cars, jobs and bankruptcy

lilybankrupt

So this is a theoretical question at the moment but...

I am (still) looking at bankruptcy by the end of this year. Currently I am self employed and do not own a car.

I'm applying for jobs at the moment as the self employment is not bringing in enough money, and two jobs I have seen that I would like to apply for involve travelling around the country and therefore require a car.

My first question is around car value - I know you are normally allowed to keep a car up to £1,000 in value if needed for work, but I'm really worried that such a low value car won't be reliable if I'm doing hundreds of miles a week or more. Is there any flexibility in the car value allowed?

Secondly, the above may be academic as I don't actually have £1,000 to spare, never mind more. I've been looking at long term car rental and it looks like this would cost around £400 per month, plus insurance (but no tax or servicing charges, plus own car mileage paid by the employer would offset some of this). Assuming my salary was enough to cover the cost would this be allowed?

Just to let you know I don't have anyone who could lend me a car or be a guarantor or whatever, so these options are out :-(

TheGardener

lilybankrupt wrote: »

...My first question is around car value - I know you are normally allowed to keep a car up to £1,000 in value if needed for work, but I'm really worried that such a low value car won't be reliable if I'm doing hundreds of miles a week or more. Is there any flexibility in the car value allowed?
I've not seen much flexibility by OR's on cars...but I bought a 10 year old car for £900 and over the past 3 years it has cost less to run in terms of maintenance that several newer cars before it!! Its passed its MOT every year!!

Secondly, the above may be academic as I don't actually have £1,000 to spare, never mind more. I've been looking at long term car rental and it looks like this would cost around £400 per month, plus insurance (but no tax or servicing charges, plus own car mileage paid by the employer would offset some of this). Assuming my salary was enough to cover the cost would this be allowed?

It will not be about how much the car lease costs - it will be that the provider cancels the contract if you go BR which is quite common. Most lease agreements will automatically terminate in the hirer goes BR.

lilybankrupt

Thanks for the reply.

It would be brilliant to find a car around the £1,000 mark, and I do know of people who have done this and had no problems. It's just I also know people who have ended up with it all going horribly wrong repair wise :-/

Re: the lease point, I wasn't looking at leasing but at long term rental. So you pay a monthly amount each month upfront and then renew month by month. There's no long term tie in, it's just like renting a car but for longer. There's no credit involved.

But inevitably this is a more expensive way of doing things than normal leasing :-(

debt_doctor

Hi,


Every ORs office seems to operate differently, but I feel most would allow for a slightly better vehicle if lots of miles were involved, rather than purely a vehicle for 'domestic use' (but essential).


I do agree though that t is possible to buy a reliable car for around £1000, but to some extent you have to have to some knowledge of motors!


It would be a tough OR that wouldn't move £500 or £600 further up the scale for a vehicle required to 'work hard'.


DD

lilybankrupt

Thanks DD for your reply, that's helpful.

I guess I'm just worried about the £1,000 thing as I don't know anything about cars really and suspect I would end up with a lemon!

Re: the rental thing, is there any chance the OR would allow this do you think? If it was the difference between keeping and losing a job?

egrescrimp

The OR might be perfectly fine with the rental agreement, it's the finance company that would have the final say and from reading here most seem to pull the plug anyway.

You could buy a car for £2,000 but that doesn't mean the OR's valuer will say it's worth that, we bought the interest in our car for far less than what it would cost at a dealers and I mean a lot less! Even Parkers valued our car at more, we bought the interest in our vehicle for just over £500 (valuations for our car in bad condition were 3 times that, our car isn't in bad condition either).