The Wilsons - 875 buy to let property empire

Zandoni

They have many properties that have been without tenants for a long time, they have now started lowering the rents.

Dithering_Dad

They must have used the 25% tax free lump sum to buy the house. Pensions can only be used to buy commercial property, not residential ones. As her pension is held in the TPS (Teachers Pension Scheme) she would not have been able to invest it even in a commercial property.

They will therefore still have the bulk of their 2x pensions intact and even if they go bankrupt, pensions cannot be touched (unlike ISA savings). This is one of the many reasons why people's retirement savings are better off in a pension and not in ISAs or property.

Even if they lose everything, they will still have a comfortable retirement. Certainly better than most people in the UK who are relying totally on their state pensions.

RDB

Not really true, the banks will be chasing them forever until the debt is paid off.

It used to be possible to just go bankrupt, but now even if they do that, they will still owe the rest of the money.

They will be getting red letters and court orders for the rest of their lives.

Any money at all from anywhere should be used to pay the banks back, after all its people like them that caused the credit crunch to start with.

No sympathy from me.

Dithering_Dad

Sorry but... Yes, really true.

Once you go bankrupt, that's it. The official receiver takes over your finances for the year (or longer if required) but once you are discharged your creditors cannot touch you.

As far as their pensions are concerned, these cannot be touched by the OR unless a large amount of money has been invested prior to bankruptcy (i.e. in an attempt to hide capital). In this case, the OR can retrieve the money that has been 'hidden' but cannot access monies that were placed into the pensions legitimately, for example when they were teachers, or any regular monthly payments made during the normal operation of their BTL business.

dopester

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

Even if they lose everything, they will still have a comfortable retirement. Certainly better than most people in the UK who are relying totally on their state pensions.

They will still feel the stress of it all.

A big old jolt from congratulating yourself for being in the Rich List. A severe awakening from the times you gave your superior knowledge and projections of house prices double every 7 years to the press, believing you were geniuses of the housing market.

Welcome to the real world. Leverage works two ways you mathematical mofos.

Dithering_Dad

oh yes, if they go BR, they will indeed feel massive stress, especially given seemingly the huge size of their egos.

They won't however, even with the wishful thinking of some contributors to this thread, be destitute and living rough and eating from the bins behind ASDA. They will have a comfortable retirement, not as comfortable as it could have been, but probably still better than most people.

In reality, I'd imagine that as their property empire is held within a Limited Company framework, they could conceivably let the company go bankrupt and not have their personal finances touched. So they 'go bust' but keep their home, pensions and personal savings.

I would also imagine that they could have one or two properties overseas that are untouchable by the UK... who knows?

poppy10_2

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

I'd imagine that as their property empire is held within a Limited Company framework, they could conceivably let the company go bankrupt and not have their personal finances touched. So they 'go bust' but keep their home, pensions and personal savings.

Sadly that's true. :mad:

GDB2222

They may have given some personal guarantees.

teabelly

Even with personal guarantees if all the company assets are owned by one of them and all the personal assets are owned by the other one then how would you take the assets of the other partner? If the debt is solely in the name of one of them then I don't think you can pursue the other.

fatpig_2

Are these 2 vultures not bankrupt yet? It can't be long, surely?