Job in finance - what now

wrongjobnomoney

Hi all

I work in a management position (not directly related to dealing with money) for a major bank. It looks like I will have to make myself bankrupt as I am insolvent. One of the main groups I owe money to is my employer. In your experiences wnere do I stand. I am thinking of trying to get a lower paying job in a different industry before it hits the fan (jump before I'm pushed).

Also I rent a property with my partner but have no bank accounts or credit agreements jointly. If I were to go bankrupt how would this affect him? He would like to buy a house soon.

Any help appreciated.

owetoomuch

Some things you need to do are:

Check your contract of employment to see if it says anything about going bankrupt.

If you are a member of a union have a word with them.

Hope this helps a little.

cinnabar

Hi, I work for a major high street bank and have just gone bankrupt - my employer was also my largest creditor - the possibility of losing my job was one of things which put me off going bankrupt for so long. I'm not in a management position but maybe if I share my experience so far it will help you? - I imagine most banks are going to have similar policies. Maybe we even work for the same one!
The HR dept advised me that as long as I followed company procedures re informing my manager, there was no particular reason why I would lose my job since I am not FSA regulated.
My contract stated that I had to inform my manager of any CCJs, IVAs or Bankruptcy Orders; not declaring them could have meant facing disciplinary and/or dismissal for gross misconduct.

I told my manager before I went ahead with it and she explained that she had to do a risk assessment on me - this entailed taking details of how much i owed and how much in arrears - this has been passed to HR who will make a decision as to whether I pose a low, medium or high risk. If low or medium, then no further action, just a review in six months. If high risk, then possibly I would face disciplinary action.

So far work have been a lot better about it than I expected. I think the reason I was expecting the worst was because a colleague of mine who is on a DMP was threatened with suspension for refusing to tell them how much she owed or to who when they found out about (she didn't tell them herself). At the time I thought they were being unfair to her, as DMPs aren't explicitly mentioned in our contracts, but in hindsight I wonder if they just thought she was trying to hide it from them - regardless, she's still employed with them.

I'd actually say that if you can stay in your current job while you go BR then that's your best bet. I don't intend to work for my employer much longer (which they're aware of already) but as I've worked for them for a few years I have certain rights such as minimum notice periods etc. that I wouldn't have if I started a new job.

wrongjobnomoney

Aaaaarrrrghhh!!!!!!!
Am crying with frustration. Since previous post, much soulsearching and pleas from partner I have tried to avoid going down BR route. I have spoken to National Debtline who were very helpful and advised contact with CCCS all the time treating my employer as a priority debt. I then contacted the debt management department of my bank (who I work for) and asked if they would consider my position, tell me how much they need so I can figure out with CCCS how much is left for everyone else. The response was initially to offer to double my interest rate and do nothing else to help. Then they refused to do even this and insist on the whole lot going through CCCS.

Am so glad that I've tried to be open and honest.

Sorry for venting so but feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall.

And it hurts!!!!!

cinnabar

wrongjobnomoney - sorry to hear you're having a bad time of it - I'm kind of surprised that you were advised to treat your employer as a priority debt - I'm in a similar position to you in that my employer (also a bank) was my biggest creditor.
CAB advised me that it shouldn't make any difference to my employer that I owed them the most money if I went BR - in other words, if company policy is to continue to employ me post-bankruptcy, it shouldn't make any difference to them who I actually owed the money to. I thought that sounded fine in principle but it's actually turned out to be the case - despite the fact that I owed my employers about a year's salary!

I have a colleague who's gone through CCCS - she also owed our employers money. She had to go through exactly the same risk assessment process as I did when I went BR, and she's still facing the possibility of going BR at a later date - I'm not going to advise you to go for bankruptcy but you might find that a DMP, IVA and bankruptcy all carry the same weight anyway in your employer's eyes as they seem to in mine.

Hope you manage to find the right solution

wrongjobnomoney

Thanks Cinnibar - it's hard to know which way to turn at the moment. Trouble is - typical of me - once I decide to sort something out then I can't wait to do so. After months of burying my head in the sand...think this inability to 'delay gratification' got me in all this mess in the first place.

Do you feel greater peace of mind now that you've made the leap one way or t'other?

I am afraid that BR will wreck both my relationship and my career - I've invested 12 years in one and 11 in the other so I'm desperately trying to do anything to avoid it.

I've already resigned myself to the likelihood that my mess up of my financial situation will mean that I will neither be able to own a home or have a family. Guess I'm trying to cling on to the positives I have left.

Yours self-indulgently

WJNM

tigerfeet2006

Why do you feel you won't be able to own a house? We have people on this board who have got mortgages after BR. Why don't you think you will ever have a family?

wrongjobnomoney

Hi

I think this because I am 34 and by the time I am debt free I will be at least 39.

If I were debt free right now him indoors and I would just about be able to buy something - in five years heaven knows...

Yours melodramatically

WJNM

cinnabar

WJNM - I'm the same age as you (34 next month) - being in debt got in the way of my relationship and he didn't even know about it! He knew I owed money but not how much. To try and hide it from him I kept spending as if I was doing alright financially which of course made things worse. I knew I needed to do something drastic but I didn't know how I could do it without my OH finding out, and I thought that would be the end of our relationship. Then he left me for someone else anyway, and I've spent the last year gradually facing up to my debt problem till my LBM a few months ago.

Being in debt got in the way of my career too, because I knew that anything I wanted to do in the future needed me to make a concerted effort to sort my debts out. The same with having children - I can't be certain I would have had them but there were many times over the 9 years I was with my partner that I considered it but didn't want to do it while my debts were so big. He and the woman he left me for had a baby just one week ago - though I'm rather glad, all things considered, that I haven't got any dependents to drag down with me (unless you count the cat!?), I always took it for granted that I could have children if/when I wanted and there is a part of me that feels that had I handled things differently, that couldv'e been me.

I've only been bankrupt for just over a week but I'm really wishing I did it a couple of years ago. I still have to have my OR interview, and I don't yet know whether I will get a BRO/BRU (very unlikely I think) or even an IPA (unlikely on my current salary). But I just feel like the world's opened back up in front of me. I'm lucky in some ways in that my bankruptcy doesn't affect anyone else in my life (OK well my creditors but they'll have to live with it!) - I don't have any burning desire to own a house and anyway my credit rating was probably so bad that I wouldn't have been able to get one for years anyway. In the last couple of weeks, since telling my family and employer about the impending bankruptcy, and since doing the actual deed, I've set things in motion that I've muttered about doing for years and haven't got round to. All the things I was worried about before I went BR - the reactions of my dad, my landlord, my employer etc - I needn't have worried about, since everyone's been actually really supportive (or at least sympathetic).

Obviously I don't know much about your personal circumstances, how much your OH knows, how much you earn and how long you realistically think it will take to pay your debts back. My LBM came when I spoke to a debt counsellor (ironically paid for via work!) who said that I could be looking at being 45 by the time I managed to pay my debts if I went on a DMP; I thought about how my debts had been hanging over me for years already, and how depressed I'd been, and all the things I hadn't done because of it, and I just couldn't do that to myself. You say you're worried going BR would wreck your relationship - if it's a good relationship then it should be able to weather something like this. What it might not be able to weather is both you and your OH becoming increasingly frustrated with yourselves and each other because you can't do the things you want to do such as have children.

Ultimately only you can decide whether bankruptcy is for you (though hopefully you'll take the good advice of the CAB, CCCS etc) but the one thing I've picked up on in this forum that's helped me above all others is the sense that you're not alone and that bankruptcy really isn't as awful as we seem to imagine it's going to be.

wrongjobnomoney

Cinibar

Thanks for your kindness and understanding. It sounds like you have made a real positive step - there are many things you've said like trying to pretend everything is normal etc that I can so relate to. I have tel appt with CCCS tomorrow so we'll see how that goes.

wherediditallgo

What a great series of posts, cinnabar.