parents bankrupt - student grants

bananamania

Dear all,

I crossposted this in the bankruptcy thread, since the thread straddles both areas, so here goes:

a few weeks ago my father went bankrupt (personal insolvency) and as a result, cannot support me anymore financially. The official receiver is apparently playing extremely hardball and categorically disallowed him supporting me in any way financially (in addition to some other harsh things, raiding pension, etc, he's beginning 60s for god's sake).
My mother earns fairly negligible amounts (in the grand scheme of things), but isn't involved in the bankruptcy, but financially dependent on him, as wife (making maybe £25-30 a week).
I am currently a second year university student in my second (of three) term this academic year.

Before his bankruptcy, there was no point in using income assessment for student loans, since I would not have received any anyway, and since my college room rent is fairly high (you get allocated), my basic not assessed maintenance loan just about covers my rent (maybe £50 shortfall overall). He supported me so that I could afford food, etc.
However, now that is out of the question, I wanted to apply to student finance in order to possibly receive a maintenance grant and have my parents' income (re)assessed to get it (you can do that up to 9 months AFTER you've started the current academic year).

However, when I called student finance england several times, they didn't understand the situation, and when I asked about how things get financially assessed since my father still nominally earns way more than the grant-receipt threshold but doesn't receive much of it because it all goes to the official receiver, they just kept telling me to "fill in the income assessment form if he's got no money" and when I then told them that if he filled in his nominal income, that is above the threshold, I won't get a grant, they said they didn't understand the problem, since he still earns the same he did before, and so the loop went on and on and on and on.

Now, from having spoken to my parents, they are currently determining how much he will exactly get from his income (and how much is taken away), which will take apparently until the new tax year, and be effective from May.

Essentially, my question is whether anyone here has had a similar issue, and had to deal with this, how they dealt with it, and what they did (and sent to student finance).
I personally thought a letter from the official receiver stating I could not get any money from my father anymore could solve things, however the OR is not prepared to do this, and I don't know what to do.
At the moment I'm immensely frustrated at the ridiculous bureaucracy of things and could just scream at everyone and everything.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a ton,

C. J.

Fang_3

You could get re-assessed if his income has dropped. If it hasn't, then I'm not sure whether you could, or indeed why you think you should be able to?

Maybe it's time to get a job?

Re: your point about the OR 'raiding his pension' - why should his pension be protected when he can't or won't pay the people he owes money to?

Oldernotwiser

Fortunately, student finance assessment never takes debt repayments into account. As above, you need to get a job.

silvercar

The Official Receiver should make an allowance in calculating the IPA ( amount the bankrupt pays each month) for a dependent adult, given that the student loan company use the bankrupt's income to assess the contribution that the parent is deemed to be paying to support their child. This instruction is included in the guidance to ORs apparently.

Whether that actually gives the parent sufficient income to feel able to support their student offspring is a different matter, but the fact is that it should be included in the allowance of essential spending that is made when calculating a bankrupt's income that is available to repay creditors.

bananamania

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Fortunately, student finance assessment never takes debt repayments into account. As above, you need to get a job.

why is that fortunate? it's not the kids fault, and they're the ones that get the shortest end of the stick in that sort of deal.

Fang wrote: »

You could get re-assessed if his income has dropped. If it hasn't, then I'm not sure whether you could, or indeed why you think you should be able to?

Maybe it's time to get a job?

Re: your point about the OR 'raiding his pension' - why should his pension be protected when he can't or won't pay the people he owes money to?

Why I think I should be able to is elaborated on in the original post, apparently he won't get an allowance for me and as a result I will be left standing in the rain, so to speak.
During term time my university does not allow jobs (you can probably guess where I am now...), and no place will employ me for just 4 weeks or so at a time (unless I have contacts, which I don't anymore, since we moved). I will be working my bits off during the summer holiday in a paid internship though.

TBH, I don't understand why there's so much anger and aggression towards me (or maybe I'm interpreting it wrongly), I'm not "spongeing" off my father, I've worked during my a-levels, during all summer holidays. we collectively moved from deep in the south to high in the north during my first year of university, because my father changed jobs. There, I consequently knew no one, and had no "contacts" so to speak, that would allow me to work at places for just a few weeks at a time. I worked during the summer holidays between first and second year, and then went on a holiday with friends to europe for a week.
At no point in time did I know or got a whiff of the impeding bankruptcy, which is why I went on the holiday and bought a new laptop from the money I earned.

Now he's bankrupt and I regret what I used that money on, had I even faintly seen it coming, I would NOT have done that, and saved as much as I could possibly have done.

The place where I am is very expensive rent-wise, my college is smaller than the others and as a result, my maintenance loan does not get me as far as it would at other places.
I'm currently living from my student account overdraft, which won't get me very far for next year, when my rent is going to go up even more (due to the vagaries of the room lease, which went from purely term-time to first term through till the end of third term, also a college requirement for finalists).
I didn't mean to moan or complain or act spoilt, i'm just genuinely worried about my future at this point. sorry for coming off differently to what I meant.

silvercar wrote: »

The Official Receiver should make an allowance in calculating the IPA ( amount the bankrupt pays each month) for a dependent adult, given that the student loan company use the bankrupt's income to assess the contribution that the parent is deemed to be paying to support their child. This instruction is included in the guidance to ORs apparently.

Whether that actually gives the parent sufficient income to feel able to support their student offspring is a different matter, but the fact is that it should be included in the allowance of essential spending that is made when calculating a bankrupt's income that is available to repay creditors.

Thanks so much! I will get onto this, maybe the bankruptcy person does not know the new guidelines or something, if he/she has been in the job for ages.
do I send them a letter too, or just my father?

Oldernotwiser

bananamania wrote: »

why is that fortunate? it's not the kids fault, and they're the ones that get the shortest end of the stick in that sort of deal.

Because otherwise parents could take out enormous mortgages and other loans to avoid having to contribute to their children's maintenance.

It's the same with claiming benefits, only income is counted, not outgoings and debts.

Oldernotwiser

bananamania wrote: »

At no point in time did I know or got a whiff of the impeding bankruptcy, which is why I went on the holiday and bought a new laptop from the money I earned.

Now he's bankrupt and I regret what I used that money on, had I even faintly seen it coming, I would NOT have done that, and saved as much as I could possibly have done.

Perhaps you should be angry with your parents rather than the system for not keeping you informed.

killerpeaty

I must say that this view apparently held in this thread that students apparently have the time to get a job is really frustrating, some of us actually go to lectures, do work and go to bed at 11pm! My regular schedule is to start at 8am and finish at 10pm, then in the time I have off (like this week woohoo!) I'm sorting out things like money and other such issues. [/rant]

Banana; You uni (I'm impressed, they would have laughed in my face had I applied) will have the access to learning fund, apply to it with as much evidence as you can, go to your mentor/tutor/personal blokey, they are legally obliged to provide you with as many links as possible and you'll have an advisory service in your uni somewhere. All uni's must have them, even if they don't like telling you.
Other than that, your best bet is the dreaded bank loan, apparently it means a lot of meetings with the bank but it might help you.

If you do a seach on bing for grants and scholarships you should find a few interesting sites. Best of luck and let me know how it all pans out for you.

bananamania

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Perhaps you should be angry with your parents rather than the system for not keeping you informed.

perhaps. yet getting angry with my parents is probably slightly unthankful. my parents never did anything "bad" to me, they always tried to do the best for me and my siblings, and they certainly didn't plan on not telling me in order to "screw me over" or something. if anything, they either didn't think (unlikely) or did it because a) they still believed there is a tiny, miniscule chance of it being averted or something, or b) they were (and are) ashamed of themselves for having this happen to them.

killerpeaty wrote: »

I must say that this view apparently held in this thread that students apparently have the time to get a job is really frustrating, some of us actually go to lectures, do work and go to bed at 11pm! My regular schedule is to start at 8am and finish at 10pm, then in the time I have off (like this week woohoo!) I'm sorting out things like money and other such issues. [/rant]

Banana; Your uni (I'm impressed, they would have laughed in my face had I applied) will have the access to learning fund, apply to it with as much evidence as you can, go to your mentor/tutor/personal blokey, they are legally obliged to provide you with as many links as possible and you'll have an advisory service in your uni somewhere. All uni's must have them, even if they don't like telling you.
Other than that, your best bet is the dreaded bank loan, apparently it means a lot of meetings with the bank but it might help you.

If you do a seach on bing for grants and scholarships you should find a few interesting sites. Best of luck and let me know how it all pans out for you.

I'm going to do that, just researched that and it sounds like a good way to do things (the A2L I mean).
mot sure if I'd get a regular bank loan in any case (we're students after all), but it's a last resort. I'm currently gonna ask whether I can help some phd do some research over the holidays or something.
I study social sciences and in my current state of mind I can't blame everyone going into banking as a career...
thanks for your help, I'm glad a fellow student weighed in!
(gonna research grants, etc. now!)

silvercar

Thanks so much! I will get onto this, maybe the bankruptcy person does not know the new guidelines or something, if he/she has been in the job for ages.
do I send them a letter too, or just my father?

Your father needs to make sure an allowance for you- the dependent adult - has been included in calculating his IPA.

PaulW1965

killerpeaty wrote: »

I must say that this view apparently held in this thread that students apparently have the time to get a job is really frustrating, some of us actually go to lectures, do work and go to bed at 11pm! My regular schedule is to start at 8am and finish at 10pm, then in the time I have off (like this week woohoo!) I'm sorting out things like money and other such issues. [/rant]

It's a view held by only a few posters. Unfortunately, they are retired/under-employed and have lots of time on their hands to haunt this board. They seem to get their kicks out of being as mean as possible. Still I suppose it's like RL, you meet all sorts.