Very Confused Over Bankruptcy, Help !

Costus

Hi there, i've only just discovered this fantastic site the other day, wish i'd found it sooner as there seems to be lots of well informed people on here that i hope can help advise us in our current situation.
I will try to keep it as brief as possible.
My Wife and i current owe £45,000 in unsecured debt, credit cards, loans etc. and have had great difficultly paying what we owe since the arrival of our daughter in March 2007. We have been in a DMP with Payplan since Feb 2007, but found that we couldn't even keep up the payments of £507pcm, and have been making token payments of £1 to each of our 9 creditors for about a year now. Things were tough job wise for me and my Wife had to stop working full time to care for our daughter, but has carried on part time, although she might have to totally give up work soon due to child care issues.
Things have became quite serious just lately and i have been given a CCJ, demanding i pay £657 pcm until a debt of £12,358.23 plus court costs has been paid. Along with several letters of impending court action from all of our other creditors, we are just waiting for the bailiffs to start knocking. Not a nice feeling.
We have been to the CAB and have spoken to Payplan who both suggested that we both go bankrupt. As we have no assets as such just our cars that we need for work, and we don't own our own home, we rent privately.
We were getting all set to declare ourselves bankrupt, when a really decent job offer came up for me and i took it and started last week and recieved my first decent pay packet of £390 today, whoo ho ! but it has now made our combined disposable income £287.95, plus child benefit of £75.20 and child tax credit of £41.72 instead of just a few pounds that we were paying.
We are not sure child benefit & child tax credit gets included as disposable income?
I am now confused as to whether i, my Wife on her own, or both of us jointly now qualify to be able to go bankrupt, due the disposable income we now have?
Or if it would be best if i went for an IVA and my wife went bankrupt, due to her low earnings?
Or if my Wife goes bankrupt is it in my interests to follow suit seeing that we are married and her bankruptcy would affect me anyway, then draw a line under the whole situation?
I will do a monthly SOA to show you all of our I & E.
Any help would be really appreciated.

My net income
£1693.51

Wifes income
£501.03

Other income
Child tax credit £41.72 ?
Child benefit £75.20 ?

Total income
£2194.54 net earnings
£2311.46 net earnings inc child benefit & child tax credit

Creditors owed

My outstanding debts
Barclays loan £ 12358.23 (CCJ issued) demanding £657 pcm starting 4th Oct 08
Barclays o/d £844.81
Capital one £2731.90
Capital one £409.41
Link financial £2024.93

Wifes outstanding debts
Hfc bank £8411.95
Lloyds loan £8966.06
Lloyds o/d £1337.57
Nationwide loan £7861.93


Expenditure

Rent £550
Council tax £107
Contents ins £10.30
Gas £50
Electric £50
Water £50
T.v. licence £11.95
Telephones £40 ( one mobile phone each )
Road tax & mot for 2 x cars £40.83
Vehicle fuel £260 ( i have to travel 25 miles each way to work )
Car ins £46.68
Car maintenance £35
Breakdown cover £10.83
Car parking at work £4
Housekeeping £425
Clothing £90
Dentist/prescriptions/opticians £30
Hairdressing £25
Playschool fees £20
Holidays £50

Total expenditure
£1906.59

minus total income not including benefits,

£287.95 surplus.

We do have a Virgin media package ie; t.v. phone & broadband, that we have paid for a year up front, should we mention this to an OR in a Bankruptcy, as i know these luxuries aren't allowed in a bankruptcy?

Have i missed anything else we could claim for and do these amounts seem reasonable to you guys?

We aren't allowed any pets due to our tenancy agreement.

Could a County Court attach a CO to my wages for the surplus amount we have, as i didn't attend court for my CCJ hearing ( very stupid i know ), the CCJ form didn't state payment forewith?

Would a OR demand our surplus of £287.95 if we were eligible for bankruptcy?

To sum things all up our DMP was £507 and now we have this CCJ payment of £657 pcm oustanding, therefore would bankruptcy be our best option?

I know there are lots of questions on here but the CAB, Payplan, and Welfare rights don't seem to be able to give us too many straight answers !!!

Please help ! Many thanks in advance.

shadowdragon

Hi and welcome to the boards

firstly you declare bankruptcy individually so you will have to do a SOA (Income and Expenditure) for You and one for your partner.

You need to speak to one of the debt charities such as CCCS or Nat Deb helpline. (contact details in the sticky posts at top of the boards, or in some peoples signatures) as you need to take advice before going bankrupt as if you dont the judge can refuse your BC.

When doing yours list everything and your partners contribution, and vise versa for your wife, I dont think Child benefit is included but Tax credits are.

Im sure theres others on the board who have children that will be able to tweak your SOA a bit more.

remember it being individual that you will only pay an IPA on anything over 100 individually.

Hope that helps for now.

imcognito

Hiya

I am no expert, but myself and husband are in a very similar situation. I had to give up work due to PND and childcare issues. We have £45K worth of unsecured debt £15K in car debt and our mortgage.

Because of the mortgage I am going bankrupt and Husband is not. Yes it will affect him but I think in your situation you could Financially Dissassociate yourself from your wife. (we cannot do this because of joint mortgage) . If joint accounts she will need to get herself removed.

Anyway we are hoping that by doing this it will mean less pressure for him and he can concentrate on the debts that are in his name.

However I know nothing about CCj's or anything as as yet we have not missed a payment.

You are in the right place for support tho!! This board has been invaluable to me in the last week or so since we reached this decision.

Agree with the PP contact a debt charity and ask their advice on what to do,

Good Luck

dalip

It would seem with your amount of debt and income coming into the house that you could go bc. First you need to ring either cccs or NDL both numbers are in my signature. Give them a ring and ask their advice given your new income and see what they say. If they still reccomend bc then come back here and we will guide you through the process. Dx

Costus

Thanks everbody for the advice. It seems you all agree that i ring the CCCS or the NDL, and get them to help clarify our situation, so i will do that asap. Thanks again.

Rylynn

Get on the phone to one of those mentioned, as looking at your SOA how are you going to pay the amount of over £600 on the CCJ, and you could not pay the DMP so think you need some good sound advice and the sooner the better.

Once you have taken the advice if it is to go Br then the people here will help you through that.

And no do not mention internet.

Also they only take a percentage of your surplus not the full amount.

Will see if I can find the percentages for you. On that surplus think it would be 50 to 70 per cent taken by OR.

philnicandamy

Rylynn

Thanks Phil, was smack in the middle then at 60%

Your gas and electric seem mighty low? I have just had a letter from EON saying the bills are to go up on both by 50 per cent, you may want to look at that as it would reduce your surplus, and it could be a bill you have not allowed enough money for.

I was advised £20 for contents insurance? yours is again very low?

Child benefit is that the right amount, as I think you may find it is not. And be good to get your sums smack on target. And please ROUND them all up as the forms say NO pence.. hence why people put £12 for TV licence.

Road tax and MOT on two cars. I make it £52, my last MOT was £50.70 last November, and I pay my tax every six months.

Clothing for 2 adults and a child seems low to me as well, but I am no expert but I would have put this up to £110.

Telephone, normally allowed £40 for a land line and £10 each mobile I think, again someone will clarify this for you. Which would increase this to £60.

One thing I will say is that you go BR as individuals and it may be wise to stick two SOAs in here.

Hope some of that helps anyway.

RL

Costus

Thanks alot for all that info. I thought the OR would just take all of our surplus, (only because we haven't been through this sort of thing before.)
I will definately put the extra on like you have said.
I'm just filling out a variation order, form N245, this is to ask the creditor to take a less amount by filling in a SOA (all be it i will be very conservative with the figures) on the N245, seeing if the creditors will take less of an amount per month for my CCJ. I'm only doing this to try and protect myself from the court being able to put a charging order on my wages.
Is it possible for the court to put a charging order on my wages at source?
If so how long does it take for the court to allow the creditors to do this?
Or Am i wasting my time worrying about this?
Again sorry for so many questions. any advice would be greatly appreciated.