bankruptcy... where to start

intempo

I have been looking at this forum over the past few weeks and have read many posts, I am lost with lots of the terminology and abbreviations used.
I spoke to the CAB about my financial situation about 4 years ago and found the whole experience terrifying and confusing. I spoke to national debt line after that who were really helpful and suggested bankruptcy as the best course of action.
Like a naive idiot i did not follow up on it for 2 reasons. The first was at the time i needed around £450 to put it thought and if i had that money i would have been making payment to my creditors, the second was i foolishly thought that things would improve and i would be able to start paying them again.
a brief outline of my situation is as follows:

I am stuck in a part tie job on minimum wage.
I live in rented accommodation
I owe 6 creditors ( maybe 5 because comet don't send letters any more )
I owe around £30,000
All the debt is unsecured

Where do i start? nothing has really change since national debt line recommended bankruptcy but given that it was almost 4 years ago i don't know if any of the criteria has change or what the impact of going bankrupt is.
I know the info is all on here but i fail to understand it. if any one could give me any advice it would be greatly appreciated and the simpler the better.

Thank you in advance intempo.

Tixy

Sounds like it will be sensible to speak to one of the debt charities again.

Have you been making any payments towards your debts? if so then it would seem like bankruptcy may well still be a sensible option for you. Will the fees still be an issue to you? have you been able to put any money aside towards these. There may be some places you could look to see if you can get assistance with the fees.

If you haven't made payments since you sought advice 4 years ago then how long since you did make any payments to your creditors?

intempo

Thank you Tixy for your response. No i have not been making any payments to my creditors.I just about manage to stay afloat and with the hours i work never have any thing left.

I have tried to cut costs every where i can. I have not been able to put any money aside and would have no chance of getting the fees together by my self. I have a family member who has offered to loan me the fees and says i can pay them back when i sort myself out.

the last time i made payment was February 2008. at some point in 2009 the CAB contacted all my creditors to ask for a halt on interest and fees and to try and arrange a repayment plan but they all declined the payment plan. It was backed up with and income / expenditure sheet but they refused to except i had no spare money.
I think that 2009 was the last time i had any contact with any of them but it was via the CAB.

Regards

intempo

fatbelly

Hi

After 6 years of no acknowledgement (by payment or in writing) your debts become statute barred, i.e. they cannot be enforced, and if you tell the creditors that that is the reason you will not be paying, they must cease collection activity.

Unfortunately the acknowledgement can be by 'the debtor or his agent' so the letters from CAB do count and it will be 2015 before they go SB. Or to put it another way, they have two more years to start a court claim against you.

There's two ways of viewing this - either you wait to see whether they take action, and if they do, you go bankrupt at that point. Or you dictate the agenda and petition now.

The fee has gone up - £700 or £525 if you get remission of the court fee. And the regime for payments from income is harsher. If you have more than £20 surplus per month, they want that for 3 years.

If a 3rd party is going to pay the fees they really need to do this as a gift. If a loan, then they should be listed as a creditor!

intempo

Thanks for your reply fatbelly

fatbelly wrote: »

Hi

After 6 years of no acknowledgement (by payment or in writing) your debts become statute barred, i.e. they cannot be enforced, and if you tell the creditors that that is the reason you will not be paying, they must cease collection activity.

Unfortunately the acknowledgement can be by 'the debtor or his agent' so the letters from CAB do count and it will be 2015 before they go SB. Or to put it another way, they have two more years to start a court claim against you.

Yeh that is as i thought. I could wait for it to become time barred but the debt would still be owed and i could not move forward.

fatbelly wrote: »

There's two ways of viewing this - either you wait to see whether they take action, and if they do, you go bankrupt at that point. Or you dictate the agenda and petition now.

I have got to the point were i would like to try and sort it all now. I have given it almost 5 years to try and better my situation but to no avail.

fatbelly wrote: »

The fee has gone up - £700 or £525 if you get remission of the court fee. And the regime for payments from income is harsher. If you have more than £20 surplus per month, they want that for 3 years.

If a 3rd party is going to pay the fees they really need to do this as a gift. If a loan, then they should be listed as a creditor!

The 3rd party will pay the fees for me and i have no need to receive the money first to make the payment myself. I realy do no not have £20 spare pair month. the council recognize my low income and i get a little help from them. Im not happy about it but it would be impossible with out.

Regards

intempo

fatbelly

Hi

It sounds like you know what you are doing and bankruptcy is the way forward.

If you have any specific queries remember there is a bankruptcy board on here.

intempo

Thank you for your reply fatbelly. I will give national debt line a try again and see what they say. I will start a new thread in the bankruptcy section and keep it updated as i go through it.

intempo

New thread if any one wants to look in and again thank you for all your help.

it needs http at the beginning because i am not allowed to post links
/forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?p=63175992#post63175992

regards

intempo

fatbelly

Here's the link.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4769383

You're in good hands...