Jekyll and Hyde

LilyBart

Oooof!

Hello everyone. Rang local court to see if appointment had to be booked. It doesn't, it's first come, first served, just turn up when you feel ready. Nice, cheery woman. Asked her whether the legal notices were published in the local rag or The Standard (de facto national). She thought local but said why didn't I call the OR? Can I really do that?, I asked. Oh yes, she said, and gave me the number.

Called local OR office and got a young-sounding man with an attitude. I mean a real, got the face on, baaaaaaaad attitude. Refused to help. Point blank. Said I'd have to call the national queries number. Unmoved when I pointed out that this was one, very small, very local question, not a long conversation. He said something to the effect that he only had to deal with people when they were insolvent, not before - and you should have heard the sneer on "people". Slammed phone down on me!

Called national number. Lovely, lovely bloke. Former case-worker, appalled at local OR's office attitude, spent ages finding a list of local publications each office uses for their legal notices, unfortunately couldn't clarify why some legal notices are in the paper no-one reads and others are in the one everyone (I work with) reads. Explained a lot about the process from his experience. Said to call back anytime.

So... Is this what it's like? An absolute lottery as to whether you end up with Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde? I feel very nervous now, especially as the nice one is several hundred miles away and the horrid one is local!
Lily

Waspeze

Hi LilyBart,
I think you may find this to be the case even within local offices,

I had my interview with one person, he was very friendly... at the end he asked me to fax something over FAO someone else... which I did, phoned up just to make sure that the other person had received it and she was really rude and short with me, I said I was only checking she'd got it but she said not to waste her time!

I expect a lot of it is to do with how their day has been as, after all, they are only human

Cinderbrook

Hi Lily, I am sorry you came up against such attitude, as I'm sure you know that attitude usually means a little person riddled with problems themselves. I rang the OR's office to find out about whether my name would go in the local paper (South East not London). The young guy was so so nice but said that it is really down to the judge on the day, not the OR's decision - boo! I have just written my cause of BR for the statement of affairs and am going to attach an appeal to the judge citing the reasons why I am asking for my name not to be included (why not!). My own local rag is read by virtually everyone I went to school with 20 years ago although I am only in this area temporarily, living with parents. In my 20 odd years of reading the ES I have never noticed a BR notice and if I did I wouldn't have had the interest to read it. I can't even think of many local papers apart from the Ham & High series etc. I envy you if this is where they put it, I think there will be a good few people who might just glance at it wondering how long they can put it off themselves - don't worry too much.
C

fermi

LilyBart wrote: »

Called local OR office and got a young-sounding man with an attitude. I mean a real, got the face on, baaaaaaaad attitude. Refused to help. Point blank. Said I'd have to call the national queries number. Unmoved when I pointed out that this was one, very small, very local question, not a long conversation. He said something to the effect that he only had to deal with people when they were insolvent, not before - and you should have heard the sneer on "people". Slammed phone down on me!

Arrogant little ####!:mad:

But you definitely got a rare exception to the general rule there.

Not sure how accurate/recent this is, but it may be useful if you are wondering what paper your notice might go in.

Link: Advertisement - Newspaper list and areas covered.

LilyBart

Thanks everyone. Best to prepared for the worst, I suppose. Under other circumstances, I'd lodge a formal complaint, but best not, eh? Yes, Fermi, that's the same list, though, as I've seen from the ES, you do get notices from all corners of Greater London and all courts going in there too. It's a mystery. Perhaps I'll phone again and see if someone nicer comes on next time.

Cinderbrook, from what I heard today, it's the judge who decides *whether* a notice goes in, and the OR who decides *where* and *when* and is responsible for placing the advertisement. Please let me know how your note to the judge goes down. I'm planning on something similar, a two-pronged protecting my son/protecting my livelihood sort of thing. Couldn't give a monkey's how it would play back where I grew up, but definitely would if I were still there!
Lily

dalip

Lily wait until you get your interview. If it's the same bloke look out,if not mention it to whoever is doing your interview in the hope it may get back to someone who can pull him up;)

LilyBart

Hmm... Maybe, Dalip. Must go put on my professional-focused-efficient-charming face for work now. It's getting less convincing by the day, no matter how much slap I use!

Hobo17

Can I assume from that list that if my debts were incurred in London, they'll go into the evening standard rather than a more specific local paper?

peachyprice

Is that the entire list? My local papers aren't on there, and is it the area you actually live, the area of the court, or the area of the OR?

fermi

The notices for my area seem to go in the regional/county newspapers rather than the really local ones.

This seems to sum it up:

As well as the requirement to issue gazette notices, the legislation also places on the official receiver the obligation to advertise certain information. For this purpose, any publication registered as a newspaper with the Post Office can be used and this includes free papers. The official receiver’s objective in advertising should be to reach as many of the insolvent’s potential creditors (or contributories) as possible and the advertisement should be placed in a publication with the largest, or close to the largest, circulation in the relevant area. In some circumstances, this can be a national newsspaper, for instance, where the bankrupt traded across the country and has a large number of creditors spread over the UK. But generally speaking, it will suffice to use an appropriate local publication.

From what I remember the actual placement of the notices are handled by agents (I think).

JCS1

It is the judge who makes the decision as to whether the bankruptcy is to be advertised or not, and he can agree no to local publication/london gazette; no local advertising but is included in gazette; or no advertising at all (though name and address still appears on IS website).

You can also ask not to have your address published, it tends to be domestic abuse victims who get this granted for obvious reasons , again down to judge to decides (and like the advertising, the judge's decision needs to be on the bankruptcy order). In these cases name only would appear on IS website.

And "local paper" is not always what you would consider to be your local one. Depending on how many local courts/geographic area your OR covers, they tend to use just 1 or 2 local papers, rather than 3 or 4.