married couples both going bankrupt

spenderblender

Can you please give hints and tips about form filling when you are doing it as a couple who do everything from one account. All our money goes in to a joint account and everything is paid by me well, apart from the unsecured obviously, as we wouldn't be in this mess.
I just can't seem to get my head round splitting up some things and putting full amounts on others on the forms. One person on here said they did it all as a full list on both forms and then wrote on the back page that it was a joint bankruptcy which worked better.
It seems to me that if I split it we have more spare cash than if I do as a whole.
Thanks for any suggestions.

RAS

With respect to joint accounts, you are joint and severally liable. If only one goes BK, the other is fully liable for the whole debt, so you have to quote the full amount on both forms.

With respect to household expenses, pro rata on income?

spenderblender

yes, we are both going bankrupt. We have our own debts, partner has around 15k and mine is around 23k all in with 6k for the car on hp in my name.
We have to fill in separate forms, I think they should do a joint one and it would save a lot of hassle, but I guess they wouldn't get the double amount if they did this.

completemess

I struggled to get my head around the split SOA - sounds simple until you come to do it doesn't it. I have (hope this is correct and I understood my similar post re this) split the household bills 50/50. Then anything personal to me (haircuts, travel to work, prescriptions etc) i've put on my soa and vice versa on my husbands. I have then deleted my personal costs from my monthly income and put this on my husbands soa and vice versa.

spenderblender

I have then deleted my personal costs from my monthly income and put this on my husbands soa and vice versa.

I understood you until this bit. Please explain.

peachyprice

When you fill in your forms on each one you put all the household expenses in full plus your one individual expenses i.e travel, hair, etc., on your own form only.

When it comes to income you put the whole of your own wages plus your OH's contribution to the household bills only, not the whole salary, which should be the equivalent of about half of the household bills.

The OR doesn't add them together again, they should do an indivudual calculation for both of you.

Hope that makes sense

completemess

peachyprice has explained better so i've just deleted my last post in case I cause confusion xx

spenderblender

Right, I have that now. My worry is that I am on incapacity and the benefits for kids and family allowance is in my name which brings it to about £773 I get and my hubby gets about £800. My problem is that the car is in my name as its me who needs it so it has to go on my form along with all other expenses that go with it. I do however use it to take hubby to work in the mornings as he starts at 5.30 - 6.00 and there are no buses. He does get the bus home though which costs about £50 for the month which would go on his. Can I put the car on both or does it have to go on mine.

peachyprice

It goes just on yours. But you can up OH's travel to include something towards petrol whne you take him to work.

spenderblender

Thankyou. I would be lost if it weren't for people like you.

Costus

spenderblender wrote: »

One person on here said they did it all as a full list on both forms and then wrote on the back page that it was a joint bankruptcy which worked better.

Hi there, i think you maybe referring to me in your quote.

I have copied my original post and pasted it here to try and explain what we did with our BR.

Although as i understand it this isn't the uniform way that BR is dealt with across the board, but it did make things a hell of alot easier when filling in the BR forms.

If there is anyway of finding out if your court accepts BR the way we did it then great. We found out by going for a BR advice meeting with Welfare Rights.


Both me and my OH went BR at the same time recently, as a joint BR.

We put all of our joint income together, all of our expenses household and personal together, and then duplicated them onto one anothers BR forms.

The only things that were different on the BR forms were.
On mine i put my full income in "what is your average monthly take home pay" and my OH's full income in "how much do other members of your household contribute each month to household expenses", and then switched them around on my OH 's forms.

Make a note in the back of the BR forms along the lines of, "we worked our income & expenses jointly as we are both declaring BR."

You must include your own personal debts indiviually, plus any in joint names and the same obviously goes for your partner.

This is what we did and our BR went through without a hiccup.

I hope this post doesn't come across as condescending, as its not meant to be, i'm just trying to explain it as easy as possible.



Also it might be worth looking at this link that was posted by tigerfeet, http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1414941



Hope this helps rather than confuses everything and doesn't throw a spanner in the works, so to speak.