Help needed!

chelseabun_3

Sorry - BI = Beneficial Interest, ie the benefit from the policy if you need to claim on it.

I'm not sure which County Court you'd need to apply to, as it's the one where you've been resident for the greater part of the past 6 months. Best to clarify with the courts, as I'm not sure whether they'd count the past 4 months in the flat, or the fact you've still got your official residence at mum's. hth CBx

t0mm

Thanks CB I'll certainly want to purchase the BI, it's not a lot of money to pay really for the peace of mind that i'll be able to leave £80k behind to get Mum through her twilight years, if the worst was to happen (let's hope it doesnt come to that!)

I'll get in touch with the court here on Monday and see if they can shed any light on where i'll need to petition for BR. Bear in mind that it'll be January before I actually file the paperwork with the court, so i'll have been living here for 6 months - albeit not "officially".

I'm going to be signing a new 12 month agreement with the LL, so i'll want to change my address with all my creditors ASAP, although the timeline for doing all of this before loan payments are due this month is running short! I get paid on Tuesday and my first loan payment is scheduled to leave my account on Wednesday.

Ideally, i'd like to stop paying all my creditors immediately in order to save up the BR clause - so I think i'm going to have to agree my new tenure with my LL by Monday, get in touch with all of my creditors and change address/telephone number etc then cancel all non-essential direct debits by Tuesday.

Hopefully by the time my creditors realise that they haven't had any money from me, all my address details will have been updated on their system and they will not be trying to contact me at my mum's house!

By the time the start of January comes around, i'll have the money to file for bankruptcy, so will file right at the beginning of January (I guess that the courts are closed for a week or two at Christmas?) and hopefully everything will be done by the end of January...

Sorry for the ramble, it helps me that I can post my plans on here for people to look at and comment on - just to make sure that i'm not doing anything stupid!

t0mm

Updated SoA: I've included a couple of things that the OR is likely to remove (i.e. Emergency Fund, Presents) - but I suppose that if you don't ask, you don't get! Since i'm going to be going BR in January, my pay increase will have taken effect, so i've included the increased pay in my calculations:
Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1340
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1340

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured loan repayments................. 0
Rent.................................... 360
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 0
Electricity............................. 0
Gas..................................... 0
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 0
Telephone (land line)................... 10
Mobile phone............................ 50
TV Licence.............................. 0
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 0
Internet Services....................... 0
Groceries etc. ......................... 200
Clothing................................ 50
Petrol/diesel........................... 200
Road tax................................ 15
Car Insurance........................... 50
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 35
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 0
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 20
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 0
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 25
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 20
Haircuts................................ 10
Entertainment........................... 0
Holiday................................. 30
Emergency fund.......................... 10
(Unnamed monthly expense)............... 0
Total monthly expenses.................. 1085

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 1000
Other assets............................ 2000
Total Assets............................ 3000

No Secured Debt

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
RBS Loan.......................8000......182.......10.4
RBS Loan.......................950.......26........21.9
Lloyds Credit Card.............1500......30........15.9
Capital One CC.................200.......10........29.9
DWP Overpayment................1500......0.........0
RBS Overdraft..................2000......60........16.9
Natwest Overdraft..............1220......50........0
Black Horse Loan...............3000......108.......40.9
Total unsecured debts..........18370.....466.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,340
Expenses (including secured debts)....... 1,085
Available for debt repayments........... 255
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 466
Surplus(deficit if negative)............ -211

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 3,000
Total Secured debt...................... -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -18,370
Net Assets.............................. -15,370

So, I have £255 available at the end of the month and at least £466 (plus whatever the DWP would want me to pay back) in unsecured debts.

The way that I think this is likely to work is that all of the unsecured debt will be written off and i'll have to pay anything between £128 (50%) and £179 (70%) into an IPA for 3 years.

Does that sound about right? It's certainly better than having to pay £466 for 5 years or more!

Waspeze

Haven't looked at your SoA (vision is a bit blurry ) but the percentages for an IPA increases as your surplus gets higher...

Originally I had to pay £238 on about £360 surplus which was 66% .. if your surplus is lower than that by 50-100 (??) then the percentage goes down.

This is a table of IPA percentages that you can expect to pay on any surplus income:

1st Column=SURPLUS INCOME
2nd Column=AMOUNT TO BE PAID
3rd Column=% OF DISPOSABLE INCOME


50 Nil
60 Nil
70 Nil
80 Nil
90 Nil
100 50 50
110 55 50
120 60 50
130 65 50
140 70 50
150 75 50
160 80 50
170 85 50
180 90 50
190 95 50
200 100 50
210 105 50
220 110 50
230 115 50
240 120 50
250 150 60
260 156 60
270 162 60
280 168 60
290 174 60
300 180 60
310 186 60
320 192 60
330 198 60
340 204 60
350 231 66
360 238 66
370 244 66
380 251 66
390 257 66
400 264 66
410 271 66
420 277 66
430 284 66
440 290 66
450 297 66
460 304 66
470 310 66
480 317 66
490 323 66
500 350 70
510 357 70
520 364 70
530 371 70
540 378 70
550 385 70
560 392 70
570 399 70
580 406 70
590 413 70
600 420 70

I'm guessing this table is still pretty accurate?

t0mm

Going on that table, if it's still accurate - i'll want to get my surplus to £240 or less, then i'll only be paying 50%...

Wonder where I can find an extra £15?

Dunpayin

Put your Medical up to £25, and increase your landline by £10. Remember these are only average estimates. Post BR your actual figures will fluctuate. Eg, in 6 months the OR checks up on my I&E (I'm self employed). If, a month or two prior to that, my declared earnings are a little high, then maybe I'll suddenly need to book a couple of osteopath appointments for a 'bad back', or pay more than my usual share for the landline for a couple of months... There's a certain amount of flexibility in the I&E. Get it looking as good as poss for the OR interview to get the best IPA you can, then just keep an eye on maximising your declared expenses.
Don't forget I'm pretty new at all this too, so maybe a second opinion would be good!

t0mm

Hi All,

Quick update to let you all know what is happening with my situation: I have stopped paying my creditors in order for me to save up the money for my BR fee. Currently getting about 4 to 6 phone calls a day to remind me that I am behind with my payments... Not much I can do about that though, I guess.

I want to be totally upfront about my situation with the OR - I realise that I am almost certain to get an IPA, which I accept. I also think it is likely that I will get a BRO/U as well, so I am hoping that by being as up-front with the OR as possible, this will shorten the length of my bankruptcy restrictions.

I've been busily filling in the forms online - here's what i've put for my reasons for bankruptcy. I'd appreciate any comments etc.

My debt problems began several years ago when I took out an overdraft with Lloyds TSB, which was used to help with general living costs, as the job I was in at the time did not pay very highly. I had also taken out a loan to pay for some one-off purchases. Eventually, I realised that I was continuously living in the overdraft, so I took out a larger consolidation loan with LLoyds and the snowball effect began. I have also had a couple of long periods in the past couple of years that I have been unable to work due to various reasons - mainly having to care for my disabled mother. These periods only added further to the strain of debt.

I ended up taking further credit with other banks, borrowing from them to pay others and fund my living. Eventually in March 2008 I decided to change banks from Lloyds to Royal Bank of Scotland. I consolidated all of my debt that I had with Lloyds into two new loans with RBS. I also took out an overdraft and ended up going into this and without realising it, I managed to find myself in a worse situation than before. Over the past few months I had taken to gambling to try to recoup some of my losses, however this was not succesful, and I ended up taking out more credit, thinking that I would be able to recoup my gambling losses. My rent has also just gone up by a further £75, which combined with everything else has caused me to look into Bankruptcy as an option to give me a clean start.

I have recently taken advice from National Debtline and the CAB and they have advised me that Bankruptcy is the best viable option for me.

I deeply regret the situation I have gotten myself into, however there was no time that I did not believe that I was taking out credit that I would not be able to repay.

I think that I have probably spent about £3000 in the past couple of years on gambling. In total, given everything I owe, this makes up about 18% of my total debt. I am going to be up front and put this figure down on my SOA, but would be interested to hear what anyone thinks the OR is likely to do (i.e BRU) for something like that?

Thanks again for all your help!

t0mm

Anyone? Bumping thread back up as it seems it's been missed...

t0mm

Bumping thread again... Where is everyone?

chelseabun_3

Hi T0mm,

Your statement looks fine to me - not too long but gives the information the OR needs. I really have no idea how the OR will view the gambling debts. You may well end up with a BRO, but I doubt it would be a really long one, as they tend to get saved for the really 'interesting' cases (eg major fraud). Max posted an example somewhere of someone who got a 4 year BRO - and he did some major stuff which makes a bit of gambling look like very small stuff indeed. If Max reads this he might be able to link to that thread - I haven't got a clue where to look!

I think you really need to emphasise how sorry you are and that you've learned your lesson re the gambling and will not do it again! Perhaps put a sentence in the bit about the gambling saying when you last gambled (if it was a while ago) and that you've stopped, and will not be doing that again.

You have stopped, haven't you??

Hope that helps a bit! CBx