Bankruptcy from abroad.

A couple of years ago my husband and I remortgaged our flat in the UK to put down a deposit on a small house in France for our retirement. Since then my financial situation has gone downhill due to the upkeep of two properties and my husband's increasing ill health. We are now in the situation where I'm going to have to give up work to look after him. There is probably £20/30,000 equity in our UK flat and about £18,000 in the French house. We have a joint mortgage on our UK property but the French house is in my name as OH was unable to go on the mortgage because he wouldn't be eligible for life insurance (although we consider it to be jointly owned). I have unsecured debts (my name only) of about £50,000 which are all up to date at present (largely due to juggling).

I'm currently looking at all our options as we want to move to France (where we could afford to live on our pensions) and I could look after my husband as his health worsens. Obviously one of our options is bankruptcy and I was wondering whether we'd be able to use my husband's share of the equity in the UK flat to buy out the BI in the French house.

My other post was about feeling that I would need specialist advice on this but I'm open to anybody's suggestions. Our other option would be a F&F IVA, using the joint equity from the UK flat. On paper this looks a better bet except that I'd have to include £8,000 Student Loan (currently deferred and due to be written off in 4 years) and the IP's fees. The decision may come down to the amount we get for our flat and whether an IVA was turned down (in which case Bankruptcy would be the fallback position).

I'm open to any suggestions or contributions of knowledge/experience.