Bankruptcy Online? Who Decides Negative Equity?

PMallinson

Hello MSE forumites,

I was wondering if anyone might be able to help me pick the bones out of this? I'll try and explain as clearly and concisely as possible. Here we go...

[deep breath]

I have a leasehold property in Doncaster (a two bedroom apartment) and a mortgage with the Halifax (remaining on it is approx £131K, and current valuations of the property vary between £110K and £140K, depending on the estate agent - so potential negative equity). I have a problem with a profiteering management company, unfair (and rising) service charges, a lack of due diligence and transparency with the management company, antisocial behaviour, and a poor build/maintenance quality of the property overall.

Aside from the problems with the property I have other (non secured) debts totalling approximately £4K (mostly service charge arrears).

On top of that, living here is affecting my physical and mental health and I have been receiving help from the local crisis team due to having frequent suicidal thoughts.

I am self-employed (sole trader/trading as self) and am not earning a living at the moment due to my health problems.

I've been to Citizens Advice and have discussed my options with them.

I desperately want out of this property and to make a fresh start and to find work elsewhere (finding work is proving difficult in this town).

The management company basically don't care about anything but profits, and I simply don't want to pay them any more money. I want to cut my losses and move on. Rebuild my life; quit being self-employed and find a job.

So I have decided to proceed with bankruptcy, in light of the problems with the property and the management of it, and also the potential shortfall on the mortgage balance versus the property's value.

I have just about enough money left to pay the £705 to petition for bankruptcy, but not enough to hire legal representation, so am having to do this all this myself.

I went to my local County Court yesterday to check what I had to do and they said: "Everything is done online now - go to this website: www dot insolvency dot gov dot uk and proceed there" but that URL I found to be non existent. I just got "page not found". So that wasn't right.

Then I went to gov dot uk/bankruptcy/declare-bankruptcy and downloaded the forms:

form 6.27 - ‘Debtor’s bankruptcy petition’
and
form 6.28 - ‘Statement of affairs’

These I have filled-in with the required details.

What I wanted to ask is:

1. Is there a way of going through the bankruptcy petition online? If so, where is it?

2. Or can I now take these forms to my local County Court and begin the process?

3. Also: the question of negative equity on my property is debatable. Who decides whether there is negative equity and how much that is? The estate agents I have seen do not seem to be reliable on this question. They also have a vested interest and I simply do not trust them. I have two written valuations for the property and the difference between them is considerable. Obviously, this is an important factor in determining whether there will be a shortfall on the mortgage balance. My feeling is that the property market here in Doncaster is as dead as doornail, and the constantly poor management of the development has resulted in a further decline in value. I might be lucky to see a sale value of £100K on this flat in these market conditions...

What is so frustrating about this process is that I am getting conflicting information and advice from all parties, and the advice given to me yesterday by my local county court was incorrect. If there is a way of petitioning for bankruptcy online - rather than filling out paper forms - I cannot find it. And I am a seasoned internet pro.

At this stage - with the differences between valuations on the property - and the question of negative equity or not, I'm not even sure if bankruptcy is the right thing to do... A Debt Relief Order may be better if my debts are less than £15K...

Having read through some of the advice on here I can see that handing the keys back (voluntary repossession) is an option, though I do not want to do that if I'm going to be chased for a large shortfall on the property later. I know, however, NOT to sign anything from my mortgage lender that might result in me being liable for any shortfall due to negative equity. I will refuse to sign anything.

Also, yesterday I received a County Court Claim letter from the solicitors chasing my service charge arrears (amount approx. £2K) and have around 14 days to respond.

It's all getting unnecessarily complicated - made worse by (what I perceive to be) bad advice from my local county court. Why did they tell me to go to www dot insolvency dot gov dot uk, and why does this site not currently exist?

It seems to me that the insolvency system is making it much more difficult to proceed with this than is necessary.

My mortgage lender - the Halifax - have been extremely difficult to deal with throughout the past few months and are clearly trying to cause as much stress and confusion as possible, to force me into arrears repayments (Philippines call centres, conflicting information, huge amounts of duplicate letters... the list goes on).

The Halifax and the management company can go swivel basically - I don't want to pay them any more money and I want out of this place!

I am hoping someone out there might be able to help.

Many thanks.

Paul M.

PS. To compound matters this forum will not let me add URLs to this post

TheGardener

Hi - First, have you had advice from any of the free BR advice charities? The judge will not approve the petition if s/he isn't convinced you have taken adequate advice. StepChange or National Debtline are both specialist debt advisers - both are on line or call them. The IS and courts are not debt advisers.
2. Have you read the welcome post on this board - do you have post BR bank accounts set up etc?
3. To go BR (once the above are sorted) then find out which court you need to go to - not all courts do BR, you can find your court via the IS website.
Some require you to make an appointment -some you just turn up on the day with your forms and wait.
As far as I am aware - you have to do it in person.
The link you need is here https://www.gov.uk/bankruptcy

PMallinson

Thanks TheGardener.

Yes, I have spoken to The Consumer Credit Counselling Service (who I believe are now called "Step Change"), and have read through the advice on their website, though I think I need to talk to them again. I still don't quite understand who decides whether there is negative equity on my place, and if so how much it is. This is an important point that I need clearing up so I will call them again on Tuesday (bank holiday on Monday, so don't think they'll be open - will try anyway).

I haven't yet set up a post BR bank account, because I'm still not sure if BR is the right way to go. Right now I'm even considering posting the keys back and "doing a runner" because of information overload and conflicting advice...

I did go to my local county court last week to check it was the right place for BR and was told it was (by the desk clerk). He was the one who pointed me to the dead URL and said "everything's now done online", which was not the case, I later found out. Again: making me feel like I'm going around in circles...

I have read through all the information on the dot gov dot uk web link you provided numerous times, and downloaded the BR forms from there weeks ago.

I'm finding that, with a lot of these government websites, charity advice services and debt help forums (including the links on here), that they change from time to time and links/sites and help pages often go dead. I was reading through the DRO advice pages on here yesterday and all the provided links were to dead pages...

It would be really helpful if all these dead links on this website were updated. It would be even better if they didn't change and go dead so often. I realise that the law changes, and therefore the advice changes, but I'm amazed by how much online support leads to dead URLs.

Many thanks,

Paul M.

tigerfeet2006

The equity or otherwise is decided when the house is sold. It cannot be decided until the event has taken place.If you go BR and the house is sold after the event then as long as you haven't signed anything to say you are responsible for the mortgage from the mortgage company after the BR then any negative equity from the sale will fall into the BR, whether you are still within the 12 months or you are discharged.

In a DRO the only things that can go into it are established debts, so you would have to wait till the house is sold to see how much negative equity you will have and if it takes you over the DRO boundaries then you will have to go BR.

The reason you can't add URL's is you haven't made enough posts to do so. It helps stop spam posts and links.

If you find any broken links on stickies of this board then please let the fermi the volunteer board guide know so he can look at it.

PMallinson

Thank you tigerfeet2006,

All the links on this website - and others - to www dot insolvency dot gov dot uk are dead. That URL, for some reason, no longer exists.

I have messaged the OP on the "Debt Relief Orders (DRO) - Information & help thread" about the dead links I found. Strangely, my message does not appear in my 'sent' folder, and I don't know if it was actually sent or not.

I'm presuming that there are quite a few other dead links pointing to www dot insolvency dot gov dot uk on this website, but don't have the time or resources to find them all.

Any idea when and why www dot insolvency dot gov dot uk went dead, and if it was replaced by another website or not?

Regards,

Paul M.

EDIT: just realised that sent messages are not saved by default (bah), so ticked the box to save them from now on. Suggest maybe changing this to the other way around, as not saving sent messages does cause some confusion as to whether a PM was sent or not.

alastairq

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/insolvency-service

https://www.insolvencydirect.bis.gov.uk/eiir/

Any use?

PMallinson

Thank you alastairq for your response, but those links unfortunately do not help my specific case at this stage.

For example: in the top link you sent (which I cannot quote, because I'm not allowed to post links yet), I clicked "Find an insolvency practitioner", entered "Doncaster" and "South Yorkshire" in the form, clicked "Search" and then got: "The requested URL was rejected. Please consult with your administrator."

Another case of government insolvency website services not working correctly?

The second link was to the "Individual Insolvency Register (IIR)" which I am not on, and I could not see anything else on there of any relevance at this stage.

As The Gardener said in his reply, I will have to speak to Step Change again this coming week and try to find some direction out of this hideously complicated mess I'm in. I am really hoping they can help me unpick it and provide some clarity.

The reality of my situation is that I need to move away from this town to find work (I have no income at all at the moment), escape this toxic property trap I am in, and also the profiteering management company who are chasing me with County Court Claims. I would dearly love to fight the CCC (and feel that I have a strong case against the management company), but the reality is that I need to move away from this dead end town to find work again, and try to at least take some action to make sure that my life isn't completely ruined by all of this.

Many thanks,

Paul M.

terryw

Paul

That link worked fine for me. Please try again.

Best wishes

PMallinson

Hi terryw,

Which link are you referring to? The broken links I'm referring to all relate to insolvency dot gov dot uk.

The "Find an insolvency practitioner" search is still not working for me.

All the other links mentioned here work, but I've already had them on my radar for a while, or they are not relevant.

Regards,

Paul M.

PMallinson

Does anyone know how many posts I have to make before I can post links? Not being able to post links is making things difficult for me on here.

I understand the connection between the posted link restrictions and combating spamming (having been a forum moderator myself a number of times), but when you're trying to get help for a complex case such as mine it really does hold you back

Regards,

Paul M.

terryw

PMallinson wrote: »

Hi terryw,

Which link are you referring to? The broken links I'm referring to all relate to insolvency dot gov dot uk.

The "Find an insolvency practitioner" search is still not working for me.

All the other links mentioned here work, but I've already had them on my radar for a while, or they are not relevant.

Regards,

Paul M.

Yes the "Find an insolvency practitioner" in the gov.UK site

Best wishes