Solved - Bankrupt but bequeathed share of property

Mojisola

dave3dtg said:

My parents were Tenants in Common.

His Will stated half of his half of the house goes to my Mum and the remaining half of his half is to be split equally between my two brothers and I.
My brothers maintain his will was drawn up with professional negligence and the three of us shouldn't be on it...but I'm not so sure, it was after all a way for my old man to leave us something and protect the house.
My brother contacted the firm and gave them rather a lot of grief.

Well, he shouldn't have.

Your father made the decision about leaving a percentage of the house to his children - as you say, it was a way to ensure an inheritance for you even if your mother needed residential care and had to use her share of the house to pay for it.

dave3dtg

normanna said:

dave3dtg

I hadn't seen your earlier post about how low you are feeling so my comment may have been a little strong.  Please stop catastraphising.  Your mother will NOT be thrown out of the house, the letter advises it cannot be sold without the OR's pemission so they can ensure your debts are paid.  Please listen to what others have posted here for your and your mother's sake.

Appreciate the correction. It's actually my brother's stressing her out. I'm the one telling her that she's still the boss, to forget the paperwork and spend a few hours tending to her plants in her greenhouse. They're giving her grief about a bit of mess and sugar intake.

I am listening but there is some conflict in the advice. The catastraphising comes from reading judgements in cases like this.

I think the letter is poorly written and very unprofessional if that's the case. When I first read it I thought "who's this Will fella?" Then I realised it was about my dad's Will. I simply didn't see that when it mentions "the property" it doesn't mean the property in its entirety

Minkym00

fatbelly said:

Where the official receiver encounters a protective trust, and the property is of sufficient value to justify it, he/she should seek legal advice to establish the validity of the trust and explore any means of challenging it.

Worth noting that it would be unusual for the OR will fund any action to challenge a trust as they will not risk a loss to the bankruptcy estate. Any legal action to challenge it would only happen if the OP’s creditors funded it. Given the fact that, once legal fees and OR fees are taken care of there will not be much left in any case, i would suggest that this is unlikely to happen.

dave3dtg

Minkym00 said:

You are not reading the letter correctly. In this context the “property” is your inheritance, not the actual house. The letter would say the same whether your inheritance related to a house or not.

You can argue all day long that you don’t have a vested interest but if your father willed you a share then you do have a vested interest, simple as that.

“...by rights I should not be bankrupt from that moment”. How do you figure that? You went bust with £65k of debt and you came into a beneficial interest of £54k didn’t you? Still insolvent then. If, by the time the house is sold there is enough to pay your bankruptcy debts and the OR’s fees, then you can obtain an annulment of your bankruptcy. 

I can’t make head nor tail of your next point and seems to be rambling into fantasy. But if you’ve got an idea that could make that sort of money then pursue it. Find the investment. 

You have been told numerous times that the OR is not going to throw an 83 year old lady from her home, a judge would not allow it. The OR is not being cruel. With respect, you need to get a bit of a grip frankly.

At the risk of starting a thread within a thread....
We're in the UK where the words ideas and investment do not go together. 
No fantasy at all...it's basic economics, be the first to make something the world (or most of it at least) will buy, protect it, produce it and sell it.
No fantasy at all...I wrote my own patent application which was described by the examiner as one of the best she had ever seen. It took longer than normal to grant my patent because the whole office couldn't understand exactly how my idea worked.
No fantasy....I've won two awards but as it's the UK you get a glass trophy and no money to push the winning idea forward. If my prototype was finish at the time I'd have been up for Invention of The Year.
The stupidity of Brits and investing in ideas knows no bounds. If an idea can't be proven to be worth £Millions then it's not worth doing...give it up and get a job is the normal response.
Research proves how stupid this country is.

swingaloo

It might be a good idea to remove the post with the letter on as it shows your full name.

Lanzarote1938

dave3dtg said:

fatbelly said:

dave3dtg said:

My brother is insisting my Mum writes another Will which excludes me and "well we'll get you added after your discharge". But he also wants her looked at mentally so if she's declared not of sound mind or body (highly unlikely) then she won't be able to add me after my discharge.

Surely your father's will is done and dusted and he has made a bequest to you. you seem to be trying all avenues to avoid paying your debts.

John_

dave3dtg said:

Lanzarote1938 said:

I would suggest that it is difficult to reconcile running up huge debts and then not wanting to pay them when you possibly will have the means to do so.

Further still.
Bankruptcy is there to absolve people of debts that for whatever reason have become unsatisfiable. It's there to give that person a fresh start after a punishment period.
Now I'm not saying I shouldn't pay any enforceable debts off. If I won the lottery, or had the means, at any time in the future until I die then I would pay the legally enforceable ones off...it would feel very nice to be able to do so.
The bigger picture here is that if my bankruptcy is paid off by my 8.33% then it will simply disappear into the government coffers. It won't be available for me to spend in the economy. Perhaps I'd start a business with it. A business that might ultimately employ 100 people and import and export creating employment within other companies. None of that will happen now.

It’s not there to let you walk away from debts, it’s to apportion your assets to your debtors, and that includes assets that you receive while still in bankruptcy.

You seem to want to have your cake and eat it here, and are using your mother’s condition to try to come out of this with money that is not rightfully yours.

Tell the OR everything, and they will sort it out.

John_

dave3dtg said:

Minkym00 said:

You are not reading the letter correctly. In this context the “property” is your inheritance, not the actual house. The letter would say the same whether your inheritance related to a house or not.

You can argue all day long that you don’t have a vested interest but if your father willed you a share then you do have a vested interest, simple as that.

“...by rights I should not be bankrupt from that moment”. How do you figure that? You went bust with £65k of debt and you came into a beneficial interest of £54k didn’t you? Still insolvent then. If, by the time the house is sold there is enough to pay your bankruptcy debts and the OR’s fees, then you can obtain an annulment of your bankruptcy. 

I can’t make head nor tail of your next point and seems to be rambling into fantasy. But if you’ve got an idea that could make that sort of money then pursue it. Find the investment. 

You have been told numerous times that the OR is not going to throw an 83 year old lady from her home, a judge would not allow it. The OR is not being cruel. With respect, you need to get a bit of a grip frankly.

At the risk of starting a thread within a thread....
We're in the UK where the words ideas and investment do not go together. 
No fantasy at all...it's basic economics, be the first to make something the world (or most of it at least) will buy, protect it, produce it and sell it.
No fantasy at all...I wrote my own patent application which was described by the examiner as one of the best she had ever seen. It took longer than normal to grant my patent because the whole office couldn't understand exactly how my idea worked.
No fantasy....I've won two awards but as it's the UK you get a glass trophy and no money to push the winning idea forward. If my prototype was finish at the time I'd have been up for Invention of The Year.
The stupidity of Brits and investing in ideas knows no bounds. If an idea can't be proven to be worth £Millions then it's not worth doing...give it up and get a job is the normal response.
Research proves how stupid this country is.

I don’t think that you are in any position to be calling other people stupid at this point, and to claim that the UK doesn’t do innovation well is just ridiculous.
We’re still one of the most inventive countries in the world, and the fact that you’ve not managed to make anything of yourself yet is down to you alone.
If you stop blaming others for your situation you can maybe start turning things around. It’ll be very hard to do while you think that nothing is your own fault.

se2020

I don't see how Dave can call anybody else stupid when he does not even seem to be able to understand the basics of what is going on with himself....

Dave, you have gone bankrupt,  the job of the OR is to get as much money back for the people you owe as possible. If some of those debts were not actually legal debts (like the £7k investment with no contract) or were statute barred then you should have been clever enough to work out they did not need to form part of the £65k bankruptcy case in the first place.

If the will is correct then you have inherited a share of a house. This share has a value of £56k or something. This asset is yours but you can not have any use of it because of the terms of the will. Presumably the trust is the solicitor who is responsible for ensuring you can not force your own mother out of the house to get your cash now. 
Because you are bankrupt with £65k outstanding this £56k asset will be taken from you by the OR. 
The OR is in exactly the same position you are in with this asset.  They own it but on the same terms as you do. They are unable to sell or force a sale of the house so they will just take ownership of the share and wait. They may even sell this share on at a reduced rate so they can have some money now and somebody else will wait until the other conditions (passing on/moving out of your mother) have been met.

If your brother wants to challenge the will he can but the OR will have the right to defend your (now theirs) position. Don't think you can go in with your brother to get yourself written out of the will, the money passed to him, then him give some back to you afterwards. The OR will know that trick and be watching for it.

Finally, if you think you can make £480 million from your invention then get as many jobs as you can, do as many hours as you can and save as much as you can until you have the capital to get it running. 
Don't expect many private investors to be interested after you have dropped £65k on other people who have lent you money and certainly don't expect me as a tax payer to fund you sweet anything.
If your invention really is worth that much it should be easy to sell the rights for it to a big name company. That should bring you in enough to settle the bankruptcy order and enough change to invest in another great idea.

dave3dtg

John_ said:

dave3dtg said:

Lanzarote1938 said:

I would suggest that it is difficult to reconcile running up huge debts and then not wanting to pay them when you possibly will have the means to do so.

Further still.
Bankruptcy is there to absolve people of debts that for whatever reason have become unsatisfiable. It's there to give that person a fresh start after a punishment period.
Now I'm not saying I shouldn't pay any enforceable debts off. If I won the lottery, or had the means, at any time in the future until I die then I would pay the legally enforceable ones off...it would feel very nice to be able to do so.
The bigger picture here is that if my bankruptcy is paid off by my 8.33% then it will simply disappear into the government coffers. It won't be available for me to spend in the economy. Perhaps I'd start a business with it. A business that might ultimately employ 100 people and import and export creating employment within other companies. None of that will happen now.

It’s not there to let you walk away from debts, it’s to apportion your assets to your debtors, and that includes assets that you receive while still in bankruptcy.

You seem to want to have your cake and eat it here, and are using your mother’s condition to try to come out of this with money that is not rightfully yours.

Tell the OR everything, and they will sort it out.

I have received no asset. I have had my name added to to the deeds of a house in trust that cannot be sold or have equity released from it without express permission of the property's trustees and a court order. I am a paper owner in name only of a third of a quarter of the house and gain no beneficial interest or ability to realise monies from that ownership. So there is no money that is rightfully mine.

Regardless, I will be bankrupt for a year like everyone else that goes bankrupt. I will serve my punishment year like everyone else. But unlike everyone else, well the vast majority, my bankruptcy will be paid off as a result of something that shouldn't have been done.