hi all, I recently have had my income cut from £1700pcm to only £430 pcm for personal reasons which are not really relevant.. I have debts I was paying but am unable to continue to pay them. Currently my outgoings monthly are more than what I earn and I need to cut down my monthly spendings... As you can imagine you cant afford much with £430! I have done an online questionnaire with Step Change who based on my answers have recommended bankruptcy... I don't really know the implications and people are putting all sorts of scary things in my head! If you go bankrupt does that mean you can no longer have a bank account? I will still be working so will need to be paid my wages! Can you not have direct debits to pay for things anymore? So car insurance etc you would have to pay in full? Also will anyone be able to take my car? Its only an old 1989 Golf and I use it to get to work. Wouldn't of thought it was worth a lot! How long does it affect you being able to pay monthly for things? Does it affect anyone else living in the house? I mean it wont negatively affect their credit will it? Also if I have things bought on credit such as a sofa and dishwasher will they come and take them back? Thanks for any help

i'm proposing a personal attempt at arranging payments to my creditors, i will attempt that and see what happens. the other option will be bankruptcy, ive no assets and know what it entails, i did it 8 years ago. my question is, i hold a santander current account which all my pay etc will go into and which my debts are being paid. if i go bankrupt can i still use my other current account with natwest who'm i owe nothing to, to pay my wages into? will the administrator let me do that ? so i can ringfence my money in the early days

Hello. I was made bankrupt in December 1998, I was not aware of this until a couple of years ago whilst enquiring about my pension and they told me about my bankruptcy. I have recently been in touch with the Official receiver and have completed my telephone interview, they have written to the courts and confirm that my bankruptcy will end in 1 years time even though my order at the time came under the 3 year rule. They inform me that my pension still forms part of my original debt and that I will not be able to access this. My question is, can I appeal or do anything to get my pension back, it is only worth about 25,000 pound but it is a lot to me as I am on disability payments for a terminal lung disease. I left the UK in 1997 and currently live in Ireland but I have family in London. Can anyone advise me on this or put me in touch with a solicitor (who doesn't charge 200 per hour) Thanks

Hi there, my husband and i will be making ourselvesf bankrupt, but i need to ask who will deal with the bankruptcy after we have filed for it (my debts total several hundred thousand pounds, repayment of directors loans for our previous LTD company, which we can never repay) We have have no assets, no savings, on benefits and live in a private rented house , on housing benefit. my husband is on ESA due to mental health problems. Will the official receiver oversee it or can the major creditor ,( who happens to be a nasty piece of work) apply to be the trustee? I keep reading if there are no assets, then the OR will act as the trustee himeslf.

Hi, I am new here and I looked through the forum but the questions that I have, have not been asked before. So I am starting a new thread. I have been in credit card and secured loan debts for more than 15 years and most of the time, I have been working to pay my debts. The life had been very hard. But last year a friend advised 'not to pay any of your credit cards debts as you are just killing yourself', and I did stop paying them which gave me some breathing space. Now I have one creditor taking me to court to seek a CCJ. I have reviewed my financial situation carefully and I have come to a conclusion that I will not be able to pay any of my debts for at least another 10 years and I am 48 now. The same friend has advised me now to stop paying mortgage and remaining 2 secured loan payments and apply for bankruptcy, which I agree to but I am worried about committing BANKRUPTCY OFFENCE, and ending up up to 15 years of BRO. Could the following be considered Bankruptcy Offenses; If I stop paying my mortgage (which has a negative equity of about £15,000) and secured loan, then could this be considered a bankruptcy offence as I would have piled up debt? I am employed full-time and my take-home pay is about £1500 with overtime. But I want to give up this job as it exacerbate my Sciatica pain. I want to do taxi-driving for a while which I did before. Will OR consider this an offence as my income will go down to about half? I had stopped paying my creditors over a year ago, so could this be considered an offence or fraud? I am also the director of my own LTD company(book publishing) but it made a loss of about £1500 in the first year. I am not hoping to get any financial reward from selling any more novels in the near future. So if I sold the entire shares to a friend or family member then could this be considered an offence. I want to do this before bankruptcy as I know I cannot remain a director. Thanks in advance for your help!

Hello I have may times previously read posts from this forum but never felt I had any authority, experience or knowledge to write and place a post before now. It has taken me a while to rebuild my confidence, self esteem and self worth after one of the most stressful periods of my life. As a very proud, hard working person throughout the times of my troubles I did not ever seek help until it became a necessity legally and neither did I claim from the state or share my problems with my family. I am only telling you this so you can understand the type of person I am and whether this was the right or wrong thing to do is now irrelevant as what is done, is done. What I can say is that I did what was right for me but if I was to advise anyone else I would immediately and without hesitation tell that person to seek advice and help. My troubles stared in 2004 after my business collapsed partly through my own stupidity, partly because I was ill and partly because of identity theft. The end result was I faced certain bankruptcy unless I could pull together £5,500 within 28 days. Everyone who has been in debt, has debt or in financial trouble knows that this is near on impossible. What made my situation worse, is that I was being made bankrupt over a fine imposed on me by a third party that was not a government official but by a membership association that I was not even a member of! I tried to resolve the issues myself without involving a solicitor because frankly, I had no money to pay for one. I was ashamed of my predicament and ashamed that I had not prevented the situation. By not seeking proper legal advice I made a bad situation worse. Despite being in court and the 'other side' admitting to having no contract or liability to impose a fine, in a moment of sheer panic, stress and if I am honest being bullied by the 'other sides' solicitor I made the fundamental error of agreeing to pay the debt in instalments in a futile attempt to avoid bankruptcy. The District Judge awarded the 'other side' and I was made bankrupt. It was a devastating blow. I don't have the words to express how I felt that day or for the few days to come but I did phone round every solicitor in the google list that specialised in bankruptcy and not one offered me any help or were prepared to fight my corner because I had made an offer to pay in the past. The fact that this company had absolutely NO jurisdiction to fine me meant nothing. I simply had to accept the bankruptcy and face my car being taken, the humiliation of my home being repossessed and my lifestyle scrutinised. It was worse than horrific. I am quite a determined individual and in the normal course of things can handle stress not too badly and through work I have learnt to thrive on it and use stress as a motivator. After 3 days of complete despair, crying and wanting to kill myself I finally picked myself up to face things. I met with the official handling my bankruptcy and whilst even she was shocked at the why, the evidence and the amount being demanded by the 'other side' which had now increased to over £15,000 and counting as that figure did not include their legal fees nonetheless, the official procedure of freezing and claiming my assets begun. Throughout this painfully shameful & hideous process I questioned whether there was any way around the bankruptcy and losing my assets and more importantly my home. I was given a leaflet. I learnt annulment was the only way. In this department, I found no end of solicitors who would gladly prepare my case once I had paid their fees and the debt in full up front. Obviously, being made bankrupt I was not able to borrow any money to save my skin and lets be honest, if I could have borrowed any money I would have done it before the bankruptcy, I was in a predicament but my determination had kicked in. I chose a solicitor, informed him that I would be seeking an annulment and would have the funds to cover his initial fee in his account by the end of the week. My solicitor had explained that it would take a couple of weeks before the cash was needed to settle ALL debts I owed was required so I had a little time. A fortnight to be precise to find in excess of £25,000. When you are made bankrupt, in order to annul your bankruptcy ALL your creditors (not just the person who made you bankrupt) MUST be paid off in full before it goes before a Judge. I am pleased to say I stopped my house from being repossessed, I still have my car and my bankruptcy was annulled because I raised the money to pay it off. Throughout my ordeal, I learnt a very painful lesson which was get the facts clear, find out the law and seek advice before opening my mouth. I now strive to pass that lesson on to try and help others avoid my predicament.

I'll try to keep this simple and to the point. A stat demand was served and a hearing set to have the application to set aside heard. I withdrew the application to set aside on the grounds that a settlement was reached. Fast forward and payments on the settlement agreement have stopped on my end as the deliverable from the petitioners can physically be no longer provided. Namely they are no longer authorised to sell stock as specified in the settlement agreement and the forms for transfer have been returned by the company. I don't see in which world it would be just for me to pay for something that I'm not going to receive. They have issued a bankruptcy petition for the breach of the settlement agreement and I have until Tuesday to file a 6.19. Does this form need to be accompanied by a witness statement and hand delivered to the court or can I fax/email? Is the 6.19 even the right thing to do here? Thanks in advance.

Changes to Bankruptcy and DRO limits from 1st October 2015 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/improved-help-for-people-struggling-with-problem-debt

Not sure if anyone in here can help. I am looking for a short term loan to pay the insolvency Trustee for the purchase back of my house equity. I have managed to raise £10k already from friends and family but I need another £5k. I dont think anyone would lend me some money as I am still in my Bankruptcy Year. I also have another friend who said they would get a loan on my behalf. He was Bankrupt in 2012 but he can't seem to get a loan either. He tried Freedom Finance Brokers who claim to be able to help.Does anyone know of a loan company who might consider either of us please?The loan can be secured on the house or the equity can be transferred into my friends name and therefore secured against the house.

I have noticed on various programmes, EA's threatening Bankruptcy in cases where they cannot get peaceful entry, the Debtor seems to know their rights, and there is either no car, or the car is on finance etc. I thought with Bankruptcy it is a big "no no" and a risk to licence etc to use Bankruptcy/threats of bankruptcy purely as a debt collection tool. But just as importantly, if they are doing this in the hope of securing their fees, surely this is against the best interests of their clients? Legally speaking, I would assume an EA could do a land registry search to see if the debtor's name is on the house, but I was under the impression they cant do for example credit reference checks, and would not know if there was a large mortgage outstanding. So by issuing a Statutory Demand, and going ahead with it, the creditor could find themselves only unable to collect more than a few pennies on the debt, if even that (if debtor owes loads of creditors) It seems to me that people whom EA's threaten with bankruptcy should complain to the various licencing bodies. in some cases it might even be better to wind up the EA etc until they do go the BR route, rather than paying the fees yourself. I wonder if any sort of offence, or whatever would be committed now, that the debt at which BR can be issued has risen - i wonder if all the EA's understand that, so threatening BR for a debt under the new amount (is it 5,000?) could very easily be seen as using BR threats as a debt collection tool, and an attempt to unlawfully intimidate the debtor.

Hi all, Just a quick message anyone have any bankruptcy experience when the debt is held in the UK by a UK resident at the time of loan advance (in this case it is a mortgage) where the debtor is now resident in an EU country. What are the implications to any assets held by the debtor located outside of the UK when the debtor is no longer a UK resident? Thanks

Hi Guys, Been reading about the Power of Attorney and bankruptcy. I have read that bankruptcy removes the POA on mortgage, can anyone tell me if the POA goes back after bankruptcy if house is kept. If this is correct then no lender can repossess my property when the house is discharged. Power of Attorney https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/powers-of-attorney-and-registered-land/practice-guide-9-powers-of-attorney-and-registered-land 2.1 General powers under section 10 of the Powers of Attorney Act 1971 2. Types of power of attorney 2.1 General powers under section 10 of the Powers of Attorney Act 1971 The Powers of Attorney Act 1971 provides a short form of general power of attorney that can be used by a sole beneficial owner of land. It operates to give the attorney authority to do anything that the donor can lawfully do by an attorney. However, powers in that form dated before 1 March 2000 are never suitable for dealing with land of which the donor is a joint proprietor. And those dated after 29 February 2000 may only be used by a joint proprietor if the donor has a beneficial interest in the land. The death, bankruptcy or mental incapacity of the donor will automatically revoke the power. The donor may also revoke it at any time. Terms & Conditions on my mortgage company Section 17. Attorney 17.1.4to enforce any right or claim which you have over the property. The Power of Attorney granted by the execution of the deed is therefore now “revoked”.

Hi, In September 2014, I filed for Bankruptcy. Recently the Insolvency Practitioner arranged a House Valuation and has now sent me a letter requesting that I pay £26 k as this is the equty in the property. The house is in my sole name. I am working full time and have just enough money to keep my head above water although may be able ot find £50 or £100 per month by cutting down more if I have to although it is so tight My plan eventually was to try and sell the property a few years down the line for a smaller more affordable one. I am only paying interest only on the house and so will never own it as it stands. I have two teenage kids.My questions are as follows and I will try to keep this short: 1) Can I request a re-valuation? With all the issues worng with this property and comparing to others in my area, I fail to see how they have vauled it so high. 2) Can I make an offer below the £26k? And if so, what are they likley to take? For example, if I offered £1,000 would this be laughed at or will they take £5k or £10k, or any other amount? Like 50% for example? Anyone any thoughts on this at all? 3) What will happen if I can't offer anything? Will the house just then be re-possessed or will they just ask me to sell it? 4) If I do nothing how long is it before anything happens? They have given me 14 days to respond to their request. Thanks for your anticipated help JJ

Hi I made myself bankrupt in December regarding other debts (not specifically council tax). In October, the council issued a summary warrant for council tax. My advisor stated that I would not have to pay 2014/2015 council tax as the summary warrant was issued prior to bankruptcy and the full year would be regarded as a debt. I received a letter from council stating I owed £181 for the above mentioned year and I questioned this and the said it was for council tax for after bankruptcy. Does anyone know what is correct? Should it all be written off for the full year or not? Thanks in advance

Need an opinion on this is anyone has any ideas or should I just SAR them? I had a Halifax Credit Card from 1997, included in my bankruptcy Oct 2010. Tidying up my credit history I came across this that puzzled me. The credit cards showing movement on the balance. When I look at the balance history in September 2010 shows £4,210. In Oct 2010 £4,030. Between Oct 2010 to Aug 2012 the monthly balance gradually decreases to £3,455. (Looks as thought payments are being made, I haven't made any). Then between Sept 2012 to Mar 2013 the balance starts increasing in gradual steps to £3,926. Why would this happen? Thanks

Not posted for a while and I know the DWP has been done before but my question is on a very old debt (1998) for £493.00 can they still demand repayment even though I went bankrupt on 2006? They say unless they were specifically named on the bankruptcy petition they can still come after me. I say they can't. Who is correct? Cheers

WOAH!!! HERE

For a few years now I have been burying my head in the sand over my debts and have decided now I need to deal with them as they are looming over me like a dark cloud. My situation is: Housing: Tenant/rented accommodation Income: ESA/DLA I have been contemplating bankruptcy for a while but the stigma and shame is holding me back. I have a breakdown of my debts: Mortgage express-£64,000 (This is the main reason for this thread) Mail order-£1400 (no payment plan in place) Mobile phone-£209 (no payment plan) Credit cards Vanquis credit card-£195 (pay £1 pcm) Link financial (Barclaycard)-£1950 (pay £1 pcm) Tesco credit card-£2400 (pay £1 pcm) Egg (now Barclaycard)-£5100 (pay £1 pcm) Capital One-£451 (pay £1 pcm) I am thinking of writing to all my credit card companies and request they write off these debts where I have been paying £1 pcm to each of them for approx. 4 years now, what is the likelihood of them executing this request? I am thinking of the same action with the mobile phone debt and mail order. I cannot agree to a payment plan as I simply do not have any surplus income. If they refuse, do I set up a £1 token payment plan like the credit cards? With regards to the mortgage shortfall, this has been on my file for approx. 3.5 years and I haven't had the chance to dispute this amount (I had a buyer that the mortgage company refused to sell to as I would not sign an "acknowledgement" of the "£64k" alleged debt). If they had accepted the buyer, then this debt would have been approx. £18k, but they decided to proceed with the repossession (negative equity) and this resulted in this amount. They have written to me a handful of times over the last 3.5 years but no action via the court as yet. As I want to deal with my credit file, would it be wise to instigate communications with them so this can be settled via the court?

Hello I was made Bankrupt by HMCR in Oct 2013 while I was in the process of trying to agree a IVA, on visiting the Insolvency service I was advised as I was trying to agree a IVA, I would not have to resign my company directorships unless this was unsuccessful and my Bankruptcy was not annulled. In December 2013 my IVA was agreed and following this my Bankruptcy was annulled. It has now come to my attention that the other director has informed Companies House that I was bankrupt and resigned my directorship. I am asking was the Insolvency Services advise correct and could the director do this without my consent and is it possible to get this reversed ?

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/improved-help-for-people-struggling-with-problem-debt

Hi, Received a call from unknown number just before Christmas asking me to ring a number to discuss a matter - I didn't. Today have received a letter from Redwood Collections whose number it turns out was the one I was requested to ring. Letter is below, and is all they have sent to me, but my request for assistance from CAG (legends!)is what should be my first step with dealing with them, who I have never heard of or dealt with, as yes I dispute the whole debt for myriad reasons, but I want to be seen to be doing the right thing by replying to them - without listing all the reasons for disputing it at this point. I am not ringing them it will be a letter but what should I actually say in it - preferably to kill it stone dead asap! thanks for assistance According to the public record you are registered at this address. As we are unaware of any dispute in this matter, it is our intention to instruct a process server to attend your address for the purpose of serving you with a Statutory Demand issued under the Insolvency Act 1986 (Bankruptcy). Should you consider you have valid grounds for non-payment, we invite you to contact us immediately to discuss the same within seven days from the date of this letter. Should you fail to contact us and subsequently raise a dispute following the service of a Statutory Demand, acopy of this letter will be produced to demonstrate to the court that every effort has been made to resolve this matter amicably. Please be aware that should you become bankrupt any assets that you may have will be at risk. This may include the sale of your house by the Trustee in bankruptcy to settle this matter where appropriate. Yours sincerely, Enforcement Department Our company has the sole control of your account. Payment must be sent to this office. DO NOT PAY A DOORSTEP COLLECTOR, without first gaining our authority.

Hello, I would be very grateful for any advice / input on my options to move forward with my debt. I currently owe £50k to about 11 creditors. I have been on a DMP for 3 years paying £140 a month. I am self-employed, I rent and now live by myself so am covering all bills etc. I will be paying off debt until 2046 so am thinking IVA or Bankruptcy may be better solution to enable me to move forward in my life within 10 years. Many thanks in advance FF

Hi, Bit of a complicated one really. Will try to be brief! Ex employer has been trying to recover training costs and other costs from me. I did sign a contract that stated they would recover training costs if I left, so cannot dispute this, though I do dispute the total. The first I knew of it was when I had a Statutory Demand delivered back in July. Have spent the intervening time contacting people, but have run into problems getting straightforward legal advice, as it is technically an employment law issue, but they are using methods more commonly used to recover consumer debt. (as I understand it!) Got free advice from a solicitor who was recommend by a legal forum, who basically said that it was too risky to fight it in court as we only had a 50/50 chance of winning, and that we should just make an offer/ come to an agreement to pay. We do dispute some of the debt but have been advised it is not worth trying to dispute a bit of it, we tried to request receipts for the training but they have refused to produce them, we contacted the training centre to get a rough idea of costs but before they could send us a letter (the staff were initially very helpful) they were contacted by ex-employer and asked to not to contact us or supply any information. So having had this advice we then started trying to start getting some money together to come up with a reasonable offer. Initial offer was roughly 20% of the total (a couple of thousand) plus a monthly sum. This was rejected but they accepted the 20% plus way more a month but we couldn't afford that. Tried to negotiate lower monthly figure but again rejected. We managed to scrape together about 80% of the total and offered that plus a monthly sum, this was again rejected, despite being much higher than the sum previously discussed. Eventually they gave us a deadline and we spent a week frantically trying to get the last thousand. We eventually came back and said that we had most of it and could pay the remainder on a credit card, but they then rejected this as they wanted it to come from one source and would not accept 2 separate payments?? Despite the fact they could have had the money then and there! So we received the notice that they were going for a bankruptcy in the court, and I want to oppose it. In an ideal world I want the court to recognise he is being vindictive (he has done this before to others) but I know it doesn't work like that! (plus I still can't believe that you can bankrupt someone based on an invoice printed on someone's home computer, they have never produced any further documentation and when asked by the solicitor we spoke to sent the same home printed document) So as I understand it I can now oppose it on the grounds that we can pay, and have in fact tried to pay many times. Is this possible? And can anyone help me with the wording of the form, as I have no idea of the correct terminology or even where to start! :/ Thanks for reading.

Hello I have a friend who has used this advice forum a lot and it comes highly recommended This is my first posting and use of this forum Over the last 6 months I've found myself in a really tricky situation. I lost quite a high powered job, high income and so on, had no savings, high outgoings etc and stopped paying cards, mortgage and so on. I've recently been re-employed and look well back on track. But long story short, I've been declared personally bankrupt in court in the last few days. I took a long look at the options, took advice, it was the right thing to do. Whilst not pleasant much of the process seems straightforward. However one item is pretty tricky and is like to ask for some advice on it please. I live in separate rented accommodation, but I own another flat. The Mortgage is £155k, the mortgage company currently value it at £140k Mortgage payment is £750/Mth, service charge £150/Mth = total £900/Mth The flat is rented out for £900/mth (to two Chinese student with poor English skills) They have paid £900 deposit plus a full year Upfront to cover 1st September 2014 to 31st August 2015. They paid a year upfront as this tend to be normal for foreign students. The money was paid direct to my mother and is held in her bank account as I intended to shield it from my personal bankruptcy. However, since late August around half had to be used for day to day expenses and there is £5800 balance remaining. The mortgage on the property has not been paid in 6 months and a repossession order is in place with a hearing booked for Monday 1st December. The official receiver has indicated she's not likely to be interested in the flat as its in negative equity and therefore it's up to the mortgage lender if they wish to force a repossession. However she is keenly pursuing the rental money held in my mothers account. If the lender insists it is repossessed then the students will be evicted at some point. They rightly should expect the remaining balance of rental money. However the official receiver is demanding I hand it the rental money immediately. I fear if I hand it over now the tenants will not not see it and not only be asked to leave but will also be left without any rental money to find a new place, along with this being hugely disruptive to their final year studies. The thought of this is a heavy burden to me and I'd like to know what my options are with the tenants and the situation as a whole. Aside from dropping them right in it, I can see them pursuing my legally for the rental money. Ultimately I'd like to keep the flat, setup a plan for payment with the lender to settle the shortfall and get it back on track. I wondered if there was any way I could do this. Any advise or guidance would be very helpful. Kind Regards, Rob

Hi guys, I wonder if anyone can help.... I moved out of my property some 4 years ago but rented it out and I'm now selling it. As part of the buyers checks, and my solicitors checks, I apparently have a bankruptcy petition against me and my solicitors want to know if this has been discharged. "We have noted on the Office Copies of the above property that there is a Bankcruptcy Notice dated 23 May 2012. Please can you provide us with more information of this notice and confirm details of who the trustee in bankruptcy is. Please can you also confirm if you have now been discharged from this notice?" I know nothing about this at all. I'm not bankrupt on the Insolvency Register and I've not been personally served anything, I wasn't living at that address (although I do own it). I don't know what this means! Am I bankrupt?? How do I get rid of this petition so I can sell the property? Help!