5 months in - a couple of questions

katyp

Myself and my husband declared bankruptcy in September, so we are now both 5 months into the process.
All seems to be going smoothly, we are just waiting to find out what's happening with the house before we can settle completely.
However, I have a couple of questions about topics that regularly seem to be mentioned on here, but have not been mentioned by our IP.

Tax: We are both on NT rates until April. The IP told us this would happen but has not mentioned us paying the tax over to her. Is it normal to be allowed to keep this or do we have a nasty surprise coming?

Council Tax: We pay by DD over 12 months and are up to date with our payments. It is often mentioned on here that bankrupts do not have to pay council tax in the year of their bankruptcy. This has never been mentioned by the IP. I have written to the council but have not had a response.

Utilities: When we declared, we were carrying a debt balance of about £800. We are paying £200 per month currently, to pay for the fuel we use as well as catch up with the debt. Should the debt at the time have been written off? If I contact the utility provider will this affect our account? I do not want a prepayment meter!

Clouds88

Stop paying the council tax and ring the utilities they will issue a new account number and write off the previous debt.

The council tax situation is a bit of a bummer for you as it’s only a month or so you don’t have to pay but you’ll have to restart in April 1st.

Helpmeoutofthismess

You are meant to be keeping the NT money to one side until the agent gets in touch to ask you to pay it over to them.

H x

TheGardener

katyp wrote: »

Tax: We are both on NT rates until April. The IP told us this would happen but has not mentioned us paying the tax over to her. Is it normal to be allowed to keep this or do we have a nasty surprise coming?

You should have kept the tax to one side as the OR's collection agents (usually Carke Willmott) will ask for it - it may be that your income was so low that the OR decided you needed to keep the tax but that that is unusual. The usual advice is put it in a savings account and keep it until you are asked for it or told you can keep it.

katyp wrote: »

Council Tax: We pay by DD over 12 months and are up to date with our payments. It is often mentioned on here that bankrupts do not have to pay council tax in the year of their bankruptcy. This has never been mentioned by the IP. I have written to the council but have not had a response.

Stop paying the CT unless advised by the OR to continue. Call the Council and provide a copy of the BR order. Again put the money to one side along with the NT money.

katyp wrote: »

Utilities: When we declared, we were carrying a debt balance of about £800. We are paying £200 per month currently, to pay for the fuel we use as well as catch up with the debt. Should the debt at the time have been written off? If I contact the utility provider will this affect our account? I do not want a prepayment meter!

No! you should not be paying the debt at all! You need to talk to the utilities companies quickly and provide them with a copy of the BR certificate - they should refund you any of the money that went towards the debt and you should only be paying for the energy you are using. You absolutely don't have to have a pre-payment meter, Your supplier should simply provide you will a new account number with a zero balance and set up a new DD for current use.
I do wonder what your OR is up to as it seems they have not carried out any of the usual processes.

JCS1

I think the OP has an IP in place of an OR (sentence full of abbreviations there!)

TheGardener

JCS1 wrote: »

I think the OP has an IP in place of an OR (sentence full of abbreviations there!)

Ahh. Even then - they don't seem to be doing much of the legwork they charge exorbitant fees for...

JTV93

Hi, I can't comment on most of your questions, but I get paid weekly and since I had my NT tax code, Ive transfered an estimate of my tax (gross forecast of what youre expected to pay, found on the HMRC website, work out how much you have already paid by looking at your last payslip before NT was applied, then divided the raining figure by however many weeks I have left till the end of the financial year)
Long story short I haven't heard anything about this tax money I put aside for a while so I emailed the assets person yesterday saying I hadn't had contact to pay the tax money. He got back to me this morning saying the company will be in contact to collect, but it can take take, and will definitly happen... So I suggest you put aside some cash and expect a call for collection of the funds. Hope this helps