B-i-L heavily in debt - where to get advice on possible bankruptcy

littlerock

My B-i-l has always been a pain in the proverbial and was constantly in debt so we were all very relieved when around 25 years ago he took himself off to live overseas. He showed up again here about ten years with a nice younger foreign wife (he is in his mid 60s, she is around 50) who did not speak much english. (This is relevant.) She does not do any paid work, had difficulty due to her poor english as much as anything. She also had a dodgy brother hanging back home overseas who seemed to show up periodically and embroil B-i-L in some dubious business scheme.

We kept away as it all seemed to be heading for disaster and B-i-L is the ultimate blagger who never listens to advice. The B-i-L seems to have spun his wife and her brother some yarn about inheriting a large sum, which, possibly due a limited grasp of english (as she is well educated), she bought into. His dodgy brother in law moved here to the UK two years ago with a growing family in tow and began hanging around them even more. B-i-L continued to live beyond his means, fancy foreign holidays the lot.

Reading behind the lines we think the wife's dodgy brother has been borrowing from B-i-L for his dodgy business schemes as well and we have been told he is now out of work. Result is B-i-L has also been borrowing to keep them all afloat and spending well beyond his means. He says his wife has no idea of the state of things. We have avoided contact as much as possible but a letter turned up the other day saying he was around £40,000 in debt and had no means of paying it off. (His wife does not earn anything; he gets £1000 month state pension and has a small part time job of £400 month plus they get housing benefit of around £1000 month. Their rented flat costs £1200. He is officially retired.)

He has written to ask us to help out but apart from some immediate debts we cannot help and to be honest are not inclined to. We know nothing about it but assume he needs to go bankrupt. Where should he start for advice, which we would not know how to give anyway. At the CAB?

Annisele

CAB is certainly one option. Another might be StepChange (a specialist debt advice charity).

From what you say, it's very hard to work out who (if anyone) is taking advantage of who - but I think you're right not to hand over any of your own cash!

tigerfeet2006

DON'T GIVE HIM ANY MONEY.HE WONT LEARN ANYTHING IF YOU DO!

Sorry to shout but you need to know this.

Give him the links/numbers to NDL and Stepchange and tell him to contact them.

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/

http://www.stepchange.org/