SOA Advice 18 December 2020 at 12:31PM in Bankruptcy & living with it 5 replies 553 views

Zaxb

Hi,
I am in a situation which seems both very simple yet at the same time complicated. Having developed a disordered gambling addiction I ended up committing a crime and spent several years in prison. I overcame my addiction (3 years plus now) and I am now out on licence and trying to get my/our future sorted out. As a result of POCA confiscation I signed all assets over to the Crown.  Prior to conviction I had tried to settle all outstanding creditor bills through sale of home to leave everything in a simple position prior to conviction but was prevented in doing so due to a restraining order. Situation is that now I am living with my partner in her house. We are not married. She has a mortgage solely in her name. I have no income but due to partner working I do not qualify for benefits under UC. I have no bank accounts. Everything in the house is her property and she pays all household expenses. Creditors have now resurfaced and it is time to put things in order. As I said I have no income, difficulty getting a job due to (unfair) current licence restrictions and conviction so no prospect of payment plan. Restrictions end in August so am not anticipating employment until after then (although still applying). Am looking at sequestration (as living in Scotland). My only asset is a car which I had expected Crown to seize but which they didn’t. Parker value would be 2750 but it has been SORNed and sitting outside for three years and probably needs 1500 to make it legally roadworthy. AiB uses Common Financial Tool. I have 27k personal debt all in my own name (so MAP n/a) and have not been making payments for three years, all debts defaulted. No dependants. POCA confiscation settled and victim fully compensated but still potentially liable for After Acquired confiscation in scenario such as inheritance.

My my questions are:

1) Would I need to do joint household SOA even though I have no income and so do not contribute to household.

2) Partner is reluctant to give bank statements and other financial documents to AiB, if I did full household SOA would this be a problem.

3) I filled out SOA on SC website on half expense basis with no partner income (therefore no income) resulting in negative balance and SC recommendation was that BR was not advised???

4) What to do about car. I was keeping it in case I got a job (live rural, poor transport links) but was not going to make it roadworthy (and incur ongoing costs) until such a time. No access to car makes employment even more unlikely.

As I said, simple yet complicated. Any thoughts would be welcomed.

Mark

sourcrates

Hi,

It could be very simple, has there been any period of 5 years where these debts have not been paid ?

The Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 could be your freind here, the limitation period in scotland is 5 years, and any outstanding unpaid debt is written off after this time.

Are your debts near or over the prescriptions time limit ?

Zaxb

Hi and thanks for replying.

I had been making token payments for several months prior to stopping altogether (possible tactical error) so technically all will be around 3 years unpaid. In theory still 2 years to prescription. I am now back on electoral register which is probably how one creditor found me and therefore expect others to follow. Was served with initial writ this week for seeking a decree. While I have no assets or income so don’t expect creditor to do me a favour and force BR upon me I do not want to expose my long suffering partner to further distress such as having to prove ownership of everything should it come to issuing of an attachment order (not that the law up here is very clear on how to distinguish ownership of household property or even whether that is a relevant factor). As such I would rather make myself BR and draw a line under everything than hold out for 5 years. Especially now that initiation of court action would now exclude this particular debt from prescription (8k so over threshold for seeking ordinary action). I should have applied while in prison but not easy to do and I was also waiting for outcome from regulatory action happening elsewhere to see if personal financial situation would improve. It didn’t.

sourcrates

Understood, the bankrupcy laws are different in Scotland, to the rest of the UK, and most of our regular contributers to these boards are English, so really can only access the same info as you via Google.

Your best bet is to contact National Debtline (Scotland) make sure you get the right site, as there are a  lot of shill companies out there with very similar names.

They are the best sourse for free advice, as they have nothing to sell you, and actually know what they are talking about, so I would give them a try.

flipflopflo

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/

KazzaR

hi
When I did my debt relief order I was worried this would affect my partner as I live with him but it’s solely his name on the mortgage and he pays all the bills. My only income was child benefit but that went on the children’s expenses so in theory I had nothing to offer creditors and I was in £16k debt I didn’t know what to do as I knew if my partner found out he would be so angry as the last thing I wanted was debt collectors turning up. I turned to PayPlan and they helped me and my DRO has NOT affected my partner as we are not financially connected therefore nothing was taken into consideration was all based solely on me. 

If you have no income whatsoever and are not financially connected to your partner surely she won’t be affected. Obviously I don’t know as much as others on here just saying what happened in my situation.
good luck with it all

kaz