A chance for all bankrupts to change your life - Your help needed!

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Edit - This thread was originally called Just About Time To Say Goodbye, but it's turned into a thread all about how we can change the law to stop bankrupts being penalised for the rest of your life. Whether contemplating bankruptcy, or if you're in the stages of early bankruptcy, right along to having been discharged for years, the issues this thread covers later from about post 15 will affect you. Thanks.

I'm not a hugely frequent poster on this part of the forums, but some of you may have seen my posts or have given me advice to help me out. For those who didn't know, I have been working with someone to get them out of the red and through the end of bankruptcy.

It's now been long enough for the bankruptcy to have been discharged, and also to fall off the Insolvency Service website, so the online details of bankruptcy only now exist in a saved folder on my desktop (apart from the gazettes).

Credit files have been updated and we're just waiting for the final application to check it is okay (Equifax and Experian fine, just waiting for CallCredit as I'm determined to make sure this is as accurate as the other two despite it being the 'baby brother' of the other two).

So what have I learned throughout all this?

Bankruptcy is not an easy option. In my experience, it was almost like someone finally owning up to a huge problem. It causes arguments and sleepless nights not just for the bankrupt, but for those around them too. It's certainly not something someone does out of frivolity, it really is a last resort, and in this case was caused by factors totally out of the person's control.

Old habits die hard. Chucking everything in the trolley at a supermarket is something that is habitual. Yet following bankruptcy, for the first time there is a tiny amount of money that is now available - something that may have been used to make minimum payments for example previously - and the first time this happens it can induce the 'I'm rich!' feeling. Come the end of the month and there's barely enough spare change for bread, it's heartbreaking to watch but also having to be cruel to be kind in not bailing them out. Because they didn't get a bail-out on this occasion, they never repeated it and learnt the hard way.

The law needs to change. Each time I renew my home insurance, at least half of all insurers ask if anyone living at the house has ever been bankrupt. The AA increased my renewal premium by £250 simply because of this. I have never been a high risk, I always pay up front each year for cover, I have never made a claim, and it is my policy. It is fundamentally wrong for insurers to ask this question. I came across one person whose son became bankrupt and didn't tell the parents, a claim was made, the insurers uncovered the bankruptcy and the claim was voided. This practice has to be outlawed. Plus when six years is up, the details should drop off the gazettes so it is as if the bankruptcy never existed. Stop humiliating bankrupts for life.

Bankrupts are dirt in the eyes of collection agencies and banks. They treat bankrupts with no respect, they refuse to acknowledge recorded letters, telephone calls are worthless and requests go unactioned. Naming and shaming Lloyds TSB, they only finally cleared up three separate errors after we found every single email address we could online, guessing the chief exec's details, and posting copies of the email in every single local branch that if they didn't sort out the error they would be victims of a media covered sit-in.

Santander has not been easy to deal with in my experience. They freeze not only accounts of the bankrupt, but also any accounts they have ever been trustee for (including child's accounts). Personal experience of a branch has told me a bankrupt should never go in alone, they should always have a solvent person with them who may be a potential/existing customer, this adds good leverage. They even attempted to apply overdrawn charges despite the main account being slightly in credit on the date of bankruptcy when the account was handed over to the OR. Santander also now own GE Money which includes many high street cards such as Dorothy Perkins and Next. Is global domination next for them?

Finally, this board is brilliant. The advice and help that everyone chips in with is superb. More and more over the coming months people will be posting their discharge details, and eventually this forum will hopefully become a place people can see life after discharge, as well as the initial mire that may have brought them here in the first place. What I hope people do, and particularly with Martin's help (I do hope someone brings these comments to his attention), is remember the huge lobbying power we all have. We are all here because of an unideal situation, we all have experiences how this situation affects us unfairly, so we should all get together and stop the unfairness. The insurers and mortgage companies always being able to ask if you ever, ever was bankrupt must be outlawed and a time limit being put on this. Bankrupts are not life-long criminals, take their names off the gazettes too.

Good luck to everyone in the early stages of bankruptcy, this is the start of you rebuilding a sound, secure financial future.

covlad1980

Thanks a lot a great read

Angiepange

This brought tears to my eyes. Thankyou for this heartfelt post.

Angie x

philnicandamy

Well done City Slicker....an inspiration to many

Enjoy your new life & dont forget to pay us a visit sometimes

fiveyearplan

Thanks for the post CitySlicker. I agree with every word of it.

antarctica

Thank you cityslicker

dvs

Thanks Cityslicker. A very useful post.

debidoodle

Thankyou CS enjoy your new found freedom.

Deep_In_Debt

Great post.

I have to agree with you on the insurance business. My ex oh went BR a couple of years back; he lived at my house but I paid mortgage and bills - he contributed a bit and bought food and essentials. I'm not BR although am in debt (hence my user name!) but I found it difficult to get good deals on car insurance etc when my ex lived with me as HE was BR not me. So it's not only the person going BR that's affected but those around.

He offered to pay all creditors a pro rata amount and if they had accepted and not been so difficult to deal with, he would have been 2/3rds through clearing his debts by now but instead due to creditors being totally hideous as he couldn't honour their demands, he went BR so they get very little or nothing. Don't understand why they do it! And yes, Lloyds TSB where the main reason why he went BR.

Of course, there is the emotional side to it all and the fact that it does affect you for the rest of your life in one way or another. My ex was refused a job recently due to his BR and it wasn't even a job that deals with money or cash. He is trustworthy in that respect but businesses don't believe him. I was also refused a PA job due to my credit history (I'm not BR but my credit record is trashed), although I could do the job and references et al were glowing; they just didn't want know.

Thanks for the post city and sorry for my rant!

maxmycardagain

Three years ago, if you had told me i was gonna go bankrupt id have laughed, i was servicing my debts and running my little business ....

Then, with the colusion of the Companies act and the protection of being a Ltd company, a "customer" wiped me out in a very short time by collapsing thier debt owed to me, so not only am i bankrupt, but i am also very, very bitter that my fate was decided some robbing t**t who a month later opened a florist shop for his sons GF and has just bought a country pub/hotel....

I do not hold myself liable/blameworthy ( i WAS, but wasnt...)

The wife stopped me driving the 160 miles to throttle the b*****d

maybe one day, you never know.

skylight

**cough**
Should you ever need an alibi................???