chairman of the British Nuclear Industry Forum in June 2002.  IraqWar: You supported British involvement in the Iraq War against the wishes of the UK population and helped to justify that involvement by publishing false intelligence. This war has directly increased the odds of terrorist attacks on British subjects and the financial cost has had a significantly detrimental effect on the British economy.  Military Covenant: You have not adhered to the 'military covenant', leading to a significant decline in the moral of the armed forces due to poor housing, lack of equipment and adequate healthcare provisions. The lack of equipment has directly led to an increase in the loss of lives, and serious injuries, compounded by a lack care following serious injury.  The 15% VAT Rate: introduced to counter the effects of recession demonstrated a total naivety and breathtaking stupidity. Far from digging the nation out of a hole, it has saddled the country with a huge unsustainable debt.  No one should benefit from failure: You have on numerous occasions stated that no one should benefit from failure, however your tenure as chancellor was universally recognised as a failure, but you were rewarded with the Premiership and had the gall to accept.  There will be no more Boom & Bust: In your hubris you made a statement that was patently untrue, and counter to any economic theory. You either knew that statement to be untrue and lied or if you believed it then you clearly demonstrated your foolishness and proved that you were unfit for office.  The UK is in a better position than any other developed country: this again is completely untrue, we have more than double the debt per head of population than any other country in Europe.  Public Services: You have destroyed Public Services by a raft of inappropriate targets, which have led to resources being wasted by the attempts to meet those targets.  Surveillance society: You have presided over and led to the creation of a surveillance society in which any perceived wrongdoing is used as a pretext to pass oppressive laws. You and your predecessor have both single headedly succeeded in making the UK an unpleasant place to live in. These are but a small sample of your failings any of which make you unfit for public office and for which you should immediately resign. You sir are a fraud and I am forwarding this letter to as many people as I can, via the internet in an effort to shame you into accepting your failures. Yours faithfully Steven Katirai

You need to google "insolvency solicitors" ...

This sounds very unsual as judges will, normally do everything they can to avoid bankrupting someone, especially with the assets you list v the debt. And usually in the circumstances you describe you'd be sent away, told to sort it out (as you had the means) and to come back in 4 weeks (or so) if you haven't sorted it out. Was this the first hearing? What did you pay at the time of the bankruptcy? You say you had the £3k in court but the judge said you had to pay costs too. Did you pay anything to the OR? Did you get anything in writing from the OR at the time of your meeting? Why didn't you follow this up with the OR and ask what was happening? Appealing bankruptcy is very hard. You probably won't qualify for legal aid - last I heard they don't do bankruptcy work...so much for everyone is entitled to legal representation (but let's not get into that one!) The Bar Pro Bono Unit is a charity where volunteer barristers help people who can't afford legal advice and can't get legal aid. They're very good and very helpful. The Bar Pro Bono Unit: Free Legal Advice and Representation I'll mull this over today and try to get back to you this evening wiht more help if I can. Hopefully others will pick up this thread during the day and give more advice.