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BR Date 24th March due to illness but need my car

Hi,

Please can someone help me, I had an operation last year that has gone horribly wrong and I am still visiting the hospital due to the complications, I lost my job as a result of all the time I had to take off and it has taken over three months to get any sort of benefits. I tried to sell my property (shared ownership) but the value of the property is less then what i purchased it for. I sold nearly all my possesion's on Ebay to pay all my bills but now the money has run out and after really horrid calls and letters from the bank the CAB contacted them telling them to stop and advised me that I should go bankrupt (the bank even took money from my over draft to pay the loan that I have them without my consent!) Oh and the bank are still contacting me even though CAB have contacted them twice!!

My BR date is 24th March, I am going to hand the keys back to my morgage provider, but what I am really worrid about is my car and mobile phone. I have several apointments booked at the hospital and I know when I attend these i will have to arrange more and the only contact the hospital will have for me is my mobile phone. I also have a medical assesment day with the DWP next week so Im not sure if i will have to attend more of them. The hospital and DWP assesment is in the same town and they sent me public transport information, it will take me at least 2-3 hours to get there or the hospital. This will cost me a fortune and due to all the complications, losing my job, how the bank have treated me and the council (Im now going to court in April re CT also another car journey) I am suffering sever depression and I just cannot cope, people now terrify me and i just feel that everyone is looking at me like i am a complete failure.

I really need my car to get to all of these appointments. I have just had it valued at £3950, I did read you could keep your car if its value is up to £2500, the CAB advisor told me that I could ask the judge if it was possible to pay in cash the remainding £1450. I could raise this if I sell all of my furniture, bed, sofa etc and borrow the rest from friends and family. Has this happened to anyone else? I really dont know what to do?
Thanks
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Comments

  • debtinfo
    debtinfo Posts: 7,012 Forumite
    hi dotty dee, If the OR agrees that you need your car then they normally allow about £2,000. Rather than selling all your possesion it might be better to let the OR take their course. What they would normally do is to sell the car and give you back the £2,000 to buy a cheaper car
    Hi, im Debtinfo, i am an ex insolvency examiner and over the years have personally dealt with thousands of bankruptcy cases.
    Please note that any views i put forth are not those of my former employer The Insolvency Service and do not constitute professional advice, you should always seek professional advice before entering insolvency proceedings.
  • sizzler
    sizzler Posts: 5,094 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    :)hi there,

    Firstly welcome welcome.

    i will try to answer your question and all here will help you.

    With ref to your car, it will be up to the OR to decide what happens not the judge. The OR looks after your estate.

    Now each OR is different and looks at each case different. if you need a car for reasons as ageneral rule ors allow about 2K. Even they say your car is worth more you or a friend will be offered to buy the intrest in the car.

    I will answer some more again shortly if you want to post going to get some tea.

    Sizzler:)
  • sizzler
    sizzler Posts: 5,094 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    hi debt you type so much quicker than me:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
  • dojoman
    dojoman Posts: 12,027 Forumite
    Our car was valued at just over £4000, and the OR gave us the choice of them selling the car and then they would give us back £2000, or buying the BI in it for £1700. We asked our son to buy the BI back which he has done for us we got it for about £600 less than it was valued.
    :pB&SC No. 298
    Life`s Tragedy is that we get OLD too soon
    and WISE too late!
  • Hi,
    Thank you all for coming back to me, I have pretty much sold everything I have as it took so long for the DWP to come back (im still waiting re income support) The council put me down as living with someone when i am single, I told them, I even had a letter from them that confirmed they knew I was single and then three days later i had another letter asking money for a couple with a court letter!! I called them and they accused me of lying saying they never sent the first letter!! I filled in the CT benefit forms and sent all the documents including the original letter for a single occupier - surpise they returned all my documents except the single occupant letter (I did take a copy though) Instead of getting a letter re CT benefit from them I got the yearly council tax bill plus the x2 months outstanding!! The bank ring me between 6 -20 times a day, I have been told to 'get my parents to pay'!! by one of their call centre's money taken from my overdraft to pay a loan I have with them. When i first started selling my items to pay my morgage the bank took all the money i made to pay themselves. I had tried speaking with them all before i started to struggle and no one would speak to me as at theat point i was still paying!!

    Im losing my mind and to be honest my trust and faith in people is severly damaged. I have worked all my life, never missed a bill and due to the operation I am now losing everything. The bank have refused to stop interested so thats added just under another £1K to what i owe. I brought my car just over 5 years ago and only had another year left, it sounds stupid but its the only thing left of mine in the world, I just feel if i lose that its like the final nail in the coffin. Im sorry for the rambling and really bad grammer and spelling I have only found this site today and it feels like Im out pouring all this built up emotion.

    I need my car as I have to travel to the hospital regularly and by public transport it would take at least 2 - 3 hours to get there, plus I have a medical with the DWP which is in the same town and Im not sure if I will need to go there again. I also now have to go to court re CT which is about 1 -2 away if travelling by public transport. Do you think this is a valid reason to keep my car??

    Again so sorry for the rambling and thank you all again for your responses. Its nice to final speak to people who understand
  • skylight
    skylight Posts: 10,716 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker Home Insurance Hacker!
    Right; you say you only had a year left to pay on the car - have you paid this? If not, what sort of loan agreement is it?? This is important.
  • it was a personal loan agreement
  • skylight
    skylight Posts: 10,716 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker Home Insurance Hacker!
    Thanks - at least the car legally belongs to you and not a HP company. Therefore you can sell it. This is completley legal before BR - AS LONG AS you sell it for full market value and not on the cheap.

    If you knew a mechanic or a trusted family/friend does, then see if they can source a reliable small car for around £1k-£1.5k. Use the balance to pay for your BR fees and hand the rest to the OR once you are BR. You cannot get an automatic exemption for the car as you no longer work, but you do have a good argument if you need the car for hospital appointments on a regular basis and a nice OR may let you keep the cheaper car (it's possible, but not likely on your current car; it's just too expensive).


    Is the DWP assessments for ESA or DLA? Because of course, the flip side, is that an OR could claim any DLA award could be used for taxi's etc as it covers the extra expense.

    This really is one of those situations where you are not going to know until you do it. You may or may not be able to keep the car and no way to guarantee either. But personally, I feel that a cheaper/small car and a lump sum for the OR will look at it to be more likely that you can keep it.
  • Thanks Skylight, the car to be honest is in poor condition, plus the way my luck is, someone recently keyed it and stole the wheel trims, the electrics are faulty - to anyone else this car needs work, but I love it and Im really attached to it, selling everything else has been hard but I did it to try and keep my head above water, my family know how attached I am to the car and they said they will try and raise some money if the OR will accept the outstanding amount from what i am allowed to the valution of the car's value.

    Dojoman mentioned BI? is that the same as what my family are offering to do?
    Also thank you Dojoman for replying before
  • skylight
    skylight Posts: 10,716 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker Home Insurance Hacker!
    Yes - the BR is the beneficial interest in the car and that's what your family are offering. DO NOT MENTION THIS TO THE OR!! Try and plead your case first about the hospital appointments and how your depression can be made worse with the interacition of strangers face to face. If the OR is really nice then they may allow you to keep it anyway, and if they state otherwise then suggest about the beneficial interest in the car only at that point; and this is negotiable. If the car is in a bad condition, is the value comparative with Parkers? The OR will look there primarily for a valuation anyway. Don't tell the them wheels are going to fall off to reduce the cost as the OR simply sees that as a money-pit vehicle for you and he does have a responsibilty to ensure your outgoings are not excessive too.

    Fingers crossed it works out AOK. But the best thing to do in BR is to always look as the worst case scenario, therefore if it happens you are not surprised but it's a good bonus if it doesn't!
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