1996 Pension in Bankruptcy help.

Tim_Jeff

20 years and not surprisingly having just turned 55, I have just received a letter from a company called Gowling WLG who claim to be acting on behalf of the official receiver in the recovery of my pension.

It was not a complete surprise as a couple of months ago I spoke to someone from the company who in not so many words informed me that I didn’t have any pensions from my bankruptcy in 1996 as they belonged to the official receiver.

The letter they sent includes a sheet that is asking me to tell them if I have any other pensions they do not know about, and to confirm receipt of the letter giving them authority to claim my pension from the pension company.

The advice I need is:

Do I need to tell them about pensions I have taken out since being discharged?

Do I legally have to sign this and send back?, after all they told me I didn’t have a pension as it belonged to the OR.

Can they claim this money from the pension company if I don’t sign it?

Many thanks for any help.

tigerfeet2006

It's part of your BR and you signed a legal undertaking that you would follow BR regulations when you declared BR and must do so even after all these years.

Any assets from before your BR belong to the OR and anything from after discharge belong to you. Unless you aquired them from monies that should of been declared in your BR.

luvchocolate

rules on pensions changed after you went br I believe, the o.r does own all you pensions..they are not yours to claim. try doing a search on i.s wedsite for more information







I believe you will be included in the old rules were the o.r did take all your pension.try a search on insolvency service and you may get the answer.

National_Debtline

Hi Tim


I don't know precisely how the questions are worded in Gowling WLG's questionnaire, but there should be a clear distinction made between any pension funds you paid into pre- and post-bankruptcy. I am assuming that you ceased to make payments into the old pension when you went bankrupt.


If you were not to co-operate with these requests for information, even after all this time, it is possible that the OR would seek sanctions and action through court to release the relevant pension funds.


You should be able to get more clarity on this from the Insolvency Service themselves, either through their helpline on or by filling in this enquiry form:


https://www.insolvencydirect.bis.gov.uk/ExternalOnlineForms/GeneralEnquiry.aspx


While they will not deal with specific case queries, yours is a general question about pensions paid into after discharge from a pre-29/5/2000 bankruptcy (that being the date when the rules on claiming pensions changed).


Dennis
@natdebtline

Tim_Jeff

Thank You Dennis.

You are correct that the wording is not very ambiguous to say the least, and yes the payments ceased.

What bothers me is that I have never heard of this company, they say they act on behalf of the OR and tell me not to contact the OR directly!.

Not wishing to be awkward but should the OR have contacted me to say that this company would be acting in their interest?

Thanks again.
Tim

rizla_king

Tim_Jeff wrote: »

Not wishing to be awkward but should the OR have contacted me to say that this company would be acting in their interest?

yes. no company can act for them without full confirmed authority. telling you not to contact the OR is very suspicious

Turbo353

I was in the same situation as Tim, had the same letter from Gowling wlg.
today after many emails over some months and a financial advisor helping me
the case is now closed against me and they can’t have a single penny.
the reason for this is, my pension plans were 100 % protected rights at the time of taking them out, basically meaning the official receiver has no claim on them what so ever.

if anyone else gets a letter from these people, my advice is do your home work first and don’t give information to them to quickly.