Pre 2000 bankruptcy 8 February at 11:57AM in Bankruptcy & living with it 2 replies 263 views

norfolkeagle

I was made bankrupt in 1993 and the OR is now chasing me for my pension. Legislation was changed in 2000 protecting personal pensions but was not made retrospective.

I do find it perplexing that the Official Receiver can ignore 20 years of legislation that protects personal pensions in the case of bankruptcy and can insist on using legislation from 1985.

I can understand that there maybe circumstances where it is right to use the old legislation, in circumstances where there had been excessive contributions or where creditors have accepted a settlement based on the knowledge that there would be further funds from a pension in the future but this is not the case for me.

I would have thought that the rule should be for the Official Receiver to work under current legislation unless there is good reason not to do so and the onus should be on the Official Receiver to show why current legislation can be ignored.

There needs to be a change in the guidance to reflect current legislation and protect private pensions in historic cases.

kaMelo

norfolkeagle said:

I was made bankrupt in 1993 and the OR is now chasing me for my pension. Legislation was changed in 2000 protecting personal pensions but was not made retrospective.

I do find it perplexing that the Official Receiver can ignore 20 years of legislation that protects personal pensions in the case of bankruptcy and can insist on using legislation from 1985.

I can understand that there maybe circumstances where it is right to use the old legislation, in circumstances where there had been excessive contributions or where creditors have accepted a settlement based on the knowledge that there would be further funds from a pension in the future but this is not the case for me.

I would have thought that the rule should be for the Official Receiver to work under current legislation unless there is good reason not to do so and the onus should be on the Official Receiver to show why current legislation can be ignored.

There needs to be a change in the guidance to reflect current legislation and protect private pensions in historic cases.

A legislative change only ever applies going forward, it cannot be made retrospective.  We all makes choices and decisions based upon current legislation, if legislation changes then, if required, people can make different choices and decisions according to the new legislation when it's introduced.

Imagine a speed limit reduction from 30 mph to 20 mph is introduced on a road.
The day the change happens it does not mean you can now issue speeding fines to those doing 30 mph the day before the change happend as, at that time, they were doing nothing wrong.

sourcrates

The advice from Debt Camel on this, is basically just talk to your trustee, see if you can negotiate some kind of agreement that you can both live with, beyond that, advice is very sparse.