bad advice given and now its a mess please help

lougar

my husband and i contacted trust deed scotland after getting nowhere for almost 2 years with a dmp.
a lady visited our home and told us best options were trust deed for hubby and sequestration for me we filled out forms etc and she asked about our bank account we have just the one a basic joint account with santander no overdraft and they are not one of the creditors.

last thursday it all hit the fan our only account was frozen we had been advised by this lady this would not happen as the bank had no interest in this account.
i contacted the insolvency people immediately who faxed santander with a letter of no interest however the account is still frozen.
we have 3 small children and so far they have given me £50 cash on fri by doing a temp unblock in branch with me needing to produce photo i.d and less than helpful snidey staff who had one point were smirking between themselves in front of me.

my real concern is as of fri all our household bills come off by direct debit mortgage council tax gas electric and i really don't know what to do, insolvency people are saying they have done their bit by sending a fax. i pleaded with santander to unblock account and remove me from it as its my husbands salary being pain in not mine but they will not help me.
what can i do i have no cash, cannot use my card, am going to be behind on all my household bills which will only make an already bad situation all the worse? we are meant to be visiting my mum in easter hols with kids who does not know about this situation.

i have applied for a co-op basic account but obviously that does not help with the situation right now.

please help me

fermi

Sorry to hear that.

Whoever told you that an account from Santander would be fine is a pillock!

Banks are free to freeze account on insolvency, even if the OR/AIB/whoever has no interest in them.

Not sure about in Scotland, but in England/Wales the OR can nstruct the bank to release funds needed for day to day living, but can't instruct the bank to return the account to normal operation. I think you are unlikely to get the account back to use.

So get everything transferred across to the Coop account ASAP. If Santander won't release wages etc, then get on to the AIB etc who may need to write/fax again.

coolcait

If your husband is in a trust deed, and you're bankrupt, you might have different trustees.

Your first step is to check who is Trustee for your husband. It will not be 'trust deed scotland', it will be an individual person, who will not work for an organisation called 'trust deed Scotland'.

Secondly, check who is your trustee. Is it the same person as your husband? If not, who is it? If you applied for bankruptcy under the Low Income Low Asset (LILA) route, it will be the Accountant in Bankruptcy. If you has a Certificate for Sequestration, and you nominated your own trustee, you should have those details.

If you have different trustees, then they both need to contact Santander to say they have no interest in the account. If you have the same trustee, he/she needs to make it clear to Santander that their 'no interest' covers both you and your husband. Even then, as Fermi says, it's down to the bank to decide whether or not to unfreeze the account.

I hope you get it sorted out. You have been very badly advised indeed. I agree with Fermi's diagnosis of 'pillock', in relation to your adviser. My personal opinion is that 'trust deed scotland' is merely a synonym for that diagnosis.

wildheart83

When I went BR I was told in no uncertain terms my Santander account would be frozen and handed over to their own bankruptcy department, who would "let me" withdraw money from my account only on the condition it was within certain hours, giving notice and with umpteen proofs of ID with me.
However the AIB told them they had no interest in the account and it stayed open, so I can only assume that as coolcait has stated, that it needs both trustees to confirm they have no interest in the account.
It's disgusting how being up to your eyeballs in debt is perfectly acceptable, but to do something about it gets you treated so badly. Good luck and I really hope it's sorted soon x

lougar

A wee update after today, so far it has all been getting on top of me and getting me down but today something changed and i just changed my frustration to detrmination and refused to leave the local branch until something happened with the account. I explained i owed them no money and they had the fax stating they had no interest in the account and they were only going to make a bad situation even worse when all the household bills were going to be left unpaid.

They eventually (it took a while) decided it was only me they had issues with remaining as a customer and not hubby so i was able to withdraw half the account balance and remove my name from the account, which i did instantly. I was assured that within the hour the account would be unfrozen for my husband to use and sure enough without any problems he used the atm one hour later.

I know i cannot entirely blame trust deed scotland for mis-informing me as if i had come on here first and read a bit i would have known this all lay ahead of me, i hope my experience today can perhaps help anyone who finds themself in a similar situation.
Thank you for reading and replying today.