updating income/expenditure changes to O.R.

doseduk

hey, another little panic that came about partly just from my crap affairs and conduct, but also after I was told by the examiner on my second interview that near the end of the bankruptcy, the O.R. will tend to send out a 'questionnaire' asking about changes in income and things.

first of all, like anybody, I just don't want to be tied down to 3 years of an IPA if I can avoid it. I feel scummy making efforts to avoid it, but at the end of the day, it would be my life for 3 years guaranteed to be nothing more than essentials.. making just, the idea of being able to have the odd drive over the lakes a couple of times a year or, just, buying my family nice things for their birthday (or indeed paying my parents back some of the money i owe them) fairly impossible, for 3 whole years. This terrifies me, mainly because the honest fact is I dont have much money spare. And also, because I can choose how much student loan I want to take, so it should go without saying that it is virtually up to me whether I take enough to mean that that, along with my income from work and benefits, is enough for an IPA to be put in place.

the tricky bit comes because I relapsed with drink and drugs - so I took an extra lump sum from student loans, and accessed money that I would have otherwise turned down / requested less than for the year - to afford this. also, I essentially spent a lot of the first loan instalment I got (you get three a year) which means I'm now short, and had to borrow money to fix my car, which I gotta repay, and also owe money to a friend (abotu 100) which I intend to repay in january. All of this basically means that if you take the figures of income I have for this year, say, and take off only the essential expenditure I had (which before all this, and when I had been careful, amounted to less than a tenner spare a month) - it appears that I have a lot spare, maybe a hundred quid a month, because I spent in excess of a £1000 whilst in relapse and uncontrolled drinking/drug use.

I know that changes should be told to my O.R. anyway - so I'm trying to draft a letter but its so hard to explain... and of course the reality is in future, I'd ensure I wasn't requesting any more student loan (future years) than left me about flush with my essentials... so if they see the figures I incorporated into my essentials to include the 80 odd quid a month (£1000 divided by 12 months) which shows how it affected the year, they might still think well, next year I will have all that spare if I dont relapse.. so set up an IPA in case I have spare stuff in future?

The few things I want to know, I guess, are:
- in what form will they systematically be requesting up to date figures from me? will the questionnaire just ask if anything changed, or be similar to another statement of affairs section on income/outgoings, or otherwise?
- is failing to disclose things (because it is so bloody complicated in this scenario) properly a criminal prosecution matter, or more dealt with through BROs and things?
- what will happen if I don't disclose things now, but do when they ask, if they do indeed send me this questionnaire the examiner mentioned?
- how are they likely to see the money that I have now spent? Will they expect me to make it up now out of my essential outgoings, or just ruthlessly ignore the fact the money is gone due to my relapse/recklessness (however they look at it) and demand the surplus figure that 'should' be available based on my income? or will they be more likely to just accept that I parted with a large sum of money, that I could have in theory given to creditors/put into the bankruptcy and thus, deal with things on BRO misconduct terms?
- how are they likely to view me giving my friend the £100 i borrowed from him during relapse back, and my mum's partner the £350 back that is clearly for essential car costs, for which I have evidence, via the garage receipt, his credit card bills and if needed my statement showing it went to him for the amount on his card bill, paid to the garage the receipt is from..?

As you can picture, I just feel it isn't going to be as easy as saying to them, look, I don't have anything spare, I've spent money that was meant to last longer than until now, and I am going to make sure I don't take any more student finance than leaves me zero after essential expenditure... I understand they will probably have a system that determines these things, and I just don't know how best to approach it all.

I hope I don't seem to be being dirty in tactics or anything, I'm just worried about basically having an IPA/IPO brought in if I can just avoid it until discharge in March 2013, I'm worried about the pointlessness of taking out a student loan if some of it will just be going to creditors (so I can avoid that) and I'm worried about being asked to pay money that I do not in reality have, based on the annualised, averaged out numbers alone and not the reality.

Sorry for another huge post. I really intend to pay my dues to this board for a long time to come after discharge and can't say how thankful I am for everything so far.

Thanks for readingx