How can I help my brother save his life

rose28454

I am in a lot of debt myself, newly seperated but dealing with CCCS and hopeful I can get back on track. However until Nov 2007 I worked for my brother in his civil engineering business and now I fear he is going down financially and physically. In a nutshell he had a business for 12 years with a partner and split 2 years ago and went on his own. He did very well at first but has hit major financial problems in the last 6 months. He also has a partnership with another person and bought a farmhouse and buildings to let out. He bought the house out of the sale and they have refurbished the buildings and have started taking tenants. But he overstretched himself buying into that and he has had to spend out a lot with little or no income coming from it.
Now his main business has had a lean few months and he has borrowed money from both my sisters, my elderly father and friends. He also owed me over £1000 for pay and I have only just managed to get £600 of it last week. He was going to remortgage to pay everyone off but he did it when business was lean and Barclays took 6 months of messing him about before turning him down.
The other problem is he is vastly overweight, has sleep apnoea and smokes 50 plus cigarettes a day!! My sisters and I paid for a private consultants appt 3 months ago and he was finally diagnosed with severe but he is still waiting for a hospital appt for more tests. But we went ahead and bought a sleepap machine (which helps him to breathe at night) for £450.00 because we were so worried. At first he used it every night and it really helped.
Thismorning I spoke to my sister in law who is beside herself with worry. She tells me he has started to sleep in the office all night ( minus the machine!!) and is smoking heavily and his weight is growing all the time. They have a 3 year old daughter and she is beside herself with worry as she knows he could die at any time and leave her with loads of debt and no home.
Now the reason for posting is that I know he has a lot of Credit Card debts and is paying them the minimum each month as he does not want to compromise his credit rating. He justifies this to his wife by saying they will get a load of charges instead. However he is then not able to pay his business bills or even something like house insurance( they have none!!)
Does anybody else think he should approach his credit card companies and ioffer a payment he can afford till things improve or is the CCCS ( FOR ADVICE) the way to go. Sorry for the long post

*MF*

Hi ... first thing - please don't apologise for the length of your post!!!! I am new here, but already know the members on here will help in every way they can.

My first reaction - is how best to separate the business side of things from the personal (I know they form the whole picture and are inter-mingled)- but in a practical way - eg., does your brother have an accountant who handles audit and tax etc? If so, is it possible to have the accountant spend some time with your brother, and assess the viability of the business - say over the next 12 months.

If the business has money owing to it - can he look at factoring those debts, not always a good idea, but it gets money into the business - again something the accountant could discuss.

*EDIT*

I assume your brother went out on his own because he had contacts, and professional abilities which allowed him to gain business. Often, that is the value of the business, the contacts and his personal experience, so another reason to bring in an accountant might be to consider your brother negotiating himself back into paid employment - and getting paid for the value in those contacts and his experience - and staying in paid employment until he gets both his health and finances back on track. Personal pride may make it hard for him to consider that, but again my reason for suggesting an independent realistic appraisal of his next 12 months prospects.

Hope this helps even in a small way - and I am sure other members can help even more..

peb

Part of the problem (and we see it here with a lot of posters partners) is whether or not your brother sees that there is a problem. It seems that your sister in law is away of at least the problems with his health though I am unsure as to whether or not she is fully up to speed with the financial situation. Once he recognises there is a problem then yes, speak to CCCS - I think now that they have a specialist section that deals with the self employed. Maybe in the meantime you can ensure that your sister in law is aware of your concerns and she can look more deeply into the problem

You have my sympathies - it is really hard watching someone you love struggling.

Bluebelle72

I have to say I am with CCCS and they are fabulous, we have recently had to add a very large debt to the plan and, subsequently, becuase our finances are stretched to the limit they have informed us that we have the option to go Bankrupt, which sounds scary but after reading up about it and getting oodles of advice from the fabulous wonderful people over on the bankruptcy board, you will see that it can also be a life saving breath of fresh air. hope that helps hun. good luck to your brother, x