Discharged Bankrupt and bank accounts .......

Mayday

My husband has just been dis-charged from his Bankriptcy order, and now wishes to have his own bank account again.

We originally thought that I would just get my current account made joint again, but after talking to my friendly adviser at Barclay's this morning, this doesn't seem to be as straight forward as we at first thought.

Barclays take the view, that even if he is discharged, the BR details will stay on his credit file for 6 years and all they'll allow is the basic CashCard a/c.
If we were to make my account joint, I would loose all my priviledges and be dragged down to CashCard services only as well

Does anybody know better?

May I point out that we took the precaution of changing all accounts & credit cards into my name before the balloon went up last year; since then he has been in full time employment with his wages paid into my c/a.

He just wants to have his own Debit Card to pay for the weekly shopping & petrol and get some self respect back.

NekoZombie

I must say I recently asked in Co-op about upgrading my account - computer said no (I was discharged 19th Feb 2008). I think the easiest way is to apply for a brand new account rather than try to upgrade, though it may be difficult to get an account in the first few years after discharge.

fermi

Immediately after BR he will have trouble getting a normal current account from anywhere, and it will normally stay that way for a longish time.

However, many of the 'basic', and therefore not credit checked (apart for identity/fraud), accounts have a debit card.

See: http://www.moneymadeclear.fsa.gov.uk/pdfs/bank_accounts.pdf (table on page 4)

The basic Co-op account that Neko was unable to upgrade to a current account still has a debit card in it's "basic" form.

philnicandamy

Have you tried the co-op cashminder account? its a basic account with online banking facilities DD's etc with an electron debit card (accepted most places) details Here
http://www.co-operativebank.co.uk/servlet/Satellite/1193206368743,CFSweb/Page/Bank-CurrentAccounts

and a big posting about it here

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=474254

its not impossible to find another bank account but it'll be difficult for a while...since your hubbies discharge have you looked at his credit files to make sure everything is ok? might be worth a read here...... http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=677875

***EDIT...I REALLY MUST GET FASTER AT THIS POSTING LARK!!***

Mayday

Thanks for the replies everyone - I'd read all the "stickies" at the top of the board, but hadn't realised that even with his discharge, he wouldn't be allowed to have a full bank account straight away.

So we've decided he'll apply for one of the basic accounts and run it in tandem with my account until such time that we can get a joint account again