Bankruptcy woes and pro's

sandralovescats

Entrepreneur_en_faillite wrote:

Good for your wife! The sad thing is that people seem to get the impression that bankruptcy is an easy way out. Well, it may be for those who do not have a conscience, but for those members of the human race who are blessed with guilt, then bankruptcy leaves you with a feeling that you have 'ripped off' the credit card and loan companies. Whilst many reading this will say that they deserve it (and I think in some ways they need to be punished for promoting a credit based society), the problem is that all they do is increase the rates for everyone else!

I have a conscience but I don't for one minute feel sorry for the credit companies. I took ill and was unable to pay my debts.

I attempted debt management, then IVA, but I have no disposable income.

Having said that, the companies I owe money to have been a pain in the you-know-where. I never missed one payment, never defaulted on anything until Sepbember this year. In the space of five weeks I must have had 20 letters from each individual company. This is absolutely deplorable. It is illegal for them to seek debt recovery in this manner. I have sat here tonight and, in the space of an hour and a half, one company has phoned me 17 times.

So no, I don't feel sorry for them, not in the slightest.

sandralovescats

copperwasher wrote:

Thought you may all be interested in the following which was emailed to me from Equifax:

1. Bankruptcy is NOT an easy option
It’s true that your bankruptcy could be discharged within 12 months but you may not be able to get credit again for up to 6 years. And even then you’re likely to pay a lot more to borrow money, because you represent a greater than average risk to a lender.

Anyone who has gone bankrupt will NEVER want any credit again, not of any type.

Entrepreneur_en_faillite

Hi everyone

An update for you on my life story....

I was discharged 25th November last year.

I must say, It was a little dissapointing, I expected a feeling of elation, but on the day, I felt nothing.

Now, a few months on, I do feel much better, I'm starting to rebuild my life again, I have just applied for a bank account, and, surprise surprise, Equifax and Experian still show me as bankrupt. The OR says to write to them and tell them to update my file, and he has very kindly said he will confirm my discharge in writing for no cost!

The trustee firm (Pricewaterhousecoopers) were all nice people, as were all the bods at the OR's office. All in all, looking back, although it was very traumatic at the time, now it feels worth the Stress. I am now completely debt free (my wife had to buy the equity from the trustee and transfer the mortgage into her name), a small peice of compensation for my worries.

:beer: to all my friends at MSE

Lifeisbutadream

sandralovescats wrote:

I have a conscience but I don't for one minute feel sorry for the credit companies. I took ill and was unable to pay my debts.

I attempted debt management, then IVA, but I have no disposable income.

Having said that, the companies I owe money to have been a pain in the you-know-where. I never missed one payment, never defaulted on anything until Sepbember this year. In the space of five weeks I must have had 20 letters from each individual company. This is absolutely deplorable. It is illegal for them to seek debt recovery in this manner. I have sat here tonight and, in the space of an hour and a half, one company has phoned me 17 times.

So no, I don't feel sorry for them, not in the slightest.

I have a small business and someone owes me money. I have 2 small children to feed and a mortgage to pay. I wrote to him and rang him a lot before I ended up taking him to court.

My reasons for doing that??? because he OWES ME MONEY!!! I bet if someone owed you money you would ring them!!

The person on the other side may be sat, head in hands, despairing of what to do too, you know!!!

scootw1

Lifeisbutadream wrote:

I have a small business and someone owes me money. I have 2 small children to feed and a mortgage to pay. I wrote to him and rang him a lot before I ended up taking him to court.

My reasons for doing that??? because he OWES ME MONEY!!! I bet if someone owed you money you would ring them!!

The person on the other side may be sat, head in hands, despairing of what to do too, you know!!!

Like I said in your other thread, wouldn't any IPA paid out by someone cover you first then the CC companies afterwards? I didn't owe anyone small any money but I would feel for someone like yourself who needs their business to make ends meet.

(that is, if an IPA is payable of course)

Caz1917

Entrepreneur_en_faillite wrote:

At 11:18 on Friday 25th November 2005, I was made bankrupt.

_pale_

If anyone out there thinks that bankruptcy is an easy option then think again. It may sound appealing to have all your unsecured debts written off with the stroke of a judges pen but believe me - it isn't.

My personal case is a complicated tale of woe, which I will relate to those who are interested. Please feel free to skip to the end if you get bored!

It all started in 1996 when I started a business with my close friend Terry. Terry and I were both very disenchanted with our jobs, he was a rep for a bank and I was a financial adviser for a large chain of estate agents. We decided to set up in business as an ethical mortgage broker, estate agent and letting agent.

The business started well, although we decided very quickly that the words 'ethical' and 'estate agent' were incompatible bed fellows. We tried for many months to employ staff who would not lie to prospective buyers and sellers but to no avail. So the estate agency went by the wayside within the first year, followed fairly closely by the lettings agency.

Terry put in £10,000 of his own money and I put in £15,000. The bank provided a further £30,000 as a loan, naturally covered by the obligatory personal guarantees that go along with a business loan nowadays. In the first few years we had our ups and downs, but generally speaking the ups outweighed the downs, the business grew, and in June 2000 we went limited and purchased a rival firm for the cool sum of £250,000, mostly funded by a bank loan, covered by personal guarantees and security on a property owned by an elderly relative (neither Terry nor I had enough equity in our homes to satisfy the banks greed, sorry 'need')

Terry was killed in an accident on December 1st 2000

The tale from then on gets very convoluted, but, suffice it to say, I struggled to keep the business afloat, trying to prevent the elderly relative losing their home. However in February 2004 I was finally forced to put the company into liquidation, but not before running up quite a lot of personal debt, taken on to try to keep the company going. I started a new company with the idea that I could continue trading and start to repay some of my personal debt, and make inroads into the debt secured on the property.

This business, with the help of my new business partner and some truly amazing staff, is flourishing. Sadly, I am not!

I have managed to acquire over £300,000 of debt. I have remortgaged my house so many times to raise cash to live and to keep the business going that I am now in negative equity. And, guess what - I got offered a loan yesterday, I opened the letter just before I left to go to court to petition for bankruptcy.

I get letters in the post everyday, enticing me to get another interest free credit card or low rate loan. Getting credit is far too easy, and I for one think that it's time that the system changed. Not one of the loan companies or credit card companies asked me to provide any proof that I was able to meet the monthly repayments of any of my commitments!

Are we the only country in the world who allows a person to obtain credit without seeking any proof that they ability, or even the intent, to repay this debt?


Now I would like to help anyone who is experiencing debt problems to hopefully avoid the ultimate degradation of bankruptcy, and also to relay the processes involved, places where you can go for free help, and things to avoid like the plague!


Entreprenuer en faillite

My partner was made bankrupt in November 2006. He bought a small hotel in Scotland and I helped him run it. The business did build up from what it was but with govt departments coming in every month or so and demanding more and more expensive changes to building regs, health & safety needs, fire signs needing to show an arrow pointing in a different direction from previously (these signs are expensive by the way and we had about 30 of them.) on and on it went. Local council did nothing to promote tourism or business and we only employed locals and only used local food and drink suppliers to keep it truly Scottish. The smoking ban had a dramatic effect with daily customers staying at home drinking carry outs rather than coming to the bar and having to go outside to smoke. We asked to turn the garden into a licensed area and it took 9 months to get permission. To add value to the property, we applied for planning consent to turn building into flats. Outline planning consent for change of use only took 13 months. The hotel was repossessed which made us homeless and jobless. Professionals advised that once we had the planning the value would increase by more than enough for us to sell and make a small profit but the length of time council took to grant outline consent just delayed everything too long. Then just after being made homeless my partner was declared bankrupt. We did not know about this because Royal Mail REFUSED to re-direct our mail because it was a hotel not a house!!! So beware anyone moving businesses!! Postwatch complained on our behalf but no joy Royal Mail would not redirect and we had no access to get our mail because of the eviction. My partner had his meeting in January 2007 with Trustee in Bankruptcy but so far nothing has happened. The scandal is that most professionals have to tell you upfront what their fees are. We have no idea how much this is going to cost so no idea whether either of us will get any money back. To avoid borrowing I helped out by cashing in a private pension getting tax free cash of £15000 now that has gone and although I am a registered creditor because business/debts not in my name, we are currently having to survive on state benefit of £90.10 per week which the state says is more than enough to live on. Bankruptcy is hell on earth and absolutely NOT an easy option. Our health is suffering and we are both over 50 and having to try and find new jobs. The worst thing is that in December I negotiated with a developer to buy the property for £325000. That offer has been with TIB since January and here we are almost in March with not a clue what is happening. Then it gets worse because my Partner and I cashed in pensions leaving a small residual monthly pension, and the state says we have to live on £90.10 per week, jobseekers allowance is just over £9 (yes nine). The Royal Bank of Scotland closed my partners account on the 8th November and he wrote to his annuity company telling them to send his monthly annuity to new bank. Scottish Life ignored his instructions and sent it to Royal Bank who have been told to give it back by the Trustee in Bankruptcy but they are refusing to do so, so our income for December and January was halved (£45.05 per week). The Trustee has said that pension annuities are exempt and so small they have to leave us money to live on. It was the VAT people who put in the bankruptcy order based on an estimate of £11,000 and it will work out that actually they are owed less than half that. So thanks to the government, the local council for their lack of action and Scottish Life and Royal bank of Scotland, we are in a miserable situation and I cannot see a light at the end of the tunnel right now. So my advice is avoid bankruptcy at all costs because easy option it isn't. I am however going to follow Martin's advice and get back bank charges to help alleviate our finances. I am not subject to bankruptcy because business was in my partner's name so in theory it does not affect me. One last thing, I implore ANYONE in a precarious debt situation to tell their families because the first I knew of this was 1 week before we were evicted. Had I known sooner, as an ex IFA, I could probably have kept us afloat until the sale of the property. Keeping this type of situation secret from your partner is worse than telling the truth and working as a team to sort it out. Caz1917