£80k Unsecured debt and stressed

Jake869

Hi. I am suffering from huge stress and am only managing 2/3 hours of sleep and just cant cope with the  repayments - been over 3 months and havent paid 2 out of 5 of my creditors. I owe circa £80k at the moment in unsecured loans/ credit cards/ bounce back loan (sole trader) etc. My business went bellys up during covid. Had a gambling problem also which is now under control thanks to God. Owned a buy to let which i sold recently and paid back some family members that I owed money to previously as well as some other people that I HAD to pay if you know what I mean..

I live with my partner and daughter and contribute towards her mortgage/ bills and give money towards my daughter. The house/ mortgage is under her name. Can my partners house be taken if i go bankrupt.

Also is IVA a viable option. Based on anyone's experiences how much realistically can be written off?

Please advise as to what i should do as i am extremely stressed.

Sorry for the long winded email...

sourcrates

You may be deemed to have a beneficial interest in your partners house, but it would depend on how much equity there was in it, as well as other circumstances, but as a rule of thumb, any property is at risk in bankruptcy.

An IVA again, it depends on your circumstances as to how much debt can be written off, if you have a good deal of disposable income, its likely not much, wear as if you have very little disposable income, but enough to make a minimum payment in an IVA, that creditors would accept, then you may get a good proportion of it wiped.

Everything depends on your income/expenditure, and what you can afford to pay towards your debts.

SusieT

One thing I can see that may present a problem with bankruptcy, would be that you have paid some creditors in full that were family and others. The receiver could ask them to pay that back, but I hope there will be people who know more than me that could confirm that

flipflopflo

As @sourcrates and @SusieT say there’s the beneficial interest and the repayments that could be tricky. 

Pop your SOA on here. Fill out the form, format to MSE and copy and paste to here. That will give some of the experts a bit more of an idea. 

https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/financecalculators/soa.php

MalMonroe

Jake869 said:

Hi. I am suffering from huge stress and am only managing 2/3 hours of sleep and just cant cope with the  repayments - been over 3 months and havent paid 2 out of 5 of my creditors. I owe circa £80k at the moment in unsecured loans/ credit cards/ bounce back loan (sole trader) etc. My business went bellys up during covid. Had a gambling problem also which is now under control thanks to God. Owned a buy to let which i sold recently and paid back some family members that I owed money to previously as well as some other people that I HAD to pay if you know what I mean..

I live with my partner and daughter and contribute towards her mortgage/ bills and give money towards my daughter. The house/ mortgage is under her name. Can my partners house be taken if i go bankrupt.

Also is IVA a viable option. Based on anyone's experiences how much realistically can be written off?

Please advise as to what i should do as i am extremely stressed.

Sorry for the long winded email...

Hi, have you actually spoken to anyone who could give you some advice?

The three main free debt help agencies are -

StepChange https://www.stepchange.org/ 

National Debtline https://nationaldebtline.org/

Citizens Advice  https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/

(all mentioned recently on one of Martin Lewis' TV shows). 

A few years ago when my finances were in a big mess, I contacted StepChange and they helped me so much.

It seems that you have business and personal debts all mixed in together. Someone at one of the agencies can talk things through with you and suggest a way forward. 

All you need is a list of your incomings and outgoings (Statement of Account or SOA, as flipflopflo has suggested you put on here). My suggestion would be to write one out and then call one of the agencies because posting on here and waiting for answers is just time-consuming when you could actually be speaking to someone (I do recommend phoning rather than doing things online) who can help you much sooner. They are better experts than we on this forum.

I can tell you that the day I spoke to someone at StepChange was the day my life started to change for the better, and I could sleep at night. You say you're not sleeping. Just being able to off-load my problems to someone who knew what to suggest was a great relief. 

They can tell you all the pros and cons and give their specialised advice. If you don't want to accept any suggestion they make then you don't have to, there is no obligation.

I just know that my life now is 100 percent better than it was when I made that first phone call to StepChange. You've made the first move by coming on here.  If you haven't already, can you try speaking to your partner? Feeling alone and in trouble just makes things feel worse. If you can share, it does help. 

I do hope that you can get things sorted out. It takes time but there is hope.

All the best to you. 

This might be of interest (and weirdly Rob in the programme had debts of £80k - he made it out of debt) - it's from Martin's show, as I mention above -

https://metro.co.uk/2023/01/17/martin-lewis-thanked-for-changing-gambling-addicts-life-over-80k-debt-18119221/

If you don't trust the link, you could google "Martin Lewis with Rob and debt" - it is a very inspiring story.

fatbelly

The two potential problems have been mentioned.

In the 'technical manual' it says that interest follows title. That means that if the house is owned by your partner it shouldn't be an issue. But advisers have to cover themselves on that one.

On the preferential payments, you could face a Restrictions Order and the OR could ask those who you paid to repay the money.

fatbelly

I'm not a fan of IVAs mostly because they are hugely over-sold by companies whom just want a cut of the huge fees built in to them.

However, they do have a place and that place is where someone has large debts, significant surplus income and can't go bankrupt for some reason.

As long as you research them so that you understand how they work, and choose a reputable IP, then that could be an option for you.