hi firstly thanks for any information you can give me in advance ,ok quick potted history marriage collapsed 06/2009 and wife left property and outstanding loans bills etc etc at my feet(to the tune of roughly £30,000,and then there was the house ,which is another story ,but enough to say that i no longer reside there ) and well it wasnt pretty but contacted cccs and spoke at length and was decided that an iva was the logical way forward ,and at the time my (now ex)wife and i had an agreement about child support ,but after a particularly nasty divorce and custody battle i was approached by the c.s.a. and that wiped out my ability to pay my iva and obviously left me open to my creditors after just over a year on a successful iva,anyway fast forward to now ,i have had to leave my rented property and move in with a friend ,and have been struggling to pay my keep,storage for general household items(of no large value ,furniture etc )and money for when i have my daughter which is every weekend ,however things being what they are and no payraises for the last 3 years etc i have been and are struggling to raise the cost of going bankrupt ,is there a specific timeframe in which i have to go bankrupt and when i eventually get my b/r fund sorted ,the information i supply to the b/r court does it all have to be current ,as to ammounts etc ,as i only have the info that i originally had as 0f 06/2012 as i dont want to contact my creditors as they only way they will reply is by post and do not want to involve my friends property in my problems ,as i said at the start any enlightenment you could give me would be hugely appreciated ,

cheers :-)

Hi and thanks for your comment.

The Official Receiver would only be interested in the property if it had any equity. At the moment you’d more than likely to be able to stay in the property although the OR would keep an interest in the house for 2 years and 3 months to see if any equity became available.

You would become liable for the joint debts and it would be wise to put together an accurate income and expenditure budget to make sure you could cover these along with your other bills.

Has your partner taken any advice on his bankruptcy? We’d be happy to speak to both you to support you through this. We could also look at your situation on your own and see what the best advice is.

We have a blogpost around this subject that might be useful.
http://moneyaware.co.uk/2011/09/we-got-a-joint-loan-now-weve-split-who-has-to-pay/

Please get in touch if you need more help.

Kind regards,

Mat

Hi and thanks for your post.

It sounds like you would benefit from some free and impartial advice.

Bankruptcy could be one option, although there could be other alternatives depending on your overall situation.

I’d recommend you gather details of your income and expenditure and give us a call to discuss the situation.

Our free Helpline is on 0800 138 1111. We’re open Monday to Friday 8am - 8pm and Saturday 9am until 3.00pm.

If you phone us it may be possible to refer you directly to an advisor for immediate advice. Alternatively, we will arrange for an appointment to be booked at a time convenient for you.

You’ve taken the first step to sorting out your money worries and we can support you with free and impartial advice along the way.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Mat

Hi and thanks for your post.

It sounds like you would benefit from some free and impartial advice.

It would depend on your exact age and the age at which you could realise the pensions.

It would be worth checking the small print of the policies to see when you could realise the asset, if this could be done at 55 it may be an issue depending on your exact age. If you can’t draw either pension until 65+ it shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

It might be worth speaking to the pension providers to get the details and I’d also recommend you give us a call and ask for some specific bankruptcy advice. We can talk you through the whole process free of charge (the judge will want to make sure you’ve taken full advice).

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Mat

Hi and thanks for your post.

When filling in the bankruptcy forms it’s fine to work to estimates or even put ‘not sure’ when it comes to creditor balances. You could also work off the creditor balances in your IVA proposal if you still have it

I’d recommend in this case that you call our free helpline. We can access your credit report that should provide some up to date information to work from.

We have a dedicated bankruptcy team that can talk you through the whole process, this can include looking into trust funds to see if we can help reduce the bankruptcy fee.

Please gather as much detail as you can and call our free Helpline on 0800 138 1111. We’re open Monday to Friday 8am - 8pm and Saturday 9am until 3.00pm.

If you phone us it may be possible to refer you directly to an advisor for immediate advice. Alternatively, we will arrange for an appointment to be booked at a time convenient for you.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Mat

Hi
My wife built up debts of £10,000 on store cards/credit cards ect over the last 10 years.yesterday she went to a bankruptcy hearing where she was told to pay the debt within 4 weeks or sell our house even though her name isnt on the mortgage.can they do this

Hi,

Just wondered if you could clear something up for me, my son in law has been in touch with stepchange about his debts and an IVA was suggested, he was passed to someone to deal with it and was charged a £35 fee over the phone.

They said this was an admin fee for somebody, but on your website it says there are no upfront charges at all, so I cant understand this. Could you please let me know if he should have paid this.

Thanks

Hi and thanks for your post.

It sounds like your wife would benefit from some free and impartial advice.

I’d recommend she gives our helpline a call; we do have a specialist bankruptcy team that generally give advice prior to petitioning. We should be able to give you some more details once we know what her situation is. You can listen into the call with her permission.

I’d recommend that she gather details of her income, expenditure and debts and call 0800 138 1111. We’re open Monday to Friday 8am - 8pm and Saturday 9am until 3.00pm.
If she phones us it may be possible to refer her directly to a counsellor for immediate advice. Alternatively, we will arrange for an appointment to be booked at a time convenient for her.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Mat

Hi and thanks for your question,

It sounds like there has been some confusion and I think it’s possible your son in law has chosen another IVA provider.

We don’t charge any upfront fees for IVAs under any circumstances. We sometime refer to a third party provider for self-employed IVAs but these partners also do not charge any upfront fees.

He can get in touch with us directly on 0800 138 1111 to clarify this if he wishes.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Mat

many thanks mat will be in touch

My friend just spoke to a StepChange counsellor about my debts.

They recommend bankruptcy for him and that his wife's property which is owned by her and mortgage solely in her name would not be affected by my going bankrupt.

I thought that as they are married that her assets would also be affected?

Can you shed any light?

Thanks

Hello,

I've got a little bit confused with who's going bankrupt but I'll answer in general terms to keep it simple.

If a husband goes bankrupt then the courts will not be interested in assets they see as purely being in the wife's name. They will obviously look into the husband's assets though, including any properties they think he's got an interest in.

The Official Receiver (the person appointed to look into this sort of stuff) will look to see if they think the husband has any "beneficial interest" in the property he lives in. Even if he isn't named on the property, if he's contributed to the buying of the house the courts will look into this.

I can only assume that the advisor who said the house was unlikely to be affected will have looked at the circumstances and been confident that the Official Receiver would not see any issues with beneficial interest.

Your friend/you could always give us a call on the number in their/your advice booklet if you'd like to be sure though.

Kind regards

James

question for you regarding my partners bankruptcy

he went bankrupt in dec 2009 and was under scrutiny from the Official Receiver for 20 odd months finally getting a letter saying that they were not taking any action (were pursuing a BRO) and he was dismissed from the bankruptcy at that time.

he has not applied for a letter of discharge from the court, I phoned the court for him to be told that the case has been passed to the OR to give approval on issuing the discharge certificate and this can take some time (6 weeks or more sometimes).

simple question really, partners situation has changed, he has a company that is trading and has a small income. Can the OR now impose an IPO or restart the bankruptcy or even start the BRO that he was trying to get in place? sorry I thought we were clear of this and all the implications 2011 which ran into mid 2012 and i really dont want the shadow of this hanging over him any more. he went bankrupt to give him a fresh start - its ramifications are still being felt over 2 years later!

Hello,

There's some more information one what happens after bankruptcy on our website: http://www.stepchange.org/Debtinformationandadvice/Debtsolutions/Bankruptcy/Afterbankruptcy.aspx.

If your partner has been discharged then he doesn't need to inform the courts of any changes to his finances and there is no reason why he should have do start an income payment arrangement / order (IPA/IPO). I would have thought his discharge date would be the date he was "dismissed" from the bankruptcy that you mentioned.

You can read more about being discharged from bankruptcy here: http://www.bis.gov.uk/insolvency/personal-insolvency/discharge.

If you wanted to be sure of all this though, it may be worth contacting the OR to be certain he's been discharged. Bankruptcies are usually automatically discharged after 12 months (or sometimes discharged earlier than that). I'd guess that the OR applied for a suspension of discharge while they were looking at a Bankruptcy Restrictions Order (BRO) which is why your partner wasn't automatically discharged.

Hope this helps.

James

thanks james

yes partner had a suspension of his discharge which was subsequently dismissed along with his bankruptcy itself - so with that in mind I take it the OR could not start an IPO or anything else to do with the bankruptcy itself now and basically once partner has his certificate of discharge he can start rebuilding his life post bankruptcy? I really look forward to that day so we can actually move on and put this behind us at last!

thank you in advance

Hi,

My husband has unsecured debts of around £50,000 including a shortfall from when a house he had in his own name was repossessed last year. He is currently a stay at home dad and I am working albeit in a low wage. He has been advised to go BR and I just want to know would it be wise for us to separate our Joint Account now take him off and make sure all our utilities are in my name. Also if we do this will my income be taken into account when all debts are in his sole name my annual income is £14,000 and we have 2 young children and Rent our home. We just want a fresh start and are sick of having to negogiate token payments every 6 months.

Hello,

The most important thing is that your partner is discharged. While I can't be sure, it sounds like this has already happened, so he can already move on from the bankruptcy.

The certificate of discharge is a document that confirms his discharge but it sounds like the discharge from bankruptcy has already taken place a while back.

Providing your partner gave accurate information to his OR during the bankruptcy then there would be no reason for them to look to set up a BRO or and IPA/IPO following discharge.

Hope this helps.

James

Hello and welcome to the forum.

If your husband goes bankrupt he will be asked to produce an income and expenditure budget for his finances. There's no requirement for your income to be included.

Even if it was, the courts expect people to pay for all their living costs before thinking about money being paid towards debts, so it sounds like there'd be very little left over.

Hope this helps.

James

I am in the process of being granted a debt relief order. The paperwork has been sent in to the receiver and I am now waiting to hear back. My landlord has written to me, offering me a deal where I pay him back £25 per week with a space to sign the letter at the bottom. It says that if he doesn't hear from me within 10 days, then he will be taking legal action.
I am moving out of the property on Saturday but want to notify him that I will not be paying him as I am not in a situation to be able to, hence why I am moving out.
I want to write him a letter but don't know what I should put in/leave out

Any help would be massively appreciated

Hi misscharlotte,

Thanks for posting.

As you'll be moving out of the property before the 10 days you've been given to reply I don't think there'll be too much to be worried about.

I think a letter explaining the situation sound like a good idea. Not that you have to do this, but I can imagine it'll be better received by your landlord than being told about the DRO by the insolvency service.

If you know you're not going to be staying in the property then there's no problem with informing your landlord of the DRO. It's up to you how much detail you want to go into really - but I can't think of anything you need to specifically avoid saying.

Hope this helps.

James